With Israel's continued military onslaught in Gaza, the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) National Committee has intensified the calls for boycott of different brands listed as their targets.
In early August 2024, Coca-Cola attempted to impede the boycott but failed miserably and its sales have slumped in parts of the Middle East and Asia.
To counter the drastic effects of the boycott, the US megabrand's franchise in Bangladesh came up with an unimaginative yet lavish marketing strategy. They released an advertisement featuring popular television star Sharaf Ahmed Jibon, playing the character of a shopkeeper who implied that Coca-Cola is not an Israeli product.
Furthermore, he emphasised Coca-Cola’s relationship with Palestinian and Muslim communities by stating that there exists a Coca-Cola factory in Palestine. This information, however, turned out to be fabricated. In truth, the said factory was Israeli-owned standing on illegally occupied land in East Jerusalem. This misleading advertisement led to more backlash against Coca-Cola.
Apart from Coca-Cola, many US brands like McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, L’Oréal, Nestlé, KFC, H&M, and Zara have been the target of rigorous boycotts over the last few months.
Launched in 2005, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led global movement for freedom and justice. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS urges action to put pressure on Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its settlements in Palestine.
The impact of the boycotts has been felt globally. Al Jazeera English reported on 31 July this year that McDonald’s sales have fallen globally for the first time in over three years. Outrage against McDonald’s for giving free meals to Israeli soldiers sparked intensified calls for a boycott in November 2023.
The economic boycott of corporate chains in the Palestinian context is directly linked to issues of capitalist exploitation across the world. The BDS has successfully been able to resist mainstream consumerist culture to a great extent, which is evident in the following facts.
McDonald's was compelled to dismiss its baseless defamation case against BDS Malaysia in March 2024. Its management acknowledged that a growing global BDS campaign has caused a considerable loss of revenue and share value.
A significant portion of this pressure has come from the boycott in Arab countries. Due to consumer-led boycotts amidst the Gaza crisis, Coca-Cola and Pepsico face considerable hurdles in Muslim-majority nations. Local brands are increasing market share, examples being Egypt’s V7 and Pakistan’s Cola Next.
Burger King has been the target of boycotts due to its practice of giving free meals to Israeli military personnel.
Starbucks’ financial results for the second fiscal quarter were below expectations, with same-store sales declining by four percent. Starbucks was not on the official BDS list vis-à-vis Palestine but got added after it sued a labour union over its pro-Palestine social media content.
Israel is in the Wrong. Period.
The brands listed on the BDS boycott list, including Nestlé, Coke, L’Oréal, H&M, and Zara, have been connected to the economic marginalisation and exploitation of workers from the Global South.
Fashion brands like H&M, Primark, and Zara have been accused of exploiting Bangladesh workers. These international fashion brands are functioning unfairly towards Bangladesh clothing suppliers, with some allegedly paying below the cost of production and manufacturing.
For a study by Aberdeen University and the advocacy group Transform Trade, a survey was created for 1000 Bangladeshi factories making garments for global brands. This research shed light on the unfair trading practices by manufacturers during COVID-19. The study also indicated that employers did not pay Bangladeshi workers the minimum legal wage. H&M and Zara have also failed to uphold workers’ rights in Myanmar, where workers face relentless abuse in supplier factories.
A consumer group in the US has sued Starbucks. Particular claims in the case state that child labour has been utilised in separate Guatemalan farms certified by Starbucks, and that the company's largest supplier in Brazil has overseen working conditions comparable to slavery, including unlawful trafficking of migrant workers.
Concurrently, a plantation enterprise in Kenya that provides tea to Starbucks has been charged with rampant sexual abuse, including supervisors pressuring women to engage in sexual relations as a condition of employment.
Product bans and legal actions are being used by global grassroots campaigns against Coca-Cola to highlight the company’s cruelty towards workers and exploitation of labour in Colombia, India, and elsewhere.
According to a New York Times and Fuller Project investigation, Coke and Pepsi both have benefitted from a “brutal system of labour that exploits children and leads to unnecessary sterilisation of women.” This exploitation primarily pertains to female labourers in sugarcane fields in Maharashtra, India.
Due to allegations that Coca-Cola's locally owned bottlers in Colombia employed illegal paramilitary groups to harass, intimidate and murder their employees, trade unions all over the world had called for a boycott.
McDonald’s in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been accused of charging high recruitment fees and deceiving workers about the identity of their employer, confiscating their passports and other identity documents, and limiting their employees’ freedom to quit. According to an extensive BBC investigation, more than 100 UK McDonald’s employees, many of them minors, have been subjected to harassment and sexual assault by their management staff. Many fast food conglomerates, like McDonald’s, do not give their workers a liveable wage. The owner of four McDonald’s franchises in Auckland was accused of bonded labour through deceitful contracts in 2021.
Workers in Brazil's Piaui region endure difficult working conditions to gather carnauba wax, a vital component of everyday cosmetics. These workers suffer in silence, caught in a cycle of exploitation that is effectively modern-day slavery, despite the hard and risky work they do. L’Oréal, which also owns brands like Lancome and Maybelline, is one of the most well-known businesses that purchases carnauba wax from Brasil Ceras, the local distributor.
As of May 2024, the largest food production and processing company in the world, the Swiss-based Nestlé, has a net worth of more than 275 billion dollars. Its money, however, is made by routinely abusing a worldwide working force through low pay, appalling working conditions and even physical threats. It has been charged with viciously abusing child "workers" and openly using slave labour on cocoa plantations in a number of emerging West African nations.
A well-known Australian legal firm had filed a class action lawsuit against the multinational fast food chain KFC, with the goal of recouping unpaid wages for up to 100,000 workers, both current and former, following a year-long investigation by Gordon Legal into the wage exploitation suffered by multiple team members, many of whom were under 18.
A lot of the corporations that have been inflicting exploitation upon people from the Global South have also been listed under the BDS targets for boycott. Though this article primarily dealt with fast food, cosmetics and fast fashion companies, there are other brands in the areas of information technology, culture, commerce, and more, that can be pressurised to operate ethically through the BDS movement.
For the marginalised, identifying with such common factors of exploitation can aid in creating solidarities across borders. One such instance is the South Asian solidarity towards the Palestinian cause.
(Amna is an aspiring journalist and a mass communication student, based in New Delhi, India. Views are personal.)
