The difference between a boycott and a strike
- Thread starter Rembrandt Brown
- Start date
When i seen this. That’s what I was thinking.
The Milwaukee Bucks Just Went on Strike. You Can, Too.
The Milwaukee Bucks need one more victory over the Orlando Magic to advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs. But as the end-of-warmup buzzer sounded on Wednesday afternoon, the court was empty. Instead of getting ready for tip-off, the Bucks were demanding to talk to the Attorney General of Wisconsin.
The Bucks refused to play to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, an hour south of Milwaukee. Officers from the Kenosha Police Department shot Blake, a twenty-nine-year-old black man, in the back. Blake is currently paralyzed and unconscious. His three young children witnessed the shooting.
In other words, the Milwaukee Bucks went on strike. They risked losing money and career advancement to demand justice.
Most of us will never be able to waltz past Gary Clark like Giannis. But almost anyone can go on strike with their coworkers. If you decide to do it, you can make a big difference in your own life and in the lives of other people.
Talk With Your Coworkers
A strike means you and your coworkers refuse to do your jobs until your boss (or sometimes the government) meets your demands. If you’re going to take effective action at work, you’ve got to know what your coworkers care about.
As a league made up overwhelmingly of young black men — including some like Bucks guard Sterling Brown, who was tased and arrested by a police officer in 2018 — it is obvious why the issue of police brutality and police murder is important to many NBA players. Over the past twenty-four hours, several NBA teams have been talking about boycotting games this week.
Talking things through is important because strikes are always risky. You can lose your job, lose out on wages, and more. You and your coworkers need to understand what the specific risks are, whether you’re all willing to tolerate them, and how to overcome them. You can only do that together.
You Can’t Just Talk. You Have to Act.
As Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet put it, “What are we willing to give up? Do we actually give a f— about what’s going on? Or is it just cool to have Black Lives Matter on the backdrop or wear a t-shirt? What does that really mean?”
Just talking about what’s wrong at work — or in the world — won’t change it. Talking is an essential start, but you have to be ready to act. You need a specific plan to win, one that takes into account the tactics your boss might use to fight back, and how to overcome them.
Withhold Your Labor and Hit the Boss Where It Hurts
The NBA is big money — not just for the league owners and advertisers, but for cities and states, too. But workers have power in every single workplace on earth. When workers refuse to do their jobs, their boss can’t make money.
This is what makes them worth the risk, as long as you’ve planned them right. Bosses get desperate fast when the money is cut off. That means a well-planned strike can win major concessions from your boss or the government.
Stay United
It wasn’t just one or two of the Bucks who sat out the game. It was the whole team. Though they’re bent on defeating each other on the court, off the court, the Raptors and the Celtics talked together to be on the same page. After all, they are all part of the same union, one with a history of fighting the boss.
According to reports, high-level NBA executives attempted to meet with the Bucks in their locker room to pressure them into playing. The Bucks stuck together and refused to come out of the locker room.
As more teams began to discuss striking on Wednesday, the league was forced to postpone all games planned for today.
Make Demands You Can Actually Win
Just like you might not be able to dunk on James Harden, you and your coworkers might not be able to get the state attorney general on the phone. The good news is you don’t need to.
The important thing is to think about demands your boss can actually meet. (Hint: it will always be more than they claim they can do, but less than you wish they could do.) Think about how much power you’re able to exercise, and make your demands correspond to how much power you and your coworkers have.
Never Cross a Picket Line
The NBA’s rules allowed the Orlando Magic to claim a win when the Bucks refused to come onto the court. The Magic refused, because they knew that their shared interests with the Bucks as players and as young black men in America outweighed the short term gain.
Had the Magic taken the win, they would have been crossing a picket line. Crossing a picket line — doing business with a company whose workers are on strike, or even taking a job to replace striking workers — hurts everyone. Don’t do it, ever.
Learn From the Pros
If you’re thinking a strike might make a difference at your workplace, talk to someone who has experience. If there’s no union at your job already, reach out to the Emergency Worker Organizing Committee, a joint project of the United Electrical Workers union and the Democratic Socialists of America. You’ll hear from an experienced labor organizer, and your conversations will be kept entirely confidential.
Because it’s going to take more than the Bucks to put a stop to racist shootings, poverty, and exploitation. It’s going to take all of us.
The Milwaukee Bucks Just Went on Strike. You Can, Too.
To protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Bucks sat out Game 5 of the NBA playoffs — and forced the entire league to shut down. The Bucks players are workers who shut down their workplace with a strike. You can go on strike, too.
jacobinmag.com
Both you and co-opt queen AOC are incorrect.
boycott - withdraw from commercial or social engagement with a country, organization, or person as a punishment or protest.
the players have withdrawn from participating in commercial (commerce) and social engagement to protest police brutality.
There is no labor strike because the issue is societal and has nothing to do with labor conditions. NBA players have a majority 51-49% split on BRI (basketball related income) with equity owners. NBA players demanded current conditions to return which were granted. *workers* don’t get that luxury.
boycott - withdraw from commercial or social engagement with a country, organization, or person as a punishment or protest.
the players have withdrawn from participating in commercial (commerce) and social engagement to protest police brutality.
There is no labor strike because the issue is societal and has nothing to do with labor conditions. NBA players have a majority 51-49% split on BRI (basketball related income) with equity owners. NBA players demanded current conditions to return which were granted. *workers* don’t get that luxury.
NBA players boycott? Why 'boycott' is not the correct term
What’s the correct term for what happened on the court for the Milwaukee Bucks? Boycotts? Postponements? Strikes? Or something else? It's a wildcat strike.
www.latimes.com
“From a pure legal standpoint, I would term these wildcat strikes,” said Joseph Longo, an adjunct professor who teaches sports law at Loyola Law School. He’s also an attorney and MLB player agent.
Despite James and other players referring to the actions as boycotts, the traditional definition of the term revolves around an organized effort to hurt an entity financially in order to drive change or attract attention. That doesn’t fit this situation. The players aren’t trying to damage their employers — or affiliated entities like sponsors or television networks — but instead want to draw attention to the Blake shooting and social injustice.
“I think it’s a euphemism for a work stoppage,” Thomas Lenz, a law lecturer at USC and attorney specializing in labor and employment law, said of players describing the postponements as boycotts. “When employees decide to withhold their services … that is technically strike activity.”
The National Basketball Players Assn. described what happened in a statement as postponements, while a tweet from the NBA framed it as a joint decision between players and the league.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers Strike for Racial Justice
The decision by the Bucks and Brewers to sit out their games is unprecedented.
By Dave Zirin
YESTERDAY 6:37 PM
This is without precedent in the history of sports: The Milwaukee Bucks, arguably the best team in the NBA, have gone on strike, refusing to leave the locker room for game five of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic. Their decision stopped the sports world on a dime, and shortly after the news, the Milwaukee Brewers announced that the team would also skip tonight’s MLB game. The Brewers and Bucks are refusing to play in solidarity with the demand for justice for Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times over the weekend by police in nearby Kenosha.
Immediately, the Bucks’ decision had a catalytic effect on the league. The remainder of the playoff games today, by decision of the players, have been canceled, including the game between LeBron James and the Lakers and the Portland Trailblazers. All NBA players are meeting this evening to discuss whether there will be a season. Call it a wildcat strike, call it an uprising, but whatever you call it, the actions of these athletes have repercussions far beyond sports. When LeBron James tweeted “FUCK THIS MAN!!!! WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT” in support of the Bucks players, he didn’t get love just from NBA fans. Future congressman Jamaal Bowman and Representative Ilhan Omar immediately endorsed his sentiment.
In addition to the police shooting of Blake, protests are calling attention to the white supremacist violence that has occurred in its aftermath. A 17-year-old Trump fanatic named Kyle Rittenhouse drove to Kenosha from Illinois last night and killed two protesters. Police let him roam the streets with an AR-15, only arresting him for first degree murder today.
Many NBA players feared that when they restarted the season in a Covid-free bubble in Orlando the games would distract attention from the nationwide protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd earlier this summer. For the players, after the shooting of Blake, it clearly became too much of a contradiction.
“At the end of the day, if we’re gonna sit here and talk about making change, then at some point we’re gonna have to put our nuts on the line and actually put something up to lose, rather than just money or visibility,” Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said Tuesday. “We’ve gotta take responsibility as well. Like, what are we willing to give up? Do we actually give a f—about what’s going on, or is it just cool to [have] ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the backdrop, or wear a T-shirt? Like, what does that really mean? Is it really doing anything?” The players were itching to do something, and now they have.
The strike stands in stark contrast to the hypocrisy and authoritarianism on display at the Republican National Convention. Trump’s party wants to push this idea that everything is fine in America, except for “anarchists” who are burning down “Democrat cities,” and a Black “invasion” of the suburbs. The pandemic is in the past and the police are heroes. These are obscene lies, but far too many of us feel helpless to say or do anything except shout into the wind, or try to burn it all down. The NBA players are showing that this is a wretchedly dysfunctional country, whose horrors make even the playing of sports too much for athletes to bear.
These are not the first athletes in history to point out the gap between how Black athletes are loved on the field and how they are treated off of it. The slogan of the 1968 Olympic Project for Human Rights was “Why should we run in Mexico City only to crawl home?” Bill Russell and the Celtics were a part of sitting out a game in Lexington, Ky., along with the St. Louis Hawks in the early 1960s in protest of the city’s treatment of black players.
There are other examples as well. But as the saying goes, in politics timing is everything. The timing of this strike by the Bucks and now the players of the NBA has the potential to turn politics inside out. They are posing the question that all great strikes pose—to political people who hate sports and sports fans who hate politics, and to white fans who love them on the court but are oblivious to Black lives when the final whistle is blown—“Which side are you on?”
It is a question that is now blaring from every corner of the media landscape. It’s a question all of us are going to need to answer.
www.thenation.com
The decision by the Bucks and Brewers to sit out their games is unprecedented.
By Dave Zirin
YESTERDAY 6:37 PM
This is without precedent in the history of sports: The Milwaukee Bucks, arguably the best team in the NBA, have gone on strike, refusing to leave the locker room for game five of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic. Their decision stopped the sports world on a dime, and shortly after the news, the Milwaukee Brewers announced that the team would also skip tonight’s MLB game. The Brewers and Bucks are refusing to play in solidarity with the demand for justice for Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times over the weekend by police in nearby Kenosha.
Immediately, the Bucks’ decision had a catalytic effect on the league. The remainder of the playoff games today, by decision of the players, have been canceled, including the game between LeBron James and the Lakers and the Portland Trailblazers. All NBA players are meeting this evening to discuss whether there will be a season. Call it a wildcat strike, call it an uprising, but whatever you call it, the actions of these athletes have repercussions far beyond sports. When LeBron James tweeted “FUCK THIS MAN!!!! WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT” in support of the Bucks players, he didn’t get love just from NBA fans. Future congressman Jamaal Bowman and Representative Ilhan Omar immediately endorsed his sentiment.
In addition to the police shooting of Blake, protests are calling attention to the white supremacist violence that has occurred in its aftermath. A 17-year-old Trump fanatic named Kyle Rittenhouse drove to Kenosha from Illinois last night and killed two protesters. Police let him roam the streets with an AR-15, only arresting him for first degree murder today.
Many NBA players feared that when they restarted the season in a Covid-free bubble in Orlando the games would distract attention from the nationwide protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd earlier this summer. For the players, after the shooting of Blake, it clearly became too much of a contradiction.
“At the end of the day, if we’re gonna sit here and talk about making change, then at some point we’re gonna have to put our nuts on the line and actually put something up to lose, rather than just money or visibility,” Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said Tuesday. “We’ve gotta take responsibility as well. Like, what are we willing to give up? Do we actually give a f—about what’s going on, or is it just cool to [have] ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the backdrop, or wear a T-shirt? Like, what does that really mean? Is it really doing anything?” The players were itching to do something, and now they have.
The strike stands in stark contrast to the hypocrisy and authoritarianism on display at the Republican National Convention. Trump’s party wants to push this idea that everything is fine in America, except for “anarchists” who are burning down “Democrat cities,” and a Black “invasion” of the suburbs. The pandemic is in the past and the police are heroes. These are obscene lies, but far too many of us feel helpless to say or do anything except shout into the wind, or try to burn it all down. The NBA players are showing that this is a wretchedly dysfunctional country, whose horrors make even the playing of sports too much for athletes to bear.
These are not the first athletes in history to point out the gap between how Black athletes are loved on the field and how they are treated off of it. The slogan of the 1968 Olympic Project for Human Rights was “Why should we run in Mexico City only to crawl home?” Bill Russell and the Celtics were a part of sitting out a game in Lexington, Ky., along with the St. Louis Hawks in the early 1960s in protest of the city’s treatment of black players.
There are other examples as well. But as the saying goes, in politics timing is everything. The timing of this strike by the Bucks and now the players of the NBA has the potential to turn politics inside out. They are posing the question that all great strikes pose—to political people who hate sports and sports fans who hate politics, and to white fans who love them on the court but are oblivious to Black lives when the final whistle is blown—“Which side are you on?”
It is a question that is now blaring from every corner of the media landscape. It’s a question all of us are going to need to answer.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers Strike for Racial Justice
The decision by the Bucks and Brewers to sit out their games is unprecedented.
www.thenation.com
NBA players boycott? Why 'boycott' is not the correct term
What’s the correct term for what happened on the court for the Milwaukee Bucks? Boycotts? Postponements? Strikes? Or something else? It's a wildcat strike.
“From a pure legal standpoint, I would term these wildcat strikes,” said Joseph Longo, an adjunct professor who teaches sports law at Loyola Law School. He’s also an attorney and MLB player agent.
Despite James and other players referring to the actions as boycotts, the traditional definition of the term revolves around an organized effort to hurt an entity financially in order to drive change or attract attention. That doesn’t fit this situation. The players aren’t trying to damage their employers — or affiliated entities like sponsors or television networks — but instead want to draw attention to the Blake shooting and social injustice.
“I think it’s a euphemism for a work stoppage,” Thomas Lenz, a law lecturer at USC and attorney specializing in labor and employment law, said of players describing the postponements as boycotts. “When employees decide to withhold their services … that is technically strike activity.”
The National Basketball Players Assn. described what happened in a statement as postponements, while a tweet from the NBA framed it as a joint decision between players and the league.
It's a start... BUT..... then what? .... what happens next? .... what changes are they demanding by withholding their labor? .... and what will the continued action be if such changes aren't made?
.... personally I would have liked to see them also doing something more direct like coming together and setting up nationwide funds to help and support victims of racial injustice properly fight their cases with good legal representation, the families of victims also need financial help... that's what also needs to be immediate addressed and would also have a big impact on helping the much needed cause.
To be fair, I think a lot of them understand that.
Most players were reacting to Milwaukee's decision and didn't have a chance to formulate a strategy appropriate for such drastic action.
It will be interesting to see what comes next. It can't just be the NBA going away.
Chris Webber also spoke to this earlier, where the video starts:
