SP 10 Corporate Accountability
Corporate accountability refers to the concept of corporations taking responsibility for their actions and policies, especially with regard to their effects on consumers, employees, communities, and the environment.
Those in favor of corporate accountability advocate for responsible business practices on the part of corporations. This includes obeying laws regarding appropriate wages, the formation of unions, environmental regulations, and discrimination issues, extending beyond the law to include the idea that human safety and well-being should be of higher importance than profit. Corporations who operate within the boundaries of the law can still find themselves targeted by social justice groups if what they are doing is nevertheless considered negligent or unjust.
American capitalism has produced increasing levels of inequality due to the fact that profits are very unevenly distributed. This results in an ultra-wealthy upper class which comprises a tiny portion of the population, and a much larger impoverished class [1]. Corporate accountability efforts are the only means at the disposal of ordinary citizens to speak out for change in corporate policies.
A Critical Conversation
Several academic texts are critical of the Faustian politics that corporations employ in order to secure profits. In America Beyond Capitalism, Gar Alperovitz positions himself in the wake of the 2004 presidential election, noting that signs of social, political, and economic decline have become obvious in the United States. Alperovitz argues that as the system is clearly broken, the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century will be redistributing power so that there is equality, wealth, and democracy in American homes once again. Such a revolution is not conflated with violence in this assessment, but rather the traditional power structure that has taken root in contemporary American politics must be transformed; an emphasis of the communal nature of work and wealth is at the root of Alperovitz’s suggestive new American identity [2].
G. William Domhoff places Who Rules America? in the aftermath of another historical presidential election, that of Barack Obama in 2008. Domhoff presupposes an American socioeconomic society in which wealth and power are concentrated in a community of upper class employers and business owners. Within the framework of a procedure called the membership network analysis, the text illustrates how a network of like-minded, wealthy businessmen and women use their common hierarchical position to control the direction of political and social policies in the United States. Tracing how this power elite has infiltrated all of the nation’s structures of authority, Who Rules America? rescinds this dictatorial embodiment of American capitalism in its final chapter, “Potential Challenges to Class Domination,” and suggests that a non-violent revolution against elitist establishments can earn equality for the working class [1].
Similarly, in Michael Yates’ Why Unions Matter, a look at labor unions reveals that they are the only institutions which have made an effort to drastically improve the standard of living for a majority of American citizens [3]. Like Domhoff, Yates argues that wide-scale reform is necessary in the United States so that the nation’s largest demographic, the working class, is properly represented—their interests should be noted by the structures of authority that rely on the efficiency and man-power they provide to be successful [3].
Finally, Samuel Bowles, Richard Edwards, and Frank Roosevelt’s Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, employs a eponymous trilateral construction to emphasize the undulating nature of American capitalism. The troika Competition, Command, and Change “explains how capitalism works, why it sometimes does not work as well as we would like it to, and how over time it not only changes but also revolutionizes the world around us” [4]. Understanding Capitalism is cognizant of the fact that capitalism is not a perfect socioeconomic institution, that it is prone to severe inequality, and that it is in an individual’s favor to challenge a system that does not support his or her best interests [4]. Inherently flawed, capitalism must be constantly regulated so that it benefits all manner of individual in the American economic system.
Wake Up WalMart
Wake Up WalMart is a grassroots campaign effort sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union [5]. Their goal is to expose the unethical and illegal practices of America's largest retailer, WalMart. The organization maintains WakeUpWalMart.com and blog.WakeUpWalMart.com. Wake Up WalMart currently claims over 645,000 members and concerns itself with issues such as wages, unions, workers' rights, and discrimination on behalf of WalMart employees. On behalf of communities Wake Up WalMart exposes the company's cost to taxpayers and the blight the stores bring to rural and suburban areas. The organization empowers citizens to advocate against WalMart on a local and national level. Part of their mission statement reads:
“We will be a vehicle through which millions of Americans can join together, from neighborhoods all across our nation, to harness the power of our consumer behavior and use it to reform a company. America’s largest corporation must reflect America’s values.” [5]
Wake Up WalMart demands that WalMart operate under common codes of social justice.
Goals and Methods
In short, Wake Up WalMart has two basic purposes. They want WalMart to change its policies so that workers, taxpayers, unions, minorities, and communities receive fair treatment. They advocate for WalMart to make decisions that take into account their effects upon people, and not simply upon profits. They believe that WalMart policies should be as eco-friendly as possible. Additionally, Wake Up WalMart puts a great amount of energy into preventing the spread of new WalMart stores opening across the country [5].
Wake Up WalMart believes in the power of individual consumers and wants them to make informed decisions about shopping at WalMart. Because of this, it is an extremely democratic organization. Rather than advocate a very specific agenda or formulate a rigid approach to fighting WalMart, the organization encourages people to take initiative and participate in the ways they see fit. This helps combat the principles of class dominance identified as inherent to our current form of capitalism by Bowles, Edwards, and Roosevelt [4].
To achieve these goals, Wake Up WalMart primarily spends its time and resources empowering consumers and citizens through the spread of information. WakeUpWalMart.com provides well-researched fact lists about topics such as wages, healthcare, discrimination, blight, and the cost of WalMart to taxpayers. The site also features over fifty anti-WalMart commercials which expose the company's multiple ethical and legal violations [5].
In addition to simply raising awareness through the spread of research about WalMart, Wake Up WalMart promotes anti-WalMart activism on local and national levels [5]. Their articles about the wrongdoings of the company are all linked to short letters which can be send to editors of local newspapers. There is even an application on the site that allows users to search for newspapers within a certain number of miles from their location. The letters to the editor can be send digitally.
Wake Up WalMart has helped activists organize anti-WalMart protests all across the country. There is an application on their site which allows users to locate any Wake Up WalMart event within 100 miles of any zip code. Although Wake Up WalMart itself has organized events, their main goal is to empower and unite individuals who are interested in taking action [5]. It is easy to organize and list an event on the site.
Videos
Wake Up WalMart maintains a YouTube account under username "wuwm" for easy access to their videos. Some of them are entitled:
America Can't Afford WalMart Any Longer
Issues
Most of WakeUpWalMart.com is devoted to providing information about WalMart to concerned individuals. The organization discusses many of WalMart's unethical and illegal activities to encourage consumers to take action against America's largest retailer.
Wages
Wake Up WalMart is determined to publicize the fact that the average worker at WalMart earns wages that fall below the poverty level, and below acceptable retail-industry standards [5]. With an average annual pay of $20,774 a year, WalMart falls behind the average annual pay in retail, which is $22,050 a year. The average WalMart worker makes $11.75/an hour, with the average retail worker in the United States making $12.04/an hour, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics [5]. Because WalMart is America's largest employer, it should be taken into consideration that the industry-average pay would significantly increase if WalMart began offering fair pay.
As argued by Michael D. Yates, fair pay for work is one of the most basic tenets of social justice [3], and thus, one of the core issues of concern for Wake Up WalMart. Because of the inextricable ties between the power elite and the corporate world, corporations operate in the favor of the upper class. As Domhoff argues, an impoverished lower class perpetuates the dominance of the power elite and prevents meaningful change from occurring in society [1]. A working class that is not impoverished would be healthier, happier, less likely to commit crimes; this would simply be better for society as a whole.
Unions and Workers' Rights
Wake Up Walmart cites examples of stores that have closed at the first hint that employees were attempting to unionize. A Walmart in Jonquiere, Quebec became the world's first unionized Walmart in 2005 when 51% of employees signed union cards. The store was promptly closed. In fact, Walmart issues a “Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free” which includes information for managers on how to spot employee activities that might indicate a union is being formed. These signs include “associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other” [5].
As a union-backed organization, Wake Up WalMart is particularly attentive to the issue of WalMart's union policies [5]. It is illegal to deny workers the right to form unions, but WalMart constantly works to prevent them. This is not only a denial of social justice as Yates indicates [3], but is also in direct contradiction to the law. WalMart encourages managers to be watchful over employees, even to the point of keeping track of their social lives in order to prevent unions. This is a classic example of the power elite subjecting workers to unjust treatment in order to maintain high profits.
Discrimination
Wake Up Walmart claims that the company systematically discriminates against women. It cites Dukes v. Wal-Mart, which was certified on June 21st, 2004 as the largest class action lawsuit of all time. In Dukes v. Wal-Mart, 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees are suing the company for denying them promotions and paying them less than men. Their claims are substantiated by the fact that in 2001, women earned 5-15% less than men for doing the same jobs [5]. Under the common ideals of social justice, people of all genders and sexualities will be treated the same.
Blight and Cost to Taxpayers
Wake Up Walmart alleges that Walmart comes with a high cost to taxpayers because they refuse to provide adequate medical coverage and pay to their employees [5]. For example, in California it is estimated that public assistance provided to Walmart employees costs the state government $86 million a year. In Ohio this was estimated to cost $44.8 million per year. The company itself admits that it owes billions of dollars in taxes. Wake Up Walmart points out that given the current state of the economy and the government deficits, this is particularly serious. In addition, Walmart receives government subsidies. Since the 1980's, the company has received an estimated $1.2 billion [5]. This is an example of how the corporate world is intertwined with the power elite and the governing bodies of the United States. Only with such close ties to power could an incredibly profitable company receive completely unnecessary subsidies.
Accomplishments
It is difficult to track the accomplishments of Wake Up WalMart, because they are not the only organization which opposes the company. However, it has been documented in polls that the public image of WalMart has been declining in recent years, for which Wake Up WalMart has been partially responsible[6]. The organization has also become more familiar in the public eye, especially when it gained the official support of Barack Obama and John Edwards in pushing for better sick leave policies[7].
Corp Watch
Corpwatch is a non-profit organization that uses “investigative research and journalism to expose corporate malfeasance and to advocate for multinational corporate accountability and transparency” (Citation). The efforts of Corpwatch, in conjunction with the ideals of Alperovitz, strive to promote justice internationally, to promote independent media activism, and to foster democratic control over corporations” [2].
Corpwatch was created in 1996 as a project of Joshua Karliner from the San Francisco bay Tides Center. The organization is run by an executive board comprised of six members from the organization’s advisory board [8].
The Problem
Corpwatch believes that corporations make decisions based on increasing their profits, disregarding the impact those decisions have on the lives of individuals. Indeed corporations are able to make profit from war, environmental and human rights abuses, fraud, and other exploitations. There are few forces that counter these corporations and hold them accountable for their wrong doing. Supporting the arguments of William Domhoff [1], Corpwatch believes that “corporate power and influence eclipses even the democratic political process itself as they exert disproportional influence on public policy they deem detrimental to their narrow self-interests” [8]. Although the actions taken by these corporations widely affect the general public, their only concern is for their own financial standing and the interests of their shareholders. A key issue with major corporations is that “they have little incentive, nor requirement, for public transparency regarding their decisions and practices, let alone concrete accountability for their ultimate impact” [8]. Corpwatch strives to bring the actions of these corporations to the public’s attention, and further push to make them accountable for their actions [8].
Holding Corporations Accountable
Corpwatch holds corporations accountable for violating human rights through torture, discrimination, union-busting and political repression. Furthermore, Corpwatch opposes business practices that are ecologically unsustainable, yielding harmful effects on local communities and the global environment. They believe that secret government and corporate activities are wrong and must be accounted for. Finally, Corpwatch stands against economic rules like free trade, privatization and outsourcing of local jobs that have larger adverse affects on both local and national governments [8].
While actively holding corporations accountable for their wrong-doing, Corpwatch also supports movements that allow individuals to make their own decisions about their working conditions, environment, and resources. They believe all people should have the right to access local jobs and services. Furthermore, Corpwatch believes that basic services like healthcare, education, water and electricity should be available to all people at an affordable price [8]. The underlying point of accountability according to Corpwatch, is that individuals and communities have the right to receive compensation for the negative consequence of corporate action. Furthermore “corporations must abide by international law and be directly accountable to those directly impacted, whether a local community or a national government to redress damage” [8].
Corpwatch’s primary strategy is to provide research on different corporations, industries and issues. On their website, they provide lists of the various industries and issues that they provide information for. They also have a section that gives helpful tips on how to go about researching issues pertaining to major corporations. Their goal is certainly to hold corporations accountable by making the general public more aware of their wrong-doings, and providing the public with the tools they need to take action. This will allow the public to fight against the rigid hierarchies that are essential to capitalism, which Bowles, Edwards, and Roosevelt strongly oppose [4]. The investigative reports published by Corpwatch serve to empower interested people by providing them with important insight [8].
Accomplishments
Corpwatch’s first accomplishment was in 1997 when they exposed the dismal working conditions in the Nike factories of Vietnam. This exposure led to changes in the general oversight and practice of the corporation. In the same year Corpwatch, in partnership with the Center for Corporate Policy and the Corporate Research Project, launched the website Crocodyl.org, a resource for activists and those aiming to hold corporations accountable. Crocodyl is a site harboring information on the world’s leading corporations. The purpose is to create social change by making the evidence against these corporations available to all those interested [9].
Most recently in May 2009, Corpwatch made a significant contribution to Antonia Juhasz’s work, The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report. This report counters the corporation’s messages of “Human Energy” advertising campaign by shedding light on the many negative impacts of Chevron's operations have had around the world [8].
A more comprehensive assessment of Corpwatch’s many successes can be found on their website.
Corporate Accountability International
Corporate Accountability International is a social activist organization “working toward a world where major decisions affecting people and the environment are based on the public interest, not on maximizing corporate profits” [10]. CAI believes that major corporations should operate transparently; they write: “corporations often cause and get away with serious harm they inflict on people and the environment around the world because of their political influence” [10]. CAI operates within the confines of two ideological structures: putting profit before people and protecting public interest.
These structures elucidate the standards upon with CAI is built. The safeguards that are in place to “put people before profit” include:
• Lobbying: Corporations must fully and publicly disclose all lobbying activities around the world, including through trade associations and public relations campaigns.
• Political Contributions: Corporations must end financial contributions to political candidates, parties and referenda worldwide.
• Political Access: Corporations must not trade favors with or buy access to local, national or international public officials [10].
Similarly, in order to protect public interest, CAI supports:
• Safeguards: Corporations must follow the precautionary principle and must not interfere in the development or implementation of global, national or local policies affecting human rights, health or the environment. Corporations must also require their subsidiaries and suppliers to abide by such policies.
• Independent Oversight: Corporations must respect the independent authority of and refrain from "partnering" with institutions that set standards affecting their business.
• International Institutions and Agreements: Corporations must accept policies that protect people, human rights and the environment and must not use trade agreements or governing institutions (such as the World Trade Organization) to preempt such policies or use them for private gain.
• Local Control: Corporations must honor local control over natural and financial resources [10].
CAI envisions grassroots participation in events that throw into the spotlight atrocities that major corporations inflict on people and the environment. According to the organization’s website, StopCorporateAbuse.org, “since 1977, Corporate Accountability International (formerly Infact) has waged - and won - campaigns that challenge irresponsible and dangerous actions by corporate giants. From bringing about significant reforms in the life-threatening marketing of infant formula in economically poor countries to pushing G.E. out of nuclear weapons-making to being a major contributing factor in the adoption of the world's first corporate accountability treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, our work has influenced the way corporations are held accountable for the last 30 years” [10].
CAI agrees with Domhoff’s thesis concerning the power elite, a group of wealthy and highly connected businessmen who use their influence to promote their companies agendas, as argued in Who Rules America? [1]. Such an expansive socio-professional network has permeated the highest echelons of American society, and CAI’s wide-ranging attacks on this power elite highlight the organization’s multilateral approach to “wealth, liberty, and democracy” [2] that Alperovitz reconciles in America Beyond Capitalism.CAI attributes their successes to the way their members monitor major corporations, lobbying, within the confines of the law, which keeps with Alperovitz’s call for a non-violent revolution. As Yates suggests, CAI also works within the presupposition that the working class is America’s largest demographic; in order to overcome the shortcomings expressed in Understanding Capitalism—a system that breeds unjust competition and vast inequality—CAI monitors major corporations and functions as the proverbial thorn in the side of big business. CAI strives to level the playing field for Yates’ oppressed working class, campaigning against multinational corporations who have so obviously abused their power and influence according to Domhoff, Yates, Alperovitz, and Corporate Accountability International.
Multinational Monitor
Founded in 1980 by Ralph Nader, Multinational Monitor is a non-profit magazine which tracks the activities of corporations in order to strive for corporate accountability and public awareness of their activities [11]. The magazine's function is the spread awareness about social justice issues, primarily those pertaining to corporations. Through the spread of information, they aspire to empower the working class to overcome the shortcomings of capitalism. Although they do not formally organize protests or social action, Multinational Monitor contributes to ideals of corporate accountability by publishing relevant information. The magazine also features content on other social justice issues such as "labor, the environment, corporate crime, multilateral banks and development" [12].
In addition to featuring news articles, each copy of Multinational Monitor also includes “an interview with a government official, corporate executive, union leader, environmentalist, academic, consumer activist, or other expert on a topic of interest to the magazine" [12].
The goals of Multinational Monitor are consistent with the ideals of Gar Alperovitz in that they expose the brokenness of "the system", and advocate for the de-centralization of power through higher accountability standards [2]. This is also consistent with the reform ideals of Yates in that it recognizes that it is unacceptable for the largest demographic in a society to have the least amount of power.
United for Social Justice
Organizations such as Wake Up WalMart, CorpWatch, Corporate Accountability International, and Multinational Monitor all believe that power should be more fairly distributed in American society. Rather than accepting the structure of Domhoff's power elite [1], they advocate for transparency of the capitalist system. By promoting awareness of corporate misconduct, these organizations strive to empower individuals and hold corporations responsible for the atrocities they commit. As Yates suggests [3], the working class is the largest demographic in society. Corporate accountability puts power back in the hands of the individual and makes for a more just society.
References
1. Domhoff, G. William (2009). Who Rules America? McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0078111560.
2. Alperovitz, Gar (2005). America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, And Our Democracy. Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0471790023.
3. Yates, Michael D. (2009). Why Unions Matter. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 9781583671900.
4. Bowels, Samuel and Richard Edwards and Frank Roosevelt. Understanding Capitalism. Oxford UP, 2005. ISBN 0195138651.
7. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2006/db20061116_897533.htm
10. http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/
11. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/unreasonableman/nader.html
