Companies We Love to Hate
My daughter came home with an assignment from school a few weeks ago. Her grade five class is studying the topic of human rights and so her assignment was to collect two or three articles on that topic. The articles could either discuss the protection and preservation of human rights or present a case involving the violation of human rights. As usual, I turned to the Internet for information. I downloaded a few articles but realized that a 9-year old was not going to be able to passionately prepare and deliver a presentation on either women’s rights or wrongful imprisonment. I had to find something more compelling; something she would relate to and understand. I continued my search.
Within a few short minutes, I stumbled across a website called Global Exchange. The headline was, "Most Wanted" Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005; Take Action for International Human Rights Day! The web site features 14 companies that are, according to this site, the worst human rights offenders in the world. Interestingly, 13 operate out of the United States of America. Tsk! Tsk! Corporate America.
Global Exchange points out that several of these companies “are being sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that allows citizens of any nationality to sue in US federal courts for violations of international rights or treaties.” Does anyone else find it ironic that the USA has taken the initiative to establish legislation that allows any citizen of planet earth to sue corporate criminals in an American courtroom? Would an American court really rule in favour of, let’s say Turkish Nationals suing Coca Cola for damages? Am I being too cynical? Maybe, but I can’t ignore the fact that most of the defendants would be citizens contributing to the salaries of court employees while many plaintiffs have never even stopped by to visit.
As you can imagine, I was hooked on the topic and had to learn more. Again, I offer my opinions here as a summary of the information I found. I was compelled to corroborate only one of the charges (involving Nestle) but otherwise did no fact-checking and offer no expertise on the subject. Once again, I simply find it to be a fascinating topic and I had to tell you about it.
The Global Exchange website offers a real who’s-who of Corporate America. The list includes big names like Caterpillar, Ford, Lockheed Martin, Phillip Morris, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Nestle, Monsanto, DynCorp, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp.), Pfizer, Suez (Paris, France) and Wal-Mart.
Some names I would have expected to see on this list. Dow Chemical for instance, is involved in chemical weaponry. It’s pretty hard to get on Santa’s “Nice” list when you build an empire marketing Agent Orange to war mongers. But let’s not feel sorry for Dow just yet…after all, they provided pesticides to Saddam Hussein despite warnings that these products could be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons. (By the way, does anyone know if Bush looked for weapons of mass destruction in Dow’s warehouses?) How is this even possible with current trade laws? I mean, really! Which actress got detained at the airport because she got caught travelling outside the US with fruit in her purse? Does she know about this?
As with Dow, it’s hard to be popular and be the largest military contractor in the world like Lockheed Martin. Let’s face it, if you profit from war you may walk away with the big cheque, but you have to know that somebody else is leaving with the congeniality prize. The difference between Dow and Lockheed Martin, however, is that Lockheed Martin operates primarily on Pentagon contracts; $21.9 billion to be exact (I’ll assume that there’s a clause there somewhere preventing them from selling to foreign enemies like Dow did). When business gets slow, Lockheed Martin has been accused of flexing its foreign policy muscles to get things moving again. What a resourceful strategy. You just don’t see that kind of passion in other markets.
I’ll bet that Phillip Morris has called this list “home” for the past few years or so. It was no surprise to see the name or the charge – aggressively marketing lethal products. I quickly scanned the list for Beretta, Colt or Smith & Wesson, and when I didn’t see them I wondered if maybe I was missing the point. Regardless, it begs the question…Isn’t it time that Phillip Morris did the world a favour and closed their doors? For those people arguing in support of the commercial benefits of the “smoking industry,” can we agree that underpaying illegal immigrants to harvest romaine lettuce instead of tobacco would offer continued employment (albeit under-employment) to an existing labour pool? That’s what you’re worried about right, putting people out of jobs? Wal-Mart can buy all the cigarette factories and turn them into sweatshops so that American children can be exploited too. I mean, why should the kids in China and Indonesia get all the jobs? Isn’t that reverse discrimination?
DynCorp is a private security contractor accused of endangering lives, environmental devastation and sex trafficking. This California-based contractor specializes in providing mercenary services to protect the international interests of statesmen and big business. A whistle-blower went to the courts in 2001 with damning testimony regarding DynCorp’s involvement in rape, sex trafficking, slave trading and in the illegal weapons trade. I’m trying to picture DynCorp’s employment application form. Hell, can you imagine their company Christmas party?
Ford Motor Company is there on the list. Poor Henry’s probably turning over in his grave. Ah Henry, you try to do a good thing for an industrialized nation and look what happens. Well, if the conspiracy theories are correct, Ford’s fuel economy has actually decreased since the Model-T which has driven fuel needs and prices through the…um…hole in the ozone layer. Call me crazy, but Ford isn’t nearly as easy to dislike as, say, DynCorp. It would be easier for me to dislike people who drive Fords; especially the young testosterone-drunk men that tailgate me in their big, V8, 4x4 trucks. I bet the employees at DynCorp all drive Ford Super Duty Trucks. By the way, I drive a Chrysler. If I find out that anyone at Global Exchange drives a Ford, I’m going to be very, very disappointed.
This is getting to be a very long entry so I’m going to finish up by announcing today’s winner and continue tomorrow in Part II – Killing Me Softly, because you won’t believe what I have to say about Nestle, Caterpillar and Coca Cola. Drum roll please. And the winner is… Chevron.
At first, my opinion of Chevron was that it would be pretty hard to be involved in petrochemicals without getting your hands a little dirty. I changed my mind though, when I realized that Sunoco and Exxon Mobil managed to keep their names off the list. In fact, it appears that Chevron is the undisputed champ of all environmental contaminators and human rights violators in the world. Yes, Chevron is the Muhammad Ali of corporate criminals except their “Rumble in the Jungle” left behind billions of gallons of toxic contaminants and few, if any, adoring fans. The phrase used by Global Exchange to capture the extent of their ecological impact was “Rainforest Chernobyl.” Yikes!
In an ingenious move, Chevron outsourced its complaints department to the Nigerian militia in 1998, when they contracted the services of soldiers to protect their pipeline and their reputation. This deadly partnership is allegedly responsible for the deaths of several protestors engaged in non-violent demonstrations. A stellar example of how things can go from bad to worse.
Way to go Chevron, you’re the champ!
See kids, everybody is good at something.
(….stay tuned for tomorrow’s dramatic conclusion.)
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