cookmo

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The 14 Worst Corporatations
By A Global Exchange Report
Posted on December 12, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29337/...g/story/29337/

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

Several of the companies below 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. When corporations act like criminals, we have the right and the power to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike to the accords they have signed. Around the world--in Venezuela, Argentina, India, and right here in the United States--citizens are stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to international law.

Caterpillar

For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end its corporate participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.

In a letter to Caterpillar CEO James Owens, The Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said: "allowing the delivery of your ... bulldozers to the Israeli army ... in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such action, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights..."

Peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by a Caterpillar D-9, military bulldozer in 2003. She was run over while attempting to block the destruction a family's home in Gaza. Her family filed suit against Caterpillar in March 2005 charging that Caterpillar knowingly sold machines used to violate human rights. Since Corrie's death at least three more Palestinians have been killed in their homes by Israeli bulldozer demolitions.

Chevron

The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. Llocal communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions.

Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta.

Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in Richmond, California, where one of Chevron's largest refineries is located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area. As a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors, cancer, asthma, and eye problems.

The Unocal Corporation, which recently became a subsidiary of Chevron, is an oil and gas company based in California with operations around the world. In December 2004, the company settled a lawsuit filed by 15 Burmese villagers, in which the villagers alleged Unocal's complicity in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape, summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.

Coca-Cola is also one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions.

Dow Chemical

Dow Chemical has been destroying lives and poisoning the planet for decades. The company is best known for the ravages and health disaster for millions of Vietnamese and U.S. Veterans caused by its lethal Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. Dow also developed and perfected Napalm, a brutal chemical weapon that burned many innocents to death in Vietnam and other wars. In 1988, Dow provided pesticides to Saddam Hussein despite warnings that they could be used to produce chemical weapons.

In 2001, Dow inherited the toxic legacy of the worst peacetime chemical disaster in history when it acquired Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and its outstanding liabilities in Bhopal, India. On Dec. 3, 1984, a chemical leak from a UCC pesticide plant in Bhopal gassed thousands of people to death and left more than 150,000 disabled or dying. Dow still refuses to address its liabilities in Bhopal.

Dow Chemical's impact is felt globally from its Midland, Michigan headquarters to New Plymouth, New Zealand. In Midland, Dow has been producing chlorinated chemicals and burning and burying its waste including chemicals that make up Agent Orange. In New Plymouth, 500,000 gallons of Agent Orange were produced and thousands of tons of dioxin-laced waste was dumped in agricultural fields.

DynCorp

Private security contractors have become the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the last decade--a $100-billion-a-year, nearly unregulated industry. DynCorp, one of the providers of these mercenary services, demonstrates the industry's power and potential to abuse human rights. While guarding Afghan statesmen and African oil fields, training Iraqi police forces, eradicating Colombian coca plants, and protecting business interests in hurricane-devastated New Orleans, these hired guns bolster the security of governments and organizations at the expense of many people's human rights.

DynCorp's fumigation of coca crops along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border led Ecuadorian peasants to sue DynCorp in 2001. Plaintiffs argued that DynCorp knew--or should have known--that the herbicides were highly toxic.

In 2001, a mechanic with DynCorp blew the whistle on DynCorp employees in Bosnia for rape and trading girls as young as 12 into sex slavery. According to a lawsuit filed by the mechanic, "employees and supervisors were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports." DynCorp fired the whistleblower and transferred the employees accused of sex trading out of the country, eventually firing some. None were prosecuted.

Ford Motor Company

Among automakers, Ford Motor Company is the worst. Every year since 1999, the US Environmental Protection Agency has ranked Ford cars, trucks and SUVs as having the worst overall fuel economy of any American automaker. Ford's current car and truck fleet has a lower average fuel efficiency than the original Ford Model-T.

Ford is also in last place when it comes to vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. According to a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ford has "the absolute worst heat-trapping gas emissions performance of all the Big Six automakers."

Despite the company's recent greenwashing PR campaign, its record has actually worsened. According to Ford's own sustainability report, between 2003 and 2004, the company's US fleet-wide fuel economy decreased and its CO2 emissions went up. Ford has also lobbied against lawmakers' efforts to increase fuel economy standards at the national level and is also involved in a lawsuit against California's fuel economy standards.

KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root): A Subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation

KBR is a private company that provides military support services. Notorious for its questionable bookkeeping, dishonest billing practices with US taxpayer dollars and no-bid contracts, KBR has violated human rights on the U.S. dollar.

KBR's dubious accounting in Iraq came to light in December 2003 when Pentagon auditors questioned possible overcharges for imported gasoline. In June 2005, a previously secret Pentagon audit criticized $1.4 billion in "questioned" and "unsupported" expenditures. In 2002 the company paid $2 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit that accused KBR of inflating contract prices at Fort Ord, California.

Many third-country national (TCN) laborers have been hired by KBR to "rebuild" Iraq. Generally hailing from impoverished Asian countries, they have unexpectedly become part of the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. Once abroad, the workers find themselves with few protections and uncertain legal status. TCNs often sleep in crowded trailers and wait outside in scorching heat for food rations. Many lack adequate medical care and put in hard labor seven days a week, 10 hours or more a day.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest military contractor. Providing satellites, planes, missiles and other lethal high-tech items to the Pentagon keeps the profits rolling in. Since 2000, the year Bush was elected, the company's stock value has tripled.

As the Center for Corporate Policy (www.corporatepolicy.org) notes, it is no coincidence that Lockheed VP Bruce Jackson--who helped draft the Republican foreign policy platform in 2000--is a key player at the Project for a New American Century, the intellectual incubator of the Iraq war.

Lockheed Martin is not the only defense contractor that goes behind the scenes to influence public policy, but it is one of the worst. Stephen J. Hadley, who now has Condoleeza Rice's old job as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was formerly a partner in a DC law firm representing Lockheed Martin. He is only one of the beneficiaries of the so-called revolving door between the military industries and the "civilian" national security apparatus. These war profiteers have a profound and illegitimate influence on our country's international policy decisions.

Monsanto

Monsanto is, by far, the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds in the world, dominating 70% to 100% of the market for crops such as soy, cotton, wheat and corn.

Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. Roundup is sold to small farmers as a pesticide, yet harms crops in the long run as the toxins accumulate in the soil. Plants eventually become infertile, forcing farmers to purchase genetically modified Roundup Ready Seed, a seed that resists the herbicide. This creates a cycle of dependency on Monsanto for both the weed killer and the only seed that can resist it. Both products are patented, and sold at inflated prices. Exposure to the pesticide Roundup Ultra is documented to cause cancers, skin disorders, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and damage to the gastrointestinal and nervous systems.

According to the India Committee of the Netherlands and the International Labor Rights Fund, Monsanto also employs child labor. In India, an estimated 12,375 children work in cottonseed production for farmers paid by Indian and multinational seed companies, including Monsanto.

Nestle USA

The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than 40% of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.

Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.

Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries in the 1980s. Because of this practice, Nestle is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX).

Additionally, violations of labor rights are reported from Nestle factories in numerous countries. In Colombia, Nestle replaced the entire factory staff with lower-wage workers and did not renew the collective employment contract.


Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International (a.k.a. The Altria Group Inc.)

Among tobacco companies, Philip Morris is notorious. Now called Altria, it is the world's largest and most profitable cigarette corporation and maker of Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament, Basic and many other brands of cigarettes.

Documents uncovered in a lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry by the state of Minnesota showed that Philip Morris and other leading tobacco corporations knew very well of the dangers of tobacco products and the addictiveness of nicotine. To this day, Philip Morris deceives consumers about the harm of its products by offering light, mild and low-tar cigarettes that give consumers the illusion these brands are "healthier" than traditional cigarettes.

Although the company says it doesn't want kids to smoke, it spends millions of dollars every day marketing and promoting cigarettes to youth. Overseas, it has even hired underage "Marlboro girls" to distribute free cigarettes to other children and sponsored concerts where cigarettes were handed out to minors.

As anti-tobacco campaigns and government regulations are slowing tobacco use in Western countries, Philip Morris has aggressively moved into developing country markets, where smoking and smoking-related deaths are on the rise. Preliminary numbers released by the World Health Organization predict global deaths due to smoking-related illnesses will nearly double by 2020, with more than three-quarters of those deaths in the developing world.

Pfizer

Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world; it is also one of the worst abusers of the human right of universal access to HIV/AIDS medicine.

In addition to Viagra, Zoloft, Zithromax and Norvasc, Pfizer produces the HIV/AIDS-related drugs Rescriptor, Viracept and Diflucan (fluconazole). Like other drug companies, they sell these drugs at prices poor people cannot afford and aggressively fight efforts to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market.

Pfizer also values shareholder profits over safety standards. In Europe in 2005, it withdrew from scientific studies of a new class of AIDS drugs called CCR5 inhibitors, choosing instead to rush its own untested CCR5 inhibitor onto the European market without full information about the drug's side effects.

Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (SLDE)

The privatization of water has had a disastrous impact on the human right to clean water, and the French company Suez is the worst perpetrator of this abuse. The company's billions of dollars in profit come at the expense of poor people living in countries where thousands lack access to potable water, and, because of private water contracts, are also facing skyrocketing water prices.

Suez goes by many names around the world--Ondeo, SITA and others--to mask its worldwide net of controversial activities. In Manila, Philippines, after seven years of water privatization under a Suez company (Maynilad Water) contract, studies showed that water rates increased in some neighborhoods by 400 to 700 percent. These studies also showed that the negligence of the company resulted in cholera and gastroenteritis outbreaks that killed six people and severely sickened 725 in Manila's Tondo district.

In Bolivia, a Suez company (Aguas de Illimani) left 200,000 people without access to water and caused a revolt when it tried to charge between $335 and $445 to connect a private home to the water supply. Countless people were unable to afford this charge in a country whose yearly per capita GDP is $915.

Unfortunately, the IMF and World Bank are playing a key role in pushing water privatization all over the world. Many countries have been required to open up their water supply to private companies as a condition for receiving IMF loans, and the World Bank has approved millions of dollars in loans for the privatization of water systems.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the world. It owns 5,100 stores worldwide and employs 1.3 million workers in the United States and 400,000 abroad, as well as millions more in the factories of its suppliers.

Many people have heard of the way that Wal-Mart steamrolls its way into every possible town, destroying local supermarkets and countless small businesses. We have also heard about Wal-Mart's long track record of worker abuse, from forced overtime to sex discrimination to illegal child labor to relentless union busting. Wal-Mart also notoriously fails to provide health insurance to over half of its employees, who are then left to rely on themselves or taxpayers, who provide for a portion of their healthcare needs through government Medicaid.

Less well known is the fact that Wal-Mart maintains its low price level by allowing substandard labor conditions at the overseas factories producing most of its goods. The company continually demands lower prices from its suppliers, who, in turn, make more outrageous and abusive demands on their workers in order to meet Wal-Mart's requirements.

In September 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of Wal-Mart supplier sweatshop workers in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland. The workers were denied minimum wages, forced to work overtime without compensation, and were denied legally mandated health care. Other worker rights violations that have been found in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include locked bathrooms, starvation wages, pregnancy tests, denial of access to health care, and workers being fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights.




*Visit Global Exchange to read the full report of the Most Wanted Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005

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If this has been previously posted I am sorry, I searched but did not find it.


Wow, maybe I am just nieve, but this floored me. I expected Wal-Mart to be much higher up on the list. My dad worked for Coke, for years-
On really must think about the consumer products that they are buying, and wonder what the REAL cost is. I am sure that there are more that belong on this list, can you think of any? Do you think that some should not be here?

Willravel

Is there proof for all these alligations? Does Coca Cola really assasinate people?

cookmo

This is taken from PBS' Frontline Columbia-The Pipeline War, November 2002.




http://http://www.pbs.org/frontlinew...corporate.html



Coca-Cola
The world's most recognized brand, Coca-Cola is also the largest soft-drink maker on the planet.

Annual sales: $20 billion
Annual income: $2.4 billion
CEO and annual executive salary: Douglas N. Daft, $5,000,000
Founded: 1891
Corporate headquarters: Atlanta, Ga.
Employees: 37,400
Colombia operations: Coca-Cola has been distributed in Colombia since 1940, and the company's Colombian subsidiary employs 15 workers and 25 contractors. It maintains bottler agreements with 20 independent bottling companies in the country, 17 of which are owned by Panamco. As of 2002, Coca-Cola owned a 25 percent equity interest in Panamco. Panamco has subsidiaries operating in most of Colombia and claims a 94 percent market share. The bottling companies employ approximately 10,000 people directly and an additional 50,000 indirectly.
Human rights: Coca-Cola's labor practices in Colombia have become the focus of a recent lawsuit. Filed last July in Florida, the suit alleges that the company was complicit in paramilitary executions of several union leaders organizing at Coca-Cola bottling plants. (Nearly 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia since 1986, more than in any other place in the world.)


I also googled it and lots came up, but they were mostly from .orgs I had never heard of. So I don't know if these allegations are true. Thats what I am asking here. Maybe I should have put this in "paranoia" !!

Elphaba

Cookmo...Pose a discussion point and offer your opinion or your thread will be closed by one of the mods. I would hope to look into the information you have posted, but it won't last long if you are unfamiliar with the rules of Politics.

Gatorade Frost

Looks like he did:


If this has been previously posted I am sorry, I searched but did not find it.


Wow, maybe I am just nieve, but this floored me. I expected Wal-Mart to be much higher up on the list. My dad worked for Coke, for years-
On really must think about the consumer products that they are buying, and wonder what the REAL cost is. I am sure that there are more that belong on this list, can you think of any? Do you think that some should not be here?

__________________
I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well."
Emo Philips

cookmo

She, but thanks G.F.

stevo

whats this have to do with politics? Looks anti-capitalist to me. Nothing more.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

connyosis

Uhm yeah... Someone against abuse of workers is clearly anti-capitalist and should be disregarded as just plain crazy! Those workers had it coming anyway, right?

Anyhow, I find it pretty scary that this is the way certain companies (Note certain, not all. Just making sure stevo doesn't find me anti-capitalist) do business. From treating their employees like garbage to willfully destroying the environment just to make more money. Sometimes you really loose faith in humanity.

__________________
If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

stevo

the first corporation on the list is caterpillar. and because they sell bulldozers to israel. big freaking whoop. Then we have chevron cited for actions that took place over 15 years ago and longer. Something about coca-cola sponsoring assasinations, Dow Chem, again, decades old. Should I continue? Of course halliburton and lockheed martin are thrown in, no anit-capitalist argument is complete without a bash at halliburton or the defense industry. Then the all to common shot at wal-mart. I love this quote too bad people want to shop there. Then ford gets badmouthed because it makes SUV's.

cop3rationz are teh evil!!!!!!!!111!1!11!

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Willravel

Should Rolls Royce get in trouble for supporting the Nazi war effort? I'm asking honestly. I don't know how to feel about business responsibility in time of war or conflict. Is the responsibility to the state or to what the entity decides is right? Should Caterpillar be supporting actions condemed by a world court? Is their supplying the duldozers considered support?

As far as I'm concerned, they should supply them stuff until the people who disagree with their actions decide to stop buying from Caterpillar. That's how responsible consumers should act. If you disagree with a companies decisions, then don't give them money.
What statute of limitations are we talking about here? Is a company not responsible for it's actions because they took place a while back?
If I killed someone 10 years ago, did I still kill someone? Do people come back to life after a few decades? *If* they did this, then they should be punished, right?
So, becaue Haliburton is associated with anti-Bush sentiment, then it is obviously a fundamentally flawed argument and isn't even worth discussion. Excellent. Maybe we should also stop discussing other favorites suych as WMDs or the war in Iraq. That should make Politics a much easier place to be in.
Do you shop at Walmart?
Not simply because it makes SUVs, but because of the SUVs they make.

stevo

I guess what I'm trying to say is posting a list titled "14 worst corporations" is not the way to go about anything other than to illustrate your anti-capitalist sentiment.

If you want to go ahead an debate caterpillars sale of bulldozers to israel, go ahead. If you want to open up a thread in paranoia about coca-cola assasinations, be my guest. And if you want to start yet another thread bashing wal-mart, who am I to stop you?

So, this thread is nothing more than anti-capitalist flamebait.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

cookmo

Stevo- I really had no itentions of "anti-capatalist flamebaiting" when I posted this. I posted it because I saw it while surfing and didn't really know what to make of it. Whether it was believable or not. I have real respect for the minds and opinions on this board, and have learned e great deal.

It was easy for me read this and think "those companys are douche bags", but I was almost sure their was more to the story, cause there always is. So I posted it here in hopes of a discussion, nothing more.

ratbastid

Interesting. So pro-human-rights equals anti-capitalist?

Look: I'm a business owner and a businessman. I've been in sales all my professional life. I've got nothing against capitalism, I'm all for it. And there is no question whatsoever that large corporations have a unique position and ability to trample and destroy human beings, and should be held accountable for those actions.

Hell, if I, a sole proprietor sitting here at my desk, do something that infringes on others' human rights, I'd expect I'd be held accountable! Why, then, do major corporations get a free ride from the Right when they do wrong?

This particular list, I'm not so sure. If Caterpillar belongs on the list, so does Volkswagon.

stevo

Its kind of hard to debate 14 corporations at once. Pick one at a time, and we can go from there.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Bill O'Rights

Exactly right.

I do not shop at Walmart. I do not agree with thier business practices, so my money goes to K-Mart, Target or Shopko. Does it matter? Nope. Walmart isn't going to miss my $74.83. But the point is that it's my $74.83 that they are not getting. Now...if say 390,000 other people (the population of Omaha) gives thier $74.83 to the competitors...then Walmart might take notice of the loss of $29,183,700. But, with annual sales of $244 billion, I kinda doubt it. Still...they didn't get my money, and that's all that matters to me.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

roachboy

strange that patterns of corporate abuse gets categorised as other than political first, then gets categorized as "anti-capitalist" (how is that not a politics) then gets dismissed as trivial without any insight at all offered as to why. all the more strange given that some of these corporations take this kind of allegation very seriously indeed--perhaps only for pr purposes, but nonetheless.

for example unocal (which was bought by chevron last year) settled a suit of of court regarding its use of the burmese military as "security" for a pipeline project once they lost a series of court cases and found they could be convicted in the states for the crimes committed by the military while in their employ. there is not much argument about what happened in burma: check it out if you for some goofy reason doubt that such abuses happen.

one indication of just how seriously some of these firms take the information that surfaces about their practices is that many have undertaken these strange "corporate social responsibility audits"

here is a link to a very large database of them posted by global reporting institute, which developed the protocols for these audits.

http://www.globalreporting.org/guide...&Submit=Search

the audits are quite detailed and some are even forthcoming about problems of information access, enforcing accountability and so forth.

you'll find ford, coca cola, nike, chevron and a few others featured above on this list. the audits are available if you click on the box at the far right of the boxes.

so if you find yourself with nothing particular to do and want to invest a few hours of your life reading stuff, here is your chance.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

feelgood

I find it strange that companies like CAT is on a list of worst corporation in the world because they sold products to countries that supposely violates human rights?

It's almost like saying that companies like McDonnell Douglas, Royce Rolls, Diemaco, so on so forth, should be on list of worst corporations of the world simply because they sold products to countries or organizations that ignores human rights?

You might as well put McDonalds on the list because they sold a Big Mac to Saddam!

__________________
Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

Ample

Most of those corporations, I couldn't say if they are bad or not, cause I only really know what the general public knows and what is said about them in the news. Of course Im not going to buy everything that website says, obviously they are pushing their own agenda.

I will say, being a ex-navy aircraft mechanic Lockheed Martin doesnt belong on that list. "Providing satellites, planes, missiles and other lethal high-tech items to the Pentagon keeps the profits rolling in." It the industry they are in, if they are not going to do, someone else is. The product they produce sure lethal, but they keep us safe, and is that really bad enough to make this list?

NASA uses components developed by lockheed Martin, is furthering our space program qualify them to be in the 14 worst. I dont think so.

__________________

Her juju beads are so nice
She kissed my third cousin twice
Im the king of pomona

Willravel

Saddam didn't use McDonalds hamburgers to kill people or committ the violations, he only used them to eat. It's not about selling countries good, it's about selling them goods that are used to violate human rights. It's not illegal to sell them machinery for building and such, but it is wrong to sell them machinery used to destroy homes of innocent people.


Edit: Picture it like this: You make and distribute guns. Your intent is to make a good that can 1) protect someone who is being attacked, and 2) provide hunters with the tools of their trade or hobby. Now when you are ready to distribute, you sell to several hunting companies and a few self defence shops. You do well. A man from Nigeria approaces you and offers you a good deal for your guns. You go home and google the person's name and find out that he is a warlord who is responsible for genicide.

Option A) You decide that selling him the weapons is simply business, and that what he does with his legally purchased guns is his business. Condem what he does, but it's certianally not my responsibility.

Option B) You don't want blood on your hands, or on the hands of your customers. You make the decision to deny the money, and the problems.

Caterpillar chose option A.

roachboy

the ethics of the international arms trade are obviously suspect.
that a firm like lockheed martin would be part of it is clear---that not all aspects of lockheed martin's production is directly tied to this trade is also pretty obvious, if you think about it a little. think about it more and things get blurry again.

whether there should be an international arms trade--whether private firms should be allowed to sell weapons/weapons systems on the open market--thereby endangering lives and contributing to all kinds of bad outcomes--is an important question. under present conditions, if a firm decides to play that game, and explicitly to subordinate human life to profit, they should be prepared to take any and all criticism that attends it.

there is no more obscene dimension of capitalism than the international arms trade, no place in which the fact that profit overrides human dignity--and survival--is more clear.

(sorry will--we must have been posting almost simultaneously--these say about the same thing...)

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Not a problem, hopefully it will drive the point home.

Ample

I dont know should be throw IMB on this list? Was it a year ago or so that they sold a large portion of their company to a chinese firm. Couldnt that technology that went along with the sale, come back and bite us in the ass later?

__________________

Her juju beads are so nice
She kissed my third cousin twice
Im the king of pomona

ratbastid

That's really the crux of it. There's always a justification for this sort of behavior. If it wasn't me, it'd be somebody else (so, since there's profit in it, it may as well be me). Besides, I make (for instance) bulldozers that help people build stuff, so that makes it all okay.

(Edit: Not that the bulldozers are that great an example. I actually don't see that what Caterpillar is accused of stands out from basic corporate behavior enough to make a "14 worst" list. Seems pretty garden-variety to me.)

Willravel

I've always been concerned about moral equasions (one bad + one good = 0, or 3 peoples lives > one person's life). Is Phillip Morris not guilty of deaths from cigaretts because they do community services? I mean I can appreciate that Caterpiller probably helped to make the highways and buildings in my town, but does that make it okay to sell their product to be used to destroy people's homes? To me, the answer is a big no. Caterpillar makes money from the sales of their product, no matter who they sell to. Whether they sell to Habitats for Humanity or the al Qaeda, they get paid. The real question at the end of the day is what is more important... getting another big contract and making more money and being indirectly responsible for the destruction of homes, or not getting the big contract and not being indirectly responsible for the destruction of homes? Corporate responsibility and ethics dictates that one's product should be used to help, not hurt.

Charlatan

This is the thing: Corporations don't have ethics or morals. They are money making ventures. Period.

If you don't like what a Corporation does, you have three choices:

1) don't buy their products and services
2) change the system so Corporations can't get away with what they do
3) shrug your shoulders

Check out this film The Corporation it is a great film that explores the history and the reality of the Corporation.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

The_Jazz

I don't like the bulldozer example for a whole lot of reasons, one of which is that bulldozers are designed to knock down houses - ask any demolition contractor since that's their most likely tool. Also, the Israeli government has used those same bulldozers for things other than knocking down houses, such as building roads, knocking down Israeli government buildings and repairing bomb damage. All of those tasks fall well within the design scope of the product.

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"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
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Willravel

Not necessarily. The company I work for happens to have a gifted young VP who does everything in his power to be a responsible boss and responsible community member. I make sure that we donate money to local causes, like everything from little league to homeless shelters. I do everything I can to make sure that my employees make fair wages. I am not alone. There are people out there who use their fortune (both uses of the word) to help people instead of being money grubbing bastards. Yes, my company has to make money, but I do everything I can to fool the company into donating money and time to good causes (I always give the "It's good PR!!" schpeel, and it tends to work at least some of the time). I know there are companies and even corporate entities who do their best to help out. Not everyone is bad, and even the most jadded among us (myself included) always have to try and remind ourselves this fact.

The reason I say this is because maybe some asshole out there is reading this and wants to change (but doesn't think anyone else does). Here's the thing: everyone is basically good, in some way or another. People can be driven to be bad, or into hazy realities in which morality is relative or flexable, but at our core we all are good. I'm good, you're good, Charlatan is good (obviously) , and yes even Geore W. Bush is good. It's important to remember this when you see great good or great 'evil' (or bad). When I think of the people at Caterpillar who were responsible for filling the Israeli orders for buldozers, for example, I think of people who have families to feed and who are responsib le for the jobs of thousands of people. I understand that they feel that, despite the ends of their sale, they are vindicated by doing good elsewhere (that's the hazy reality/flexible morals I was talking about before). The problem is that while the families of these people have food on their table, and the employees have plenty of work, innocent Palestinians are having their homes demolished. To me, that's unacceptable, and - given the opportunity - I would never buy items from Caterpillar because of it. I guess that's about it.

Rodney

You can tell whether a corporation is "good" or "bad" by how they value / or don't value their own employees. From that you can infer everything else. Of those companies on the list that I have personal knowledge of, all all crummy employers. Lockheed Martin, especially, chews 'em up and spits 'em out.

snowy

One of my picky notes about Coke's supposed practices:

A lot of their bottling operations are independently owned and operated, and are only licensed by Coca-Cola, so not buying Coke products in the US isn't really going to have an impact on the profit margins of bottling operations in Colombia or India.

Like Charlatan said--these corporations are in the business of making money. We can't expect any more from them than that. So we have to decide. I don't shop at Wal-Mart, I don't use Round-Up. Those are my two biggies (Wal-Mart and Monsanto). We all make our choices, and if we tried to limit ourselves to only ethical producers, we would be 1) limiting our choices as consumers severely, and 2) paying through the nose for it. I'm not saying we shouldn't try, as consumers, to exercise the power of our wallets, but we have to realize that there are some situations where it's just not practical, usually for economic reasons.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

genuinegirly

I'm glad that Nestle made it onto that list for baby formula distribution. Seems like whenever I mention it to someone, they're completely clueless. they don't realize that if a woman doesn't encourage her body to lactate within the first couple of weeks after a birth, she will be unable to feed her child later. How do people not see the crime in providing an uneducated populus with baby formula to encourage dependence? Baby formula is haneously expensive. ick.

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"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Bossnass

As a civil engineering student and (for this summer) a civil earthworks construction manager/foreman, I'd like to chime in on the whole Cat bulldozer point. Terraforming and construction would not be possible without Cats/bulldozers. There is no modern country in the world that isn't reliant on such machines.

Not to open the entire Israel vs Palistine issue, but it is always debatable who is innocent and under what circumstances the Cats are used. The Israeli Defence Force does classify the modified D9s as 'counter-terrorism operations'. Homes and olive groves have been destroyed, people have been displaced. People have been suicide bombed as well.

Caterpiller sells "stock" D9s and D10s. IDF modifys them. It is notable that the US military buys the armor kits from IDF. Caterpiller also sells to the US military. I have been told, but I can't find an online source right now, that modified Cats have also been used by the UN to detonate mine fields.

I have no moral qualms about Caterpiller, and if I was ever in the market to buy a bulldozer, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one. (Well, I'd consider Komatsu too, even though they produced most of the military tractors and tank parts for the Japanese army in WWII).

roachboy

catepillar's corporate ethics code (http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=38044&x=7) particularly page 30 should create problems for the company's relationship with the idf.

collective punishment is a war crime--it is explicitly prohibited by the geneva convention. caterpillar knows and has known for many many years that the idf adapts the bulldozers that it purchases from caterpillar and that among the uses to which they are put is the flattening of houses of palestinians in reprisal for political actions undertaken by palestinian groups in the context of a long term and brutal conflict.

the flashpoint for this problem was the killing of rachel corrie by the idf a couple years ago. a nice caterpillar was the featured weapon.

the responses from caterpillar itself to repeated shreholder move to stop this sale is that policing end users is beyond caterpillar's purview.

so beneath the ethics, and beneath the claim at the opening of the ethics code that "this is the most important document caterpillar produces," you get typical milton friedman style thinking--a firm's responsibility to end users extends to warranty protection and so forth (presumably caterpillar would repair manufacturing defects in the machines the idf uses to bulldoze palestinian houses) and nothing else.

i was wondering why caterpillar had not been sued for this relationship with the idf and find themselves having to stand trial. us firms can be held accountable for abuses committed overseas in american courts: there is alot of precedent for this kind of action.
but.....whether it would fit under the same logic as the unocal case a few years ago is a problem because unocal had hired the burmese military as a "security force" which also happened to help keep labor costs low for the clients via forced labor and which developed innovative types of recreation like mass rape while on the job.

caterpillar simply sells to a client who uses some of the machines to commit war crimes.
so i dont know.

so much for business ethics.


yay capitalism.

on the other hand, there the list quoted in the op is problematic in its collapsing of different types of problems, with different registers of corporate ethical violations, together and then compounding it by using the top ten format. i say this because as nasty a business as collective punishment is, caterpillar only sells equipment to the idf, which seems to have some trouble with the idea that palestinians are human beings.

lockheed martin is in the conflict of interest/influence peddling game..kbr is among the more amazing of halliburton's many...um...questionable outfits engaging in...um...questionable activities....dyncorps is a mercenary outfit masequerading as a security firm in this brave new bushworld....
the point is that the others actually do things directly, while caterpillar is at a remove.
doesnt seem like the same kind of problem to me.

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it make you sick.

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bermuDa

It's very disturbing the level of corporate crime that goes unpunished, and the ability of large corporations to get away with a slap on the wrist for the gravest of grievances. Unfortunately, none of the examples in the article are particularly surprising, as I have read about several of them in Russel Mokhiber's Corporate Crime and Violence, published in 1984. Other interesting documentaries about the history of corporations and such ethics include "The Corporation," and more recently "Why we fight."

In the face of all these inhumane acts and practices, it's hard to know what to think about the corporations who commit unspeakable crimes behind their backs, then turn around and sell us the fruits of their pillage of the Earth.

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Dyze

It´s capitalism and you can do nothing to stop it.
Mr CEO: "A call for boycotts? Hahahahaha.... fools."

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Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing is not enough, we must do.

roachboy

actually, dyze, people can organize and have a considerable impact on the actions of firms...even a freidmanite would admit that--from a neoliberal viewpoint (same as friedmanite except more dangerous because operationalized) a firm exists to make profits for its shareholders.

well, the ability to generate profit presupposes demand.

a highly organized boycott could impact on that--the threat of a really large boycott is like what the threat of a general strike used to be--something that
would send fear coursing through capitalists--shut down demand and you can watch them squirm. same thing with a strike--you can service demand if you cant get the commodities produced--whence the neoliberal terror of powerful, coherent trade unions.

political pressure in general--organized, sustained pressure--can have very significant effects on how tncs operate--the corporate social responsibility audits i posted links to earlier are very expensive undertakings and only exist as devices that enable firms to (a) become somewhat transparent to themselves--always a problem, but even worse if your firm is little more than a financial and design lynchpin inside a huge supply pool and (b) to give corporations some basis for claiming that they are at least trying to act "ethically"---the only reason firms are concerned with this is because they have been forced to be concerned with it.

inidividually, of course, we are all equally powerless.
like in this messageboard, where individual statements live in neat little boxes.
individuals have no power, unless they control capital.
the rest of us, so long as we do not organize, are fucked.


for example, caterpillar's management must have made a calculation concerning threats of a boycott: 1. the case being made by activists seems shaky at its central linkage--holding caterpillar responsible for crimes against humanity committed by the end user--which modifies the equipment before they turn them on civilian residences. 2. caterpillar's demand is not primarily consumer demand, more b-2-b so it would not feel threatened by a boycott.

the first point means that the firm feels it can defend itself.
the second means that it does not feel directly threatened.

the activist groups are trying to use publicity and mobilization to strengthen its case. caterpillar is trying to ride this out. there we are.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

jimbob

That's a big part of the problem, and people won't get more clued up while the media is concentrated in so few corporations and relies on the advertising revenues of big business. But public servants aren't helping either: I'd like to avoid products from Monsanto, but it's not just Roundup, which is easily recognised, it's the soya that goes into many processed foods these days. Currently the US, via the WTO, is hoping to make it illegal for people to know what is in their food, so we will not be able to protest against GM as consumers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_w..._modified_food

So what company is this? It sounds like you need a capitalist to come in and trim off some of those inefficiencies!

pan6467

While there are some good points here and some to be made I have 1 question.

Where is the list of the 14 Best Corporations????

I mean why not show us what the contrasts are between the good and the bad. If you only show the bad you prove 3 things....

bias against the companies listed with no contrast, no reference points just all the bad:

pessimism, you show by not listing any "good companies" that perhaps you are implying ALL corporations must act like this to some degree:

and you aren't showing what "model" corporations, (the ones you like), do that is different than the ones you list.

While all the evils maybe true, you have not given any alternatives to these companies nor shown how they should change and what they need to do in order to improve.

Using Coke as an example: Ok you showed me how evil Coke is.... now show me what Pepsi or 7-Up/Dr.Pepper do differently that make them "better" corporations, and thus more worthy to get my business.

Show me the differences, show me which corporations have better practices so that i may do business with them and help to keep them in business.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

pan: have a look here

http://www.business-ethics.com/whats_new/100best.html

100 best corporate citizens from business ethics magazine.
someone had to do it.

this is an interesting survey regarding attitudes toward corporate ethics--it seems that treating employees fairly is generally the marker folk look to:

http://www.bcccc.net/index.cfm?fusea...D=292&PageID=4

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

Thanks RB, good link, and it adds a little to this discussion.

It's easy to criticize but it's hard to expect debate if you do not provide legitimate and possible alternatives.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Coppertop

Doing a Google search for Coca-Karma will turn up some very enlightening information.

http://www.atomicbooks.com/products/-/7860.html