ECONOMIC JUSTICE

In the 1900’s, Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest had been fighting for fishing rights through legal avenues and negotiation. When this failed to protect their treaty rights, a new wave of activists began a strategic campaign of civil disobedience. In addition to legal cases, the 1960’s saw tactics like marches and “fish-ins” in which Native residents risked arrest by knowingly fishing in places Washington State deemed “illegal” but that should have been allowed due to treaties. The protests won over public opinion and in the end, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling finally secured their right to fish on traditional lands.

In 2006, the United States-Peru Free Trade Agreement gave broad access to the Amazon rainforest for oil, mining, and logging companies, undermining collective property rights of Indigenous communities. In August 2008, a coalition issued a fourteen-point platform of demands, with communities banding together in a massive campaign of civil disobedience. Through hard-hitting tactics across the country, they were able to achieve their primary demand: the cancellation of four legislative decrees that threatened Indigenous territorial integrity.

In Nangchen, Chinese vendors were selling vegetables at exorbitant prices. After unsuccessful negotiations with vendors and the police, the Tibetan community planned a boycott and convinced Tibetan businesses in Nangchen to import vegetables at a reasonable price. From February 2011-July 2012, most of the Tibetans in the Nangchen area boycotted Chinese vegetable sellers. While a long-term system of volunteers trucking in vegetables did not prove sustainable, the effort inspired similar boycotts in other Tibetan villages and showed the power of noncooperation.

In 2010, labor unrest swept through China. At the Honda Nanhai transmission factory, the mostly migrant workforce went on strike for almost a month, forcing the temporary closing of all four Honda assembly plants in China. The strategic strike gave them the leverage to negotiate a pay raise in Nanhai and the reorganization of the factory-level union. Soon, collective action surged in China with 1.27 million labor disputes in 2011 and more than 1,000 large-scale strikes. While change did not always last, these strikes marked an important shift from defensive to offensive action.