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Posted on 17-3-08 Telecom Wins Jolly Roger Award, Again
By Murray Horton, 17 March 2008, cafca.org.nz
The Roger Award is for worst transnational corporation operating in New
Zealand in 2007. Later this week the full Judges' Report will be available
at www.cafca.org.nz follow the Roger Award Links.
The finalists were ANZ, APN News & Media, British American Tobacco,
GlaxoSmithKline, Independent Liquor, Pike River Coal, Spotless and
Telecom.
The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation
which is 25% or more foreign-owned) that has the most negative impact in
each or all of the following categories: Economic Dominance - Monopoly,
profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism. People - Unemployment,
impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of
workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural
imperialism. Environment Environmental damage, abuse of animals. Political
interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade.
The judges were: Laila Harre, from Auckland, National Secretary of the
National Distribution Union and former Cabinet Minister; Anton Oliver, of
France, former All Black and environmentalist; Geoff Bertram, from
Wellington, Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, from
Christchurch, President of the Methodist Church and social justice
activist; Paul Corliss, from Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and
Maritime Transport Union and Cee Payne-Harker, from Dunedin, Industrial
Services Manager for the NZ Nurses' Organisation and health issues
activist. The winner was announced at an event in Christchurch on Sunday
night.
To quote the Judges' Statement: "After looking as though the company would
finally come to terms with regulation in the public interest, the year
2007 saw yet another round of delaying tactics, the Xtra debacle that
stranded customers in cyberspace, the cabinetisation project which
undermines the potential for local loop unbundling to deliver competition,
an obscene $5.4 million final year payment to outgoing Chief Executive
Officer Theresa Gattung, the scrapping of concessions for non-government
organisations and the School Connection scheme.
These sins and more ensured Telecom was in top form in this race for the
worst transnational in NZ in 2007. Far from taking heart from the
appointment of a new soft-sell CEO, the judging panel has heard too many
Telecom promises of co-operation to feel anything but dismayed at the
confidence the Government is placing in UK import Paul Reynolds".
The judges described Spotless (second place getter) as "a company prepared
to destabilise the public health system, to illegally lock out and further
impoverish minimum wage workers and their families, to create insecurity
and fear among NZ patients, and to coopt a few elected District Health
Board members to boot. If there was an award for the stupidest TNC in NZ
in 2007 it would have been no contest".
Of joint runner up British American Tobacco: "Smoking is responsible for
more preventable deaths than anything else, and BAT is the worst culprit
in New Zealand".
In giving the first Accomplice Award to the Whanganui DHB for its role in
backing Spotless against its lowpaid hospital workers, they said: "We
recognise not only their 2007 services to overseas profiteering on poor
health and public money in NZ, but also the leading role they have played
in the creation of Public Private Partnerships through the extensive
contracting out of core hospital services with a consequent reduction in
quality, loyalty and dignity for patients and workers alike".
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