TELECOM wins Roger Award for NZ worst Trans National corporation

The tenth annual Roger Awards have been held and the winner declared in a gathering held in Christchurch on Sunday. The Roger Awards, named after a certain hard core free market politician who organised one of the biggest sell-outs of public owned infrastructure ever seen in New Zealand, came about via a brain storming meeting in 1996. The 90’s formed the backdrop of free market reform, foreign ownership and increasingly indifferent corporate power under a government mantra of “what’s good for Big Business is good for New Zealand”.

“The idea was simply to fight back in the propaganda war, to point out the obvious fact that these transnational corporations are the most important players in the NZ economy, that what they do affects every one of us in all aspects of our daily lives, and to hold them publicly accountable for the enormous
negative impact they have on our country When we came up with the idea at that brainstorm meeting 12 years ago, we had no idea that it would last this long, become a national institution, and generally be a raging success. said Murray Horton founder and spokesperson for the Roger Awards

the procedure is simple, nomination forms are circulated to members of Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) and GATT the old World Trade Organization protest group and to other interested parties. The form asks everyone to send in who they think the worst Trans national corporation has been in the past year.

The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation with 25% or more foreign ownership) 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

There is also an Accomplice Award for an organization (not an individual) which has been the worst Accomplice in 2007 in aiding and abetting transnational corporations in New Zealand to behave as described in the criteria. The Accomplice’s award is in addition to the Worst Transnational Corporation award and will not necessarily be awarded every year.
Organizers are swamped every year with nominations and screeds of backup information proving that kiwi’s have had enough of bad corporate behavior and government ineptitude

The organizers and judges are independent of each other. This year 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 finalists for this years Award were

ANZ;

APN News & Media

British American Tobacco

GlaxoSmithKline;

Independent Liquor

Pike River Coal; Spotless and Telecom.

And this years Roger Award Winner is TELECOM a consistent nominee since the awards inception

The judges had this to say “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”.

Highlights of the analysis are:

In 2007, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data revealed that telecommunications prices in New Zealand are in the top five in OECD countries, but reinvestment of telecommunications revenues in equipment is among the lowest.

• In April 2007 Telecom sold the Yellow Pages Group Limited to YPG Finance, owned by various overseas interests, for a mere $2.24 billion. The Yellow Pages Group Limited publishes the Yellow Pages, White Pages, Local Directories, on-line directories and the 018 service3. These services are in daily use by New Zealanders yet at ownership level they are completely isolated from those to whom they are providing the services. As we know, the more removed the providers are, the more likely they are to hike prices with little regard of the impact on consumers. This distance from the consumers also impacts on accountability. Without these companies having an on-shore presence it is difficult to target them in shame campaigns. It also limits the Government’s ability to have any semblance of influence. This type of on-selling conjures up a picture of large bits of New Zealand being sold to the highest bidder. Then the successful bidder takes his big chunk of the economy and on-sells some smaller bits – creating a spreadsheet of foreign ownership or, in laymans terms, a sub-dividing of the New Zealand economy. Like any sub-division it is a scar on the landscape and reeks of dodgy infrastructure

• In a true display of decency and generosity, in 2007 Telecom gave both the education sector and the not-for-profit sector hefty blows. Funding and fundraising programmes were removed from schools. The programme had allowed residential customers to sponsor a school with the company providing credits to the school based on how much the sponsor spent with Telecom

• Furthering their theme of community kindness, in 2007 Telecom announced it would no longer support not-for-profit organisations through discounted line rentals and free local calls. Again, in this David and Goliath struggle, David wins again. The community trusts have gone elsewhere to find discounted deals.

• As well as its community exploits, Telecom is following the popular trend of outsourcing its services. The clearest and most recent examples are its call centres. By January 2007, 230 staff had been made redundant and it was suggested that up to 700 people could meet a similar fate. Two help desks – pre-paid mobile phones and dial-up Internet- were moved to Manila8. A move obviously inspired by the cheaper labour costs involved. The wages must be minuscule for the move to be economically viable.

• Struggling along with other low paid New Zealanders is new immigrant Paul Reynolds. Reynolds filled the Chief Executive Officer‟s chair left empty by Theresa Gattung. With an annual salary of $5.25 million Reynolds is more than comfortable. Having moved to New Zealand for the position, Reynolds‟ family will not get the opportunity to miss their homeland with ten trips home each year on top of Reynolds‟ salary. This is one household that won‟t be struggling to pay its phone bill.

Joint runner ups were Spotless “There they were exposed as a company prepared to de-stabilise 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 co-opt a few elected District Health Board members to boot. And all this to block a wage settlement for 800 public hospital workers that was to be funded by the public purse. “Shameless” cry the judges, not “Spotless”.

And British American Tabacco – BAT “The biggest development in 2007 appears to be the reporting of further evidence that cigarette shop displays make it harder for people to quit – more grist to the mill of the campaigners and regulators. Signs in BAT colours setting out the ban on cigarette sales to under-18s appear a clever device to do the opposite. Stealth marketing on You Tube and social networking sites has been exposed. And it seems that the duty free industry has assisted in blocking a ban on duty free cigarette sales promised in the international Framework Convention on Tobacco.”

The Accomplice Award goes to - Whanganui District Health Board

This is what the judges had to say

“Like so many Roger finalists this year, Spotless shared its guilt with accomplices within the Government apparatus, in this case the Whanganui District Health Board (WDHB).
Around the country Mayors, Councillors and MPs joined locked out workers on their picket lines. Many DHBs put pressure on Spotless in support of the union claims. But not in Whanganui where Spotless has a monopoly on all cleaning, kitchen and orderly services.
WDHB knew that the Government was willing to fund the pay demand through changes to the WDHB/Spotless contracts. WDHB had obligations under the Employment Relations Act and Health and Disabilities Act to take into account the needs of its workforce including those employed by contractors. Despite this WDHB (formerly known as Good Health Wanganui and embroiled in controversy over hospital safety issues throughout 2007) worked with Spotless on its lockout tactic".

The DHB breached its statutory obligation to allow union representatives (including Spotless employees) to enter the premises and all elected representatives refused to meet with the union and its members. Locked out workers were refused entry to on-site toilets. And when two orderlies refused to leave the site (as they were legally entitled to do) the DHB called the Police and had the pair arrested.
In awarding the WDHB the Accomplice Award 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.

The judges had this to say about those nominated

ANZ; Two very different nominations were received for one of New Zealand‟s Australian-owned and its largest bank. One highlighted the complicity of the Bank in rainforest destruction in Papua New Guinea. Yes, it‟s a global village, and the Bank‟s connections to illegal logging operations deserve to be condemned, but the Roger has borders. The scandal implicating the ANZ, Credit Suisse First Boston Asian Merchant Partners (CSFBAMP), Feltex directors, and finally another Australian corporate, Godfrey Hirst, and which ended with the 2006 collapse of a significant New Zealand company and a series of questionable sales of its assets, made this company a very worthy nominee

APN News & Media; It‟s a bit surprising that media organisations do not get nominated for the Roger more often, and even this nomination was somewhat narrower in its scope than the owner of 42.8% of our daily newspaper market, including the New Zealand Herald with a 28.1% share of its own, and a huge stake in radio (Radio Network) deserves. The case zeroed in on the contracting out of sub-editing by the countrys biggest paper, the Herald. The 20% loss in salary for those transferred and the threat to news quality made this action culpable. Reading between the lines the material contained plenty of evidence of profiteering and cultural imperialism, as well as growing monopolisation of the New Zealand news media.

GlaxoSmithKline; Most of us didnt know that the Ribena brand was owned by drug czars until two Kiwi school girls exposed it as a mere placebo. Not only did the juice fall short of the Vitamin C claims made to generations of mums who have unwittingly been mainlining their toddlers refined sugar, but the popular boxed drink contained no detectable Vitamin C at all! GSK was fined $217,500 in the Auckland District Court for the 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act it admitted.

Independent Liquor; This outfit has been a nightmare for unions for years. The company‟s purchase by Pacific Equity Partners after the death of founder Michael Erceg makes it foreign-owned and exposes its ongoing activities to Roger scrutiny. Time and time again a committed core of workers has built support on their job for improvements in pay and fair treatment and been thwarted by anti-union tactics including the dismissal of union activists.

Pike River Coal; Had former Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, been in the running for an Accomplice Award for his role as Pike River Coal‟s mouthpiece, spinning down the environmental impacts of this coal project, he would have been in with a chance. The company has something more to thank Government for – rescuing them from the Roger. It was Government involvement in a project which most judges are agreed is not in the interests of the West Coast, NZ or Planet Earth that most offended us this year. There might be nothing extraordinary about a mining company wreaking environmental havoc. But the complicity of Carter and the Department of Conservation is lamentable as is the fact that it was the lobbying by a Government-owned company, Solid Energy, which created the regulatory soft spot through which Pike River has been able to push its own project.

Previous years winners

Progressive Enterprises (2006)
Bank of New Zealand and Westpac (2005)
Telecom (2004)
Juken Nissho (2003)
Tranz Rail (2002)
Carter Holt Harvey (2001)
Tranz Rail (2000)
TransAlta (1999)
Monsanto (1998)
Tranz Rail (1997)

The judges wish thank all nominators for their contribution to exposing corporate hypocrisy.
For a full report including a financial analysis of Telecom please contact cafca@chch.planet.org.nz or Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)
PO Box 2258
Christchurch
Aotearoa/New Zealand
www.cafca.org.nz