
Issue No 88		16 March 2001

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Corporate

Scumbags Exposed

On the eve of the inaugural Corporate Scumbags Tour, we look at the worst of the worst from the Top End of Town.

Rio Tinto: Undermining Our Communities

Rio Tinto's mines in Bougainville, Indonesia and the Philippines have resulted in large numbers of indigenous people being thrown off their land - with little or no compensation given. The Panguna copper mine in Bougainville has been Rio Tinto's most profitable venture since 1973.

Rio Tinto has dumped 1 billion tonnes of waste into the river system killing all aquatic life and creating a 480 sq km blot on the environment. The Australian-backed and funded PNG armed forces have repeatedly used armed suppression of any opposition to the mine and PNG's occupation of Bougainville.

� Rio Tinto brings its disregard for indigenous peoples to Australia - it's now the majority shareholder in the Jabiluka uranium mine in the World Heritage Kakadu National Park.

� Rio Tinto led the mining industry campaign against Native Title in 1997-98 and has forcibly removed two indigenous communities to make way for its Bauxite mines in Weipa and Mapoon.

Rio Tinto has also waged war on Australian trade unions. It has embarked on a heavy-handed campaign which undermined communities in the Hunter Valley by reducing its workforce by 20 per cent in the coal industry.

Daewoo: The Mass Sacker

3500 workers have been laid off since last November. A further 1750 more than have been sacked this month.

� Workers and their families took action to try to save their jobs and their livelihoods, by occupying Daewoo Motors Bupyong plant. The government responded by storming the occupation with 4000 armed riot cops on February 20. Many workers were viciously beaten and 76 detained. Daewoo's creditor banks rewarded this action by immediately extending the credit period and providing more funds to the company. The restructuring and sell-off of Daewoo is part of the neo-liberal "reforms" that the South Korean government is pursuing as a solution to the crisis-ridden South Korean economy. The result has been billions of dollars in handouts to corporations, while working people suffer more and more hardships. The AMWU has held a rally outside Daewoo's corporate offices to oppose the Korean government's treatment of the Daewoo workers.

The Commonwealth Bank: Which bank rips off workers and customers?

� Regional communities and aged people continue to suffer the most from bank closures. An FSU study has revealed that the CBA recorded the lowest ethical scorecard amongst a generally poor public opinion of banks. The Australian banking sector has continued reporting record profits year after year.

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� Since the Commonwealth Bank merged with the Colonial Bank it has shut 250 branches.

� The CBA has shut 438 branches over the last 5 years.

� The CBA has sacked over 10,000 workers over the last 5 years.

� The Australian banking sector has shed 35,000 jobs over the last 5 years.

� The CBA has been found by the Federal Court to be misleading and intimidating workers into signing individual contracts in an attempt to break the union by saying they would be no worse off on contracts - a categorical lie.

� There have been widespread reports across all CBA branches of appalling staffing and stress levels.

� The CBA continues its profiteering from fee hikes, Australian fees being the highest in the world (in an industry worth over $6 billion per year).

BHP: The Big Polluter

The Company's Ok Tedi copper mine has destroyed about 2000 sq kms of forest, river gardens and fisheries by pumping waste from the mine into a river and surrounding areas. BHP is planning to sell its share in the Ok Tedi mine but has made no commitment to address the social and environmental impact of its operations BHP despite its recognition that the damage from the Ok Tedi mine will last for decades. Simon Divecha from the Mineral Policy Institute says "if this mine was in Australia it would never be allowed to pump waste into a river and would be required to pay clean-up and restoration costs."

The Company also has a record of violating workers' rights:

� By their latest profit figures, for 1999-2000, BHP recorded a massive $2 billion profit.

� BHP has simultaneously launched a campaign to break the union in its mines in the Pilbara region by enforcing individual contracts and refusing to negotiate a collective agreement with the union.

� These individual contracts have not spelt out working conditions and BHP workers have been told "sign the contracts or your future with BHP is going nowhere."

Nike: Globalising Exploitation

Nike promotes sport and healthy living, but the lives of workers who make Nike's shoes and clothes in Asia and Latin America are anything but healthy. Independent research indicates that they live in extreme poverty and suffer stress and exhaustion from overwork and forced overtime. Nike's own internal investigation has revealed widespread physical, verbal and sexual abuse of workers as well as denial of medical care.

� Annual profits = $965 million per year.

� Nike workers are paid as little as $1.25 for 15 hour days.

� The Indonesian wage of $33.65 per month will provide only 80% of one adults basic needs.

� Nike is notorious for manufacturing in countries that restrict the right of workers to organise such as Indonesia, Cambodia and Free Trade Zones in South America.

GlaxoSmithKline: Blood on their Hands

GlaxoSmithKline, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, is currently involved in a court case with the South African government, seeking to it producing or importing cheap HIV drugs.

Countries like India and Brazil currently produce these drugs off-patent in o rder to provide affordable drugs to their populations and export these drugs to other countries. GlaxoSmithKline is desperate to prevent this from continuing. This is despite the fact that currently anti-HIV drugs are completely inaccessible to those living in the global south due to their extreme cost.

HIV transmission rates in South Africa have reached epidemic proportions with 1 in 5 pregnant women HIV positive and more than 45% of the military are infected. GlaxoSmithKline must be stopped from leaving people to die merely because they cannot afford to access essential medicines.

Shell: Blood on its Hands

The Shell oil corporation has blood on its hands. Two recent reports on the Shell subsidiary in Nigeria have documented massive environmental destruction in the Niger River delta region, where Shepp has spilled some 210 million litres of oil onto farmlands and into community water supplies. The destroyed land and water formerly provided sustenance for an indigenous people, the Ogoni.

When Ogoni activists organised to demand that Shell clean up spilled oil, and share oil profits more equitably with the Ogoni people, the Nigerian military dictatorship - with financial assistance, logistical support and guns provided by Shell - conducted a campaign of terror in which at least 1800 Ogoni people were murdered, some of them tortured to death.

On November 10, 1995, the Nigerian dictatorship executed nine Ogoni environmental activists, including Ken Sar-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa had received the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa on April 17, 1995, in recognition of his environmental work on behalf of the Ogoni people.

Since 1958, $30 billion worth of oil has been taken from beneath their land, yet essentially zero benefits have accrued to the Ogoni themselves. When the WCC sent observers to Ogoniland in 1995, they Rio Tinto: Undermining Our CommunitiesRio Tinto's mines in Bougainville, Indonesia and the Philippines have resulted in large numbers of indigenous people being thrown off their land - with little or no compensation given. The Panguna copper mine in Bougainville has been Rio Tinto's most profitable venture since 1973.Rio Tinto has dumped 1 billion tonnes of waste into the river system killing all awuatic life and creating a 480 sq km blot on the environment. The Australian-backed and funded PNG armed forces have repeatedly used armed suppression of any opposition to the mine and PNG's occupation of Bougainville.Rio Tinto brings its disregard for indigenous peoples to Australia - it's now the majority shareholder in the Jabiluka uranium mine in the World Heritage Kakadu National Park.Rio Tinto led the mining industry campaign against Native Title in 1997-98 and has forcibly removed two indigenous communities to make way for its Bauxite mines in Weipa and Mapoon.Rio Tinto has also waged war on Austrups and refugee advocates for its treatment of asylum seekers; former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser went so far as to describe one centre, Woomera, as a "hell hole".

In the last two weeks, ACM was found to have been culpable for the many recent riots and protests by asylum seekers in detention by two separate reports, one by former High Commissioner to London Phillip Flood, who was asked to report by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, and another by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

ACM is also a major player in Australia's private prison industry, running private prisons in Brisbane, country NSW and Melbourne. It is a subsidiary of the giant US private prison and security company Waskenhunt, which has connections with far-right groups and causes.

Cogema: Feeding Nuclear Reactors

French company Cogema (Compagnie Generale des Matieres Nucleaires) is one of the world's largest nuclear energy companies, supplying the uranium to more than 160 nuclear power stations worldwide and seeking to bolster an industry widely criticised for the danger it poses to public health.

Cogema is also a major force in Australia's nuclear industry, working hand-in-glove with the government's nuclear agency, ANSTO. In July, the two put in a joint bid to "dispose" of plutonium from US missiles, possibly for use in civilian reactors. Cogema also holds the contract for reprocessing spent fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor, albeit on A "curie for curie" basis, meaning that it will spend back an equivalent amount of radioactive material for disposal here.

There is much speculation that Cogema is a likely buyer of the controversial Jabiluka mine in the Top End, given the mine's new owner, Rio Tinto, is looking to get rid of it.

Uranium and its human-made byproduct plutonium are highly unstable and prone to disastrous radioactive waste accidents, as at Chernobyl in 1986. Many people believe that uranium should stay in the ground.

Qantas: Dangerous Privatisation

Qantas is a perfect example of the effects of privatisation, a policy which has given what was once a public asset into the hands of a small number of big investors.

One result of privatisation, and of the simultaneous deregulation of government safety controls in the airline industry, is a long decline in air-safety standards. From being the safety airline in the world (remember the line "Qantas never crashed" in the film Rainmain?), the airline is now living on borrowed time before its first major safety disaster.

Yet its management seems content to continue on this path. It is currently planning to outsource maintenance work to private contractors overseas, a plan which has provoked anger from unions not just on work security issues but also safety grounds.

"Sending work offshore, and not managing the process of repairs internally, increases the risk for errors to be made. Qantas should be ensuring the quality and safety of their fleet by investing more money in safety, rather than trying to cut corners by send work out," said the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's national Assistant Secretary Dave Oliver, explaining why the union imposed a 24-hour stoppage on the company on March 6.

Caltex: Petrol Price Hikes

Caltex is one of the largest petrol companies in the world and one of the four major oil refiners in Australia (along with Mobil, Shell and BP).

While it blames world prices and the government's excise, the actions of Caltex are one of the major reasons why petrol prices have risen dramatically over the last year, to over $1 a litre in some parts of the country. Price gouging was a deliberate strategy used by all four major refiners to force prices up after their slump in 1999.

Caltex also took a very aggressive attitude towards truck drivers who took action in September against the rising prices by blockading the company's refineries. While independent truck drivers were being driven to the wall by rising prices, Caltex showed little concern, threatening enormous civil suits against drivers if they didn't cease their actions. The company is still in dispute with the Transport Workers Union over its treatment of drivers.

Caltex is also one of the major investors in oil exploration in the Timor Gap, along with BHP Petroleum, Phillips Petroleum, Woodside Petroleum, Shell. Their exploration is taking place under the terms of the controversial Timor Gap Treaty, signed between Australia and Indonesia during the time that Indonesian military occupied East Timor. The people of East Timor regard this treaty as legalising the theft of their oil and are seeking iits renegotiation.

Finally, it should be remembered that the burning of petrol and fossil fuels is the single greatest contributor to global warming - and that oil companies, including Caltex, have done everything in their power to ensure no decisive international action is taken to reduce greenhouse emissions.

The Corporate Scumbags Tour of Sydney takes place Saturday, march 16. meet at Hyde Park, finish at First Fleet Park at 2pm.

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Issue 88 contents

Interview: Labor Law
Shadow Attorney General Robert McClelland outlines his plans for workers entitlements, legal aid and a Bill of Rights

Unions: Poetic Justice
The ACTU kicked off its 2001 Living Wage campaign this week with a new shock tactic: poetry.

Technology: Big Brother�s Legacy
Organisations with restrictive staff email polices risk locking themselves in the Industrial Age by treating their staff as units to be monitored.

Corporate: Scumbags Exposed
On the eve of the inaugural Corporate Scumbags Tour, we look at the worst of the worst from the Top End of Town.

International: Playing Away
Pat Ranald looks at a proposal to hold Australian companies to basic standards when they invest in developing countries.

Environment: Nuclear Titanics
The Maritime Union has joined Greenpeace in a campaign to stop our seas becoming a nuclear highway.

History: Out of the Bog
Neale Towart looks at the life of big Jim Larkin, one of the heroes of an Irish trade union movement that continues to thrive.

Politics: Westie�s Macquarie Street Alert
The Workers MLC, Ian West, provides the first in a series of regular rundowns on the upcoming Parliamentary session

Review: The Next American Century?
How will the United States maintain its global power in an era when the very notion of the nation-state is under challenge?

Satire: Dollar Crashes Through Psychological 0.00c Barrier
The bedevilled Australian dollar dropped below the crucial 0.00c barrier losing its battle to avoid the humiliation of being worth less than the commemorative Bradman coins distributed by the Sunday Telegraph last weekend.

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