JUNE 1996 · VOLUME 17 · NUMBER 6
B E H I N D T H E L I N E S
JUNE 1996 · VOLUME 17 · NUMBER 6
B E H I N D T H E L I N E S
APPROXIMATELY ONE OUT OF SIX (17 percent) of the corporate executives who attended the White House Conference on Corporate Citizenship in May are presidents or chief executive officers (CEOs) of corporations with criminal records -- corporations that have been convicted of everything from price-fixing to pollution, from procurement fraud to obstruction of justice.
The conference was held on May 16 at Georgetown University. Prior to the conference, President Clinton hosted a breakfast at the White House with more than 100 business leaders from across the country to discuss "corporate citizenship."
During the first panel discussion at Georgetown University, Ralph Larsen, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, discussed with the President the company's "model safety and health program." Not mentioned was the fact that in January 1995, Johnson & Johnson's Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp. unit pled guilty to 10 counts of obstruction of justice and destruction of documents in connection with a federal probe of the company's marketing of an anti-acne cream.
CEOs from TRW, Eastman Kodak, GTE, Motorola, United Technologies and Loral Corporation attended the breakfast -- all companies that have been convicted of crimes in recent years.
At least 19 of the 110 companies represented at the conference had been convicted of crimes.
White House spokesperson Brenda Anders says that "both the Treasury Department and Labor Department extensively vetted" the 15 companies whose executives made presentations at Georgetown University. She says she does not know whether "the issue of crimes came up" during the vetting process. The more than 100 companies whose CEOs attended the breakfast meeting with the president at the White House prior to the conference at Georgetown were not vetted, Anders says.
The Sweatshop Lives
ALMOST HALF OF U.S. GARMENT CONTRACTORS investigated by the Department of Labor were found to be violating federal minimum wage or overtime laws, a May report from the department shows.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says the scope and rate of violation demonstrates that far too many garment assembly firms are routinely violating the nation's labor laws.
"At a time when the country is crying for an increase in the minimum wage, we are witnessing the erosion of minimum wage rights for the nation's garment workers," Reich says. "This report demonstrates that far too few sewing shops are paying even the basic minimum wage for a hard hour's work, and far too many manufacturers are doing business with those firms."
The compliance report was compiled at the request of the nation's retailers, who met with the Secretary last year as part of his ongoing effort to solicit their help in improving the industry labor law compliance track record. Retail executives told Reich they needed more information about manufacturers and contractors violating labor laws if they were going to assist in efforts to improve compliance.
The department plans to release this information quarterly, enabling retailers, manufacturers and consumers to identify firms that repeatedly violate minimum wage and overtime laws. The report identifies which manufacturers among those notified of contractor violations have agreed to monitor contractors for future violations.
The report also reveals sweatshops continue to plague the nation's largest garment manufacturing centers in New York, California and Texas. Investigations of contractors and manufacturers in New York and California alone resulted in more than 3,000 workers recovering almost $1 million in lost wages.
The Pesticide Habit
PESTICIDE USE IN THE UNITED STATES and the world shot up sharply in 1995.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data obtained by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) shows more than 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides were sprayed on crops in the United States in 1995, an all-time high.
"The data we are releasing today warns that we are heading in the wrong direction," said Carolyn Hartmann of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which released the data in conjunction with NRDC. "The data shows that we are using more pesticides on foods we eat when we should be using less. It also shows that when the pesticide industry, under pressure, reduces the use of one pesticide, it simply substitutes another harmful toxic substance."
NRDC and U.S. PIRG used the release of the new data as an opportunity to challenge Congressional proposals to repeal the Delaney Clause, which prohibits cancer-causing chemicals in processed foods.
Meanwhile, Agrow: World Crop Protection News reported that the leading pesticide manufacturers all recorded increases in worldwide sales in 1995. Total agrochemical sales rose 11.9 percent in dollar terms, to almost $29 billion, and an estimated 4.3 percent in real terms.
Leading agrochemical company Ciba-Geigy recorded nearly $3.3 billion in sales in 1995, up more than 11 percent in non-adjusted terms. Second leading company Monsanto sold more than $2.4 billion worth of agrochemicals, an 11 percent leap from the year before. And third place Bayer registered a dramatic 21 percent rise in sales, to just under $2.4 billion.
-- Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman