Oxfam shines the light on the sham of corporate sopcial responsibility

Oxfam's latest report and campaign  Behind the Brands confirms what many of us have argued for years- that corporate social responsibility is a sham; a ruse to conceal and detract attention away from the destructive practice of corporations.

Oxfam's report analyses the practices of the world's 10 most powerful food corporations and shows their destructive impact, despite the corporations deployment of the rhetroic and practice of corporate social responsibility. The report is a damning indictment of the practices of the world's major food corporations and the sham of corporate social responsibility.

The report delves below the surface of corporate responsibility rhetoric to show that the practices of the food corporations destroy not only the natural resources that support a global food system but the lives of food suppliers, employees and their customers.

Articles about the report are here, here and here.

The CEO of Oxfam, Barbara Stocking said:

"It is time the veil of secrecy shrouding this multi-billion dollar industry was lifted. Consumers have the right to know how their food has been produced and the impact this has on the world's poorest people who are growing the ingredients. The hundreds of brands lining supermarket shelves are predominantly owned by just 10 huge companies, which have combined revenues of more than $1bn a day while one-in-eight people go to bed hungry every night."

 The Oxfam Report shows that the major food corporations:

• are overly secretive
• rely on cheap labour
• fail to meet their own ethical standards
• ignore injustices occurring within their own supply chain
• fund and support programmes that are typically tightly focused around publicly appealing issues which fail to address the root causes of hunger and poverty
• conceal sourcing practices and routinely engage in sophisticated marketing and public relations campaigns in order to shape public opinion about food and how it is made.
• lack adequate policies to guide their own supply chain operations.
•  have failed to use their enormous power to create a more just system for farmers and local communities.
• have allowed land to be unjustly seized from poor farmers and rural communities over the last decade
• make claims of sustainability and social responsibility difficult to verify on the ground.

Artistic freedom Western Australian style

Sometimes artists and charities who take money from mining companies in Western Australia give the game away.

This story Mining Company cash creates movie making boom  appeared on the ABC TV program Stateline WA on Friday November 4 and demonstrates that the primary reason for the "philanthropic" activity of the mining industry in WA is self interest.

The message is very clear- we will sponsor you but you must not speak certain truths about the industry. In other words the mining industry buys the silence and acquiesence of those it sponsors.

Listen to the journalists and artists in the ABC story who make it very clear that with the money comes conditions and the expectation is that you must show the mining industry in a favourable light.

Show the mining industry in a less than favourable light in their eyes or speak certain truths about the industry and you can say goodbye to the sponsorship.

One interviewer put it this way:

" We can't say we want you to sponsor us but the script says you are unscrupulous swines who rape and pillage the land..... they see the first draft of the script....... they don't want the industry shown in an unfavourable light..... you don't bite the hand that feeds you".

Of course this story reflects a much larger issue- the way that the mining industry and corporations in WA are using their money and power to shape the arts and cultural industry and the charitable sector to serve their corporate interests.

This article by Rosemary Neill provides an insight into the corporate takeover of the arts and cultural industry and charitable sector in WA:

In a harbinger of this, some of the country's most powerful businesspeople have teamed up with artists and launched a new, turbo-charged arts lobby, the Chamber of Arts and Culture, aimed at developing a coherent cultural vision for WA. Among the chamber's founding members are Rio Tinto iron ore chief executive Sam Walsh, prominent arts patron and businesswoman Janet Holmes a Court, former WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss John Langoulant, KPMG national executive director Helen Cook and former Australia Council chairwoman Margaret Seares.

An alliance of high-powered executives -- some drawn from the blokey resources and engineering sectors -- intent on proselytising for the arts is a first not just for the West but, arguably, for the nation. Walsh says this move signifies that "the state is growing; there is a need for a more creative and vibrant community and arts and culture will help us deliver that and help us attract people. I think the stars are aligned . . . we have a unique opportunity in Perth and WA's history, building on the mining boom, to work on these things." The unfailingly courteous Rio Tinto boss says the chamber has received "very strong support" from Day and federal Arts Minister Simon Crean. He stresses it is not merely an arts lobby; that it will engage with governments, the regions, schools and untapped audiences to spread the word about culture.

Bringing uranium to your West Aussie town

In Western Australia mining and resource companies can pretty much do whatever they like. They talk a lot about world's best practice safety standards and social license to operate, but usually they get what they want.

So it will be interesting to see if Federal and State Governments give approval to a bid by the Canadian corporation Cameco to mine uranium at its Kintyre uranium deposit near Telfer in WA's Pilbara. If approved, Cameco plans to truck as much as 3600 tonnes of uranium oxide annually from Kintyre, near Telfer, in the Pilbara, to a planned hub near Kalgoorlie.

The corporation plans to truck uranium oxide down unsealed gravel roads between the remote Goldfields towns of Wiluna and Meekatharra. which would mean passing through small towns such as Telfer, Newman, Meekatharra, Mount Magnet, Leonora, and possibly Kalgoorlie

Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam has slammed provocative plans by Canadian uranium mining company Cameco to truck uranium through several WA cities and towns.

The Cameco planned course will see up to 3,600 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate from the Kintyre project trucked past Port Headland and though Newman, Meekatharra, Mount Magnet, Leonora and a number of other towns en route to the proposed Parkeston travel hub outside Kalgoorlie each year. If the hub is not completed by 2013, the uranium will be transported though Kalgoorlie itself.

“There are a significant number of freight truck accidents in Western Australia each year, but that’s just part of the concern. This is a project that goes wrong at every turn, planned by a company with an appalling history,” said Senator Ludlam.

“The mine itself is proposed for a site right next to Rudall River, alongside the Karlamilyi National Park. The site of the uranium deposit was originally part of the park and was excised in 1994, so as you can imagine it is a pristine natural area and it has environmentally sensitive wetlands in the vicinity,” said Senator Ludlam.

“Especially given the sordid and sorry history of uranium mining in Australia contaminating ground water and wetlands, this is one of the worst possible sites for a uranium mine.”

It is estimated 2,500 to 3,600 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate will be trucked through the state each year by Cameco. The company says it will send between 55 and 70 truck convoys a year along the estimated 2000km route.

“The residents along this uranium trail will no doubt be very concerned,” said Senator Ludlam. “They have the right to say no to Cameco’s plan to transport radioactive material through their neighbourhoods.”

Esperance, Wagerup and the forgotten history of Western Australian sacrifice zones

The story of the Esperance lead pollution scandal has been consigned to the "dustbin" of Western Australian history. Hopefully, new research by the Conservation Council of WA might focus attention on the contamination of the town by a mining company and its state government partners.

Over 2 years (2005- 2007) Magellan Metals and the Esperance Port Authority allowed lethal lead dust to escape from storage facilities and contaminate the town of Esperance and surrounds. Over 9500 birds died of lead poisoning and hundreds of children suffered lead poisoning from elevated lead levels.

A Western Australian Parliamentary Inquiry found that the Esperance Port Authority and Magellan Metals (and 2 other government agencies) were guilty of "critical failings" in their handling of toxic material in allowing lead carbonate particles to escape during Port operation.

The Inquiry concluded that the deaths of 9500 native birds in December 2006 and March 2007 resulted from lead poisoning from Magellan Metals lead carbonate concentrate which had been handled by the Esperance Port Authority from April 2005 until March 2007. A quarter of the children under 5 years of age who were tested showed a blood lead level over 5 µg/dL. The Committee concluded that the exposure of the Esperance community to lead was a result of:

• the ongoing transport to, and inloading practices at, the Esperance Port which occurred almost every second day over some 23 months;
• the escape of lead dust during the usual out loading practices at the Esperance Port, which occurred on 22 occasions; and
• a number of key dust incidents occurring during ship-loading of the Magellan lead concentrate at the Esperance Port, which released significant lead pollution into the environment, and in the absence of any containment or clean up, caused on-going exposures to lead.”

The Report found that the Esperance community had been let down by the actions of the Esperance Port Authority, Magellan Metals and the WA Department of Environment (DEC).

The Esperance Port Authority was fined over half a million dollars after admitting responsibility for the lead poisoning. Magellan Metals escaped without any serious penalty after agreeing to a $9 million settlement to clean up the town. As part of the agreement the State Government agreed not to pursue any criminal or legal charges against the company.

The scandal is back in the news this week as a result of resarch by the Conservation Council of WA. The Council reports that even though the lead pollution problem scandal was supposedly fixed, local research shows that local insect eating birds have lead levels in their feathers about 8 times background lead levels. The birds are at threshold level for lead pollution in birds.

These levels raise serious questions about the effectiveness of the cleanup. A State Government report released earlier this year claimed that three years after the crises the poisonous lead dust still present in the town  remained a major threat to bird life and animal life but presented no "serious threat to human health"  

But why should we believe a report commissioned by a State Government agency that has utterly failed in its job to regulate mining companies and their Government partners and has failed time and time again protect the community. During the Esperance crises, Government agencies, including the Health Department, continually downplayed the seriousness of the problem and denied any serious risk to human health.

Like many other places in WA, Esperance is what US author Steve Lerner calls a "Sacrifice Zone"- communities forced to live with the harmful social and environmental impacts of poorly regulated mining and industrial activity. 

Martin Bruckner's remarkable book Under Corporate Skies tells the shocking story of another Western Australian "Sacrifice Zone"- this time the struggle between the community of Wagerup and the multinational mining corporation Alcoa and its ally over three decades- the WA Government. Brueckner tells a story also consigned to the dustbin of Western Australian history. His book describes the the same pattern of denial, protection of mining and industrial interests, collusion by State Government agencies and  dismissal and trivialization of community concerns that has been evident in the Esperance scandal.

These "sacrifice zones" exist all over WA, in towns and communities where mining and industrial activity are dominant.  These are places and people sacrificed on the alter of corporate profit and economic growth. 

The harms caused by poorly regulated mining and industrial activity- ill health and death, scarred land, polluted, air and water, despoiled environment and human landscape and a fraying social fabric- are trivialized, and denied, and if proven, they are simply dismissed as a cost of economic prosperity or considered not serious enough to warrant attention. 

Corporate social responsibility?

Great piece by Russell Mokhiber from Corporate Crime Reporter on why corporate social responsibility is not just an oxymoron but a sham:

"Corporate social responsibility has been used by companies to ward off both the activists and to reduce the probability of more onerous government regulation,"

"And companies pretend to be socially responsible, but they really don't do very much. This keeps the activists at bay. And it might serve to keep government regulators at bay by saying - see, we are doing it on our own."