Insider Activism: Change From Within

When people find themselves working for organizations that conflict with their moral views, they may choose to repress and compartmentalize these conflicts or instead decide to try to create positive change from within. Referred to as “insider activists,” these people have a unique opportunity to challenge their employers to defend social claims, acting as valuable allies for those activists who don’t have direct access to these organizations. This article examines whether insider activism could be an effective approach for animal advocacy.

According to the author, insider activists benefit from understanding the organization’s internal structures, helping them direct their lobbying more effectively. Through this improved access, they can target respected and influential staff, both in terms of implementing change and rallying other employees to demand change.

While these insider activists have improved access, they’re often limited in the type of activism they can do. As the author notes, external activists can use disruptive tactics, whereas internal activists may be at risk of losing their jobs or being sued if they were to engage in these actions. This is reflected in the most common types of tactics used by internal activists, including conversations with fellow employees, sharing other people’s opinions on social media, expressing views on a company-wide forum, and contacting the human resources department. Unfortunately, these less visible tactics are hard to measure and so the scale of impact they create can’t be accurately stated.

Despite the risks involved, some internal activists deploy disruptive tactics and their intimate knowledge allows them to target the most crucial parts of the organization. However, organizations may try to minimize this threat by co-opting internal activist groups, such as providing financial support under the condition that they act within the bounds of corporate acceptability.

To help amplify the impact of insider activism, external activist groups can develop relationships with insider activists or have one of the group’s members who’s willing to take risks covertly enter the organization — a process known as “salting.” While salting is widely used by labor unions (and has some legal precedent in that context), its use for animal advocacy isn’t well recorded.

Though measurement is lacking, the author explains that the frequency of success of internal activism is influenced by several factors. These include:

• The social issue
• Level of employee engagement
• Receptiveness of management
• External pressures
• The tactics used

Beyond advocating for changes in working conditions, the most successful insider activism on broader social issues relates to environmental concerns, with employees pushing for organizations to adopt more eco-friendly practices. The author also lists a few instances of employee action on other social issues that have led to organizations taking a stance on proposed government bills or military contracts, for example.

In contrast, there are very few examples of larger-scale internal activism for animals. According to the author, this can be explained by looking at the views of the general population. Research has shown that although animal protection is viewed more favorably than environmentalism, people are three to four times more willing to protest for climate change than for animal rights or welfare. Less than 3% of people in both the U.S. and U.K. are willing to volunteer for animal groups.

While these numbers seem discouraging, it doesn’t take a lot of people to create successful internal activism. As such, there’s hope that the protection of animals can be improved through this advocacy approach. However, it needs to be targeted in both scope and execution.

The author suggests that food retail companies are a promising avenue for insider animal activism, as they’re the most likely to implement change to protect animals. In these companies, the decision-makers are based in head office and make up a small proportion of the overall workforce — often less than 2%. Gaining their attention could require activism tactics that organize front-facing staff working in retail locations, such as mass walk-outs that cause store closures. However, the challenge for animal advocates is how to actually arrange these large-scale actions, which require complex coordination and rely on staff who are often paid low wages and unable to risk their job security.

Clearly, there are risks and barriers to more widespread uptake of insider activism. While the author acknowledges that more work is needed to understand this advocacy approach, particularly for animals, they conclude that working for organizations that conflict with someone’s morals can still be a “reasonable initial career path for activists to consider.”