The American Federation of Teachers voted Thursday to urge its 1.8 million members to skip Target this back-to-school season, escalating a pressure campaign against the retailer over its response to federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. The resolution marks the latest attempt by organized labor and progressive activists to punish a major corporation for what they call insufficient resistance to the Trump administration's immigration agenda.
Whether shoppers actually listen is another matter entirely. The track record of these boycotts is, to put it plainly, dismal.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said the union plans to push similar resolutions at conventions held by the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and LULAC in the months ahead, as CNBC reported. The AFL-CIO convention is set for Minneapolis this summer, Target's hometown, a choice of venue that carries obvious symbolism. Weingarten framed the back-to-school shopping season as the moment when the union can inflict the most financial pain.
The union's complaint centers on a surge of federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis this winter. During those operations, federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The AFT says Target did not respond adequately.
But the facts suggest Target's leadership did respond, just not in the way union leaders demanded. Target CEO Michael Fiddelke co-signed a late-January letter, joined by dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations, calling for "immediate de-escalation" in the state after Pretti's fatal shooting. The letter, posted through the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, was signed by more than 60 CEOs.
What the letter did not do: name Pretti or Good, call out the president, criticize immigration policy, or blame federal agents. For the AFT, that restraint was unacceptable.
Weingarten called the letter "insulting," saying it "basically blamed both sides." She accused Target of being:
"more worried about standing with the Trump administration than the communities that made them a profitable company."
Target declined to comment specifically on the AFT resolution. A company spokesperson pointed to "a longstanding commitment to strengthening the communities we serve" and said Target has donated 5% of its profits since the company's founding.
While the boycott machinery cranks up, Target's new CEO is focused on a different problem: three straight years of declining annual sales. At an investor meeting in Minneapolis in early March, Fiddelke described the moment as "a new chapter for Target." He laid out a plan to refresh stores, add merchandise, and return to growth.
In an email to employees earlier this month, Fiddelke highlighted price cuts on more than 3,000 items and the opening of Target's 2,000th store. The company said it expects net sales to rise about 2% this fiscal year compared with the prior year.
Fiddelke also addressed the boycott pressure directly. He told employees that Target has had "ongoing conversations with the organizers" and said those conversations have:
"acknowledged the meaningful contributions Target has made, and will continue to make, to the Black community."
That language points to a parallel conflict. Before the immigration-enforcement dispute, Target was already facing boycott calls over its decision to scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. An Atlanta-area pastor, Jamal Harrison Bryant, led a yearlong boycott called "Target Fast." He announced its end earlier this month. But activists leading a separate boycott effort, including former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, continue to call for shoppers to stay away.
The AFT's new resolution follows a pattern that should look familiar by now. Progressive organizations and unions announce a boycott with great fanfare. Media coverage follows. And then consumers do what consumers do: shop wherever the prices and convenience suit them.
Consider last fall. The AFT joined the "We Ain't Buying It" campaign organized by Indivisible, which urged consumers to avoid Target, Home Depot, and Amazon from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. The campaign was billed as a "coordinated weekend of economic noncooperation." National Retail Federation data told a different story: a record 202.9 million consumers shopped during the five-day Thanksgiving-to-Cyber Monday window, up from 197 million the year before, as the Washington Examiner documented.
NRF CEO Matthew Shay said at the time that "this year's record turnout reflects a highly engaged consumer who is focused on value, responds to compelling promotions, and seizes upon the opportunity to make the winter holidays special and meaningful." Not exactly the picture of a nation in economic revolt.
The AFT was part of that failed effort. Now it is launching another one, this time timed to the back-to-school rush. Weingarten said the union wants to "give Target enough time to come back to its senses."
Strip away the press releases and convention resolutions, and the picture comes into sharper focus. The AFT is not simply asking Target to condemn violence. Target's CEO already signed a letter calling for de-escalation. The union is demanding that a private retailer take a public political stance against federal law enforcement operations, and against the administration's immigration policies specifically.
Weingarten said as much. She accused Target of negotiating in bad faith:
"Target was negotiating with our colleagues in the civil rights community for weeks and weeks and weeks. They could have very easily dealt with both [concerns about DEI and immigration enforcement] and they chose not to."
In other words, the AFT wanted Target to address both the DEI rollback and immigration enforcement as a package. When Target declined to adopt the full progressive agenda, the union moved to punish the company financially.
That is the real story here. Not whether a back-to-school boycott will dent Target's bottom line, the evidence from prior campaigns suggests it won't. The story is the escalating demand that private corporations serve as instruments of political resistance, and the willingness of unions and activist groups to weaponize consumer spending when companies refuse.
Target now faces boycott pressure from both directions. On one side, progressive groups and unions want the company to publicly oppose the Trump administration's immigration enforcement and restore DEI commitments. On the other, the retailer has spent three years watching sales slide and cannot afford to alienate the broad middle of its customer base.
Fiddelke appears to be choosing the turnaround over the culture war. He is cutting prices, opening stores, and talking about "earning back trust with guests we've disappointed", language aimed at shoppers, not activists. Target's earnings release, scheduled for March 3 according to the company's calendar, will offer the first hard data point on whether the strategy is working.
The AFT, meanwhile, is banking on the theory that 1.8 million union members, plus allies at the NAACP, LULAC, and the AFL-CIO, can shift enough spending to force Target's hand. It is a theory that has been tested before. Last Thanksgiving, it failed spectacularly.
Organized boycotts make for good headlines. They rarely make for empty checkout lanes. And demanding that a retailer pick a side in a federal law-enforcement debate says more about the people making the demand than it does about the company they're targeting.