I've been thinking about developing a "no shop" list with, wherever possible, realistic alternatives for precarious academic workers ~ curating a worst workplaces list instead of leaving them scattered them across posts and mailing lists. There arealso "ethical shopping" and "consumer ethics" websites, but this would focus on contingent labor employment and workplace practices. As one article about warehousing pointed out, employees are not paid well enough to shop ethically outside this system. The same is true for many adjuncts, which makes calling for a boycott unrealistic (even if we were well enough organized to do it). Instead, start with raising awareness and recommending. Training wheels for the real thing someday.
We talk about asking education consumers (parents, students) and involved agencies/ institutions (funding, accrediting, regulating, evaluating, overseeing) to make contingent faculty policies and numbers factors in making decisions. Let's consider practicing what we preach. To second Amazon's nomination to our "no shop" list, here's Paul Haeder's report from the Amazon shareholders meeting in Seattle
