I get the boycotts for Target, Walmart, and Amazon for rolling back their DEI programs and bowing to Trump. What companies are treating employees fair or standing up for human decency? Seems like Costco gets brought up?

Most things I need I can get from my local grocery store which seems pretty non evil but where do you go if you need like a new keyboard?

  • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    15 days ago

    I’m not 100% sure, but I think HEB hasn’t done anything yet to kowtow to the current admin’s policies.

    • Lumberjacked@lemm.eeOP
      0·
      15 days ago

      Yeah. That’s my local grocery store. It sounds like they treat their employees well and do a lot in the community. And tortillas.

    • MrEff@lemmy.world
      0·
      15 days ago

      I miss HEB. family owned and private. Thus why they get away with treating their employees so well, paying them well, and supporting their communities all while also being the largest private employer in the state of Texas. That company is a great example of how a company can both grow to a large size and not be evil. If they ever go public you know all of its charm will instantly get cut in the name of shareholder value.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Since employees end up suffering more from boycotts than executives or investors do, I don’t think you should boycott anything. If you really need the delusion of being an avenging angel of justice without misdirecting it at people who are no richer than you, maybe go vandalize a CEO’s car.

    • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
      0·
      14 days ago

      That’s an uneducated take. The amount of goods and services required by a population as a whole isn’t affected by boycotts. What one company loses others will replace since they have a profit motive to do so. This requires them to hire additional labour which can easily come from what labour boycotted companies lay off.

      That’s assuming a boycott has such a large impact as to require a workforce adjustment which is basically a fantasy scenario in most cases.

      Stop convincing people into more apathy than is already plaguing us.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        IMO the uneducated take would be to think passages from an Econ101 book reflected the IRL hardships of changing jobs, possibly relocating, being out of work during the transition, willingness to take a pay cut out of desperation, etc. The word “sophomore” comes from the Greek term meaning “wise idiot” - closely related to the Dunning Kruger effect. Also “apathy” doesn’t mean recognizing ineffective, self-serving virtue-signalling for what it is.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      13 days ago

      If it’s not publicly traded it can actually be worse, too. Like the other poster said, you need some kind of actual strategy to make a boycott worthwhile.

  • Piranha Phish@lemmy.world
    0·
    14 days ago

    I’m not sure if it’s still true, but I seem to recall SC Johnson having profits as the lowest of their corporate objectives with higher ones being things like improving people’s lives and bringing value to the world.

    Granted, it’s all just text, and times change, but I’d be curious to know if there’s any truth to it, especially today.

  • deathbird@mander.xyz
    0·
    14 days ago

    If there’s a place that you just can’t stomach to shop because of how they treat their employees then I highly recommend you do not shop there. I was avoiding Walmart before avoiding Walmart was cool.

    However…

    Boycotts only really work when organized, towards an end goal. What was Walmart doing before, what is it doing now, what do we want it to do, and who’s coordinating? That’s how you change corporate policy through boycott.

    If certain DEI policies are important enough to you to boycott when a company removes them then that’s fine. I guess it’s also worth asking what it is about any given program that makes it good enough for not, which companies should or shouldn’t have it, why, and all that.

  • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    15 days ago

    ACAB: All Corporations Are Bastards. Corporations are not your friends. Brands aren’t your friends.

          • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            15 days ago

            I’m not saying we should boycott every corporation. I’m saying it’s a fool’s errand because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

            • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
              0·
              14 days ago

              We’re not trying to boycott EVERY corporations. We’re voting with our wallets for the lesser evil the same way we vote at the ballots for the lesser evil.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                0·
                13 days ago

                If the extent of your participation in politics is choosing between evils, and not trying to actually achieve good, then you’re accepting evil as eternal and unchangeable. It is much more important to focus on organizing.

      • Anise (she/they)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        Yup. Everyone has to buy something. The point is to direct people to do that at places that are LES evil rather than giving in and saying “nothing matters I guess I’ll just do whatever.” Defeatism is collaboration.

    • Lumberjacked@lemm.eeOP
      0·
      15 days ago

      I used to not vote because all politicians are evil. Someone pointed out that if everyone picks the lesser of two evils then things are going to get less evil. I’ve voted every opportunity since.

      Corporations are just legal structure organizing people together to do something. The soup kitchen, local artisan, person cutting hair out of their house, they all set up an LLC to operate under. They didn’t instantly become evil.

      But if I need to buy a blender, plywood, or underwear (my shopping list this weekend), I’m going to have to buy it from a corporation. If I could buy it from a less evil corp then hopefully I make things less evil.

      • Sickos [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        In the prosecution of its purposes, the Slave Power has obtained the control of both the great political parties. Their recent nominations were made to serve its interests, to secure its supremacy, and especially to promote the extension of Slavery.

        …

        I hear the old political saw, that “we must take the least of two evils.” My friend from Ohio [Mr. Giddings] has already riddled this excuse, so that I might well leave it untouched; but I cannot forbear a brief observation. It is admitted, then, that Cass and Taylor both are evils. For myself, if two evils are presented to me, I will take neither. There are occasions of political difference, I admit, when it may become expedient to vote for a candidate who does not completely represent our sentiments. There are matters legitimately within the range of expediency and compromise. The Tariff and the Currency are of this character. If a candidate differs from me on these more or less, I may yet vote for him. But the question before the country is of another character. This will not admit of compromise. It is not within the domain of expediency. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is not merely expedient for us to defend Freedom, when assailed, but our duty so to do, unreservedly, and careless of consequences.

        -Abolitionist Charles Sumner, encouraging a third party vote in the 1848 election

        • Lumberjacked@lemm.eeOP
          0·
          14 days ago

          Thank you. This sent me on a rabbit hole of differences between LLC and Corporations. LLC being a pass through protects the owners a little bit but passes through all the tax and some of the liability (hence Limited Liability). I remember reading something about how banks got significantly more risky with investments and predatorily with their practices when they started moving from partnerships to corporate structures.

          Maybe we should get rid of corporations and force all companies into a partnership or LLC structure. Less to hide behind.

      • multifariace@lemmy.world
        0·
        14 days ago

        Voting for lesser evil just slows down the evil, it doesn’t reverse it. It’s still going in the wrong direction.

        • Analog@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          14 days ago

          If people would vote for good that’d be a choice. Consistently voting for “less evil” works towards that goal - having good candidates.

          If “more evil” candidates keep winning, what message does that send to candidates?

            • kreskin@lemmy.world
              0·
              14 days ago

              You cant run a candidate who supports a far right wing genocide from the left and expect to win. Its really that simple. It’ll probably be that simple next time as well.

              What we need is Russian and israeli influence kept out of the US government with no exceptions. Zionist influence on the dems is why Harris lost, not some ‘voters dont understand that voting for evil is just necesssary’ like you pretend. Stop telling the voters they need to be ok with war crimes. Thats cowardly BS. I’ll never be OK with murder and you shouldnt ever be either.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                0·
                13 days ago

                Russia and Israel do not control the US Empire. Both have a minor fraction of the power and wealth of the US, it is not that easy to influence US policy. The US’s relations with other countries are dominated by the US.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        One way to fight the corporations is to stop worshipping at the altar of blind consumerism, and embrace the concept of “Reuse, Repair, Recycle.”

        Stop buying stuff you dont need. Keep using what you have, sell/buy used items, repair things, and if it cant be fixed or repurposed, then recycle it.

        Repairing things is a big one. Often repairs are remarkably easy. My wife has been ready to replace numerous appliances over the years, and I figured it was worth taking a shot at fixing it, if I can save a few hundred bucks, and successfully extended the life by years.

        Very satisfying, and it forces your wife to rethink her conclusion that you are an incompetent dolt.

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
        0·
        14 days ago

        pointed out that if everyone picks the lesser of two evils then things are going to get less evil

        That’s just absolutely not how it works even if you take it at face value. Both evils can be greater than the one rn, that has absolutely no bearing on which one is “lesser” among them.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
        0·
        14 days ago

        Private equity is salivating over the idea of running his carefully built brand into the groundmaximizing value extraction from steam.

        The current meta here is that things like brand loyalty and reputation are not really worth preserving, and are only as good as whatever short-term gains you can squeeze out of them.

        • GoodLuckToFriends@lemmy.todayEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          Supposedly gaben has threatened to release code in a death switch that would make every steam user able to play their games without phoning home.

          I know that I would never buy another game if steam went down the toilet. Piracy was fun when I was a kid, and I bet it could be fun again.