Global Exchange  [Printer-friendly version]
December 10, 2005

THE 14 "MOST WANTED" CORPORATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS OF 2005

[Rachel's introduction: The 14 "most wanted" corporate human rights
abusers of 2005 are Caterpillar, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical,
Dyncorp, Ford Motor, KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary), Lockheed Martin,
Monsanto, Nestle, Altria Group (Philip Morris), Pfizer, SLDE (a
French water company), and Wal-Mart.]

By Global Exchange

Click here to read Global Exchange's definition of human rights.

INTRODUCTION

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses
of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to
account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational
corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human
rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply
and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

Though it isn't easy, we can check the power of corporations -- and
citizens around the world are stepping up to do it. Global Exchange
developed this list of some of the world's worst corporate abusers to
illustrate that on issues as diverse as assassination, torture,
kidnapping, environmental degradation, abusing public funds, violently
repressing political rights, releasing toxins into pristine
environments, destroying homes, discrimination, and causing widespread
health problems, familiar companies like Dow Chemical, Coca Cola,
Caterpillar, Lockheed, Philip Morris, and Wal-Mart play a big role.
Now we need you to take action!

Several of the companies below are being sued under the Alien Tort
Claims Act, a law that allows citizens of any nationality to sue in US
federal courts for violations of international rights or treaties.
When corporations act like criminals, we have the right and the power
to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike to
the accords they have signed. Around the world -- in Venezuela,
Argentina, India, and right here in the United States -- citizens are
stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to
international law.

This list of "MOST WANTED" corporate criminals gives you information
about the abusive behavior of this year's top fourteen worst
corporations, tells you who is responsible, and how to connect with
and support people who are doing something about it. The more you
know, the less these corporations can continue their abuses out of
public eyesight: so share this information with your friends, get on
the phone with the CEOs themselves, and exercise your rights as a
citizen and consumer today.

CATERPILLAR

CEO: James Owens
Contact the Corporation: Caterpillar Inc.
100 NE Adams St.
Peoria, IL 61629
Phone: 309-675-1000
Fax: 309-675-1182

Human Rights Abuses: contracting with known violators of human rights,
enabling house demolition, supplying equipment that kills Palestinian
civilians and American peace activists

For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the
bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide
condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end their corporate
participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially
modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.

Israel seeks to portray the destruction of homes as necessary to its
self-defense, but nothing could be further from the truth. As the
Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions has rigorously documented,
house destruction is part of Israel's intention to turn the annexation
of East Jerusalem and other occupied areas into a concrete fact (
http://www.icahd.org/eng/).

In a letter to Caterpillar CEO James Owens The Office of the UN High
Commissioner on Human Rights said: "allowing the delivery of your...
bulldozers to the Israeli army... in the certain knowledge that they
are being used for such action, might involve complicity or acceptance
on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of
human rights..."

Peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by a Caterpillar, D-9,
military bulldozer in 2003. She was run over while attempting to block
the destruction a family's home in Gaza. Her family filed suit against
Caterpillar in March 2005 charging that Caterpillar knowingly sold
machines used to violate human rights. Since Rachel's death at least
three more Palestinians have been killed in their homes by Israeli
bulldozer demolitions.

Who's working on it:
** Amnesty International
** Jewish Voice for Peace
** Human Rights Watch
** US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation

CHEVRON

Chairman and CEO: David O'Reilly
Contact the Corporation: Chevron Corp.
6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd.
San Ramon, CA 94583

Human Rights Abuses: environmental destruction, health violations, and
violent killings

The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst
environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992,
Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out
in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by
leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon
rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water
into rivers used for bathing water. The toxic crude oil and formation
water seeped into the subsoil, contaminating surrounding freshwater
and farmland. As a result, local communities have suffered severe
health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and
spontaneous abortions. Indigenous communities have been dispossessed
of their lands, and millions of hectares of rainforest have been
destroyed to make way for the company's pipelines and oil wells.

Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful
opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private
military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil
extraction in the Niger Delta. In 1998, two indigenous Ilaje activists
were killed by Nigerian military officers flown in by the company
while protesting at an oil platform in Ondo state. In 1999, two people
from Opia village were killed by military personnel paid by Chevron,
after soliciting a meeting to complain about the company's harmful
effects on local fishing. And in 2005, Nigerian soldiers fired upon
protestors at Escravos oil terminal, leaving one protestor dead.

Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in
Richmond, California, where one of Chevron's largest refineries is
located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond
refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area. As
a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin
rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors,
cancer, asthma, and eye problems.

The Unocal Corporation, which recently became a subsidiary of Chevron,
is an oil and gas company based in California with operations around
the world. In December 2004, the company settled a lawsuit filed by 15
Burmese villagers, in which the villagers alleged Unocal's complicity
in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape,
summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration. Chevron
Corporation earns $155 billion dollars in yearly profits.

Who's working on it:
** Accion Ecologica
** Amazon Watch
** Amazon Defense Front
** Amnesty International
** Earth Rights International
** Human Rights Watch
** International Labor Rights Fund
** Oil Change International
** Oil Watch International
** Richmond Greens

COCA-COLA

President and CEO: Herbert A. Allen
Contact the Corporation: Allen & Co. Inc
711 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Phone. (212) 832-8000

Human Rights Abuses: violent killings, kidnap and torture, water
privatization, health violations, and discriminatory practices

Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate
symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers'
rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker
discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-
Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the
company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who
have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL
have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are
hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing. In
Turkey, 14 Coca-Cola truck drivers and their families were beaten
severely by Turkish police hired by the company, while protesting a
layoff of 1,000 workers from a local bottling plant in 2005.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the
country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted
1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold
under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely
depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and
destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water
became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to
scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population. Water
shortages have occurred in Varanasi, Thane, and Tamil Nadu as well.
The company is also guilty of reselling its plants' industrial waste
to farmers as fertilizers, despite its containing hazardous lead and
cadmium.

Coca-Cola is one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In
the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the
company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions. In Mexico,
Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Latin America, fired
a senior bottling manager for being gay. Finally, by regularly denying
health insurance to employees and their families, Coca Cola has failed
to help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. The company is one of the
continent's largest private employers, yet only partially covers
expensive medicines, while not covering generic medicines at all.

Who's working on it:
** Coke Watch
** Corp Watch
** India Resource Center
** Killer Coke
** Polaris Institute
** Public Citizen
** Students Against Sweatshops
** USLEAP

DOW CHEMICAL

CEO: Andrew N. Liveris
Contact the Corporation: Dow Chemical Co.
2030 Dow Center
Midland, MI 48674

Human rights abuses: creation of chemical weapons, marketing poisonous
chemicals, illegal dumping of toxins into populated areas,
environmental destruction, health problems, death

Dow Chemical has been destroying lives and poisoning the planet for
decades. The company is best known for the ravages and health disaster
for millions of Vietnamese and U.S. Veterans caused by its lethal
Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. Dow's "invent first, ask
questions later" standard of business led the multinational company to
develop and perfect Napalm, a brutal chemical weapon that burned many
innocents to death in Vietnam and other wars. In 1988, Dow provided
pesticides to Saddam Hussein despite warnings that they could be used
to produce chemical weapons.

In 2001, Dow inherited the toxic legacy of the worst peacetime
chemical disaster in history when it acquired Union Carbide
Corporation (UCC) and its outstanding liabilities in Bhopal, India. As
the Students for Bhopal website recounts, "On December 3rd, 1984,
thousands of people in Bhopal, India were gassed to death after a
catastrophic chemical leak at a UCC pesticide plant. More than 150,000
people were left severely disabled-of whom 22,000 have since died of
their injuries-in a disaster now widely acknowledged as the world's
worst ever."

Dow refuses to address its liabilities in Bhopal or even admit its
existence, continuing in Union Carbide's tradition of profiting from
extreme corporate irresponsibility. In India, Dow's subsidiary faces
manslaughter charges and is considered a fugitive from justice for a
pending criminal case related to the 1984 xhemical explosion. Dow and
UCC's lack of accountability in the disaster continue to affect the
lives in Bhopal to this day.

World wide, Dow is involved in human rights abuses: environmental
destruction, water and ground contamination, health violations,
chemical poisoning, and chemical warfare. Dow Chemical's impact is
felt globally from their Midland, Michigan headquarters to Plymouth
New Zealand. In Midland, Dow has been producing chlorinated chemicals
and burning and burying its waste including chemicals that make up
Agent Orange. In Plymouth, New Zealand, 500,000 gallons of Agent
Orange were produced and thousands of tons of dioxin-laced waste was
dumped in agricultural fields. Dow's toxic legacies of human rights
abuses traverse to agricultural fields in Central America where Dow
exported EPA-banned pesticide DBCP for use on banana and pineapple
crops. As a result, thousands of banana workers were exposed to DBCP
and became sterile. In retail markets across the world Dow's dangerous
chemicals are present as common household solvents, plastics, paints
and pharmaceuticals.

Who's working on it:
** Dow Accountability Network
** Vietnam Relief and Responsibility Campaign
** Fund for Reconciliation and Development
** The Vietnam Dioxin Collective
** International Campaign for Justice In Bhopal
** Students For Bhopal o Amnesty International-USA
** Greenpeace International
** Ecology Center
** Tittabawassee River Watch
** Beyond Pesticides

DYNCORP

The Corporation: DynCorp (owned by CSC) CEO: Van Honeycutt
Contact the corporation: DynCorp/CSC
2100 East Grand Avenue
El Segundo, CA 90245 USA
Phone: 310.615.0311

Human rights abuses: causing health problems, environmental
devastation and death; endangering lives; physically abusing
individuals; sex trafficking

Private security contractors have become the fastest-growing sector of
the global economy during the last decade -- a $100-billion-a-year,
nearly unregulated industry. DynCorp, one of the providers of these
mercenary services, demonstrates the industry's power and potential to
abuse human rights. While guarding Afghani statesmen and African oil
fields, training Iraqi police forces, eradicating Colombian coca
plants, and protecting business interests in hurricane-devastated New
Orleans, these hired guns bolster the security of governments and
organizations at the expense of many people's human rights.

DynCorp's fumigation of coca crops along the Colombian-Ecuadorian
border led Ecuadorian peasants to sue DynCorp in 2001. Plaintiffs
argued that DynCorp knew -- or should have known -- that the
herbicides were highly toxic, and should therefore be held accountable
for health problems and death among local people and widespread
environmental damage to their subsistence agriculture. A Colombian
newsweekly called DynCorp -- which also sprays herbicides in Peru and
Bolivia -- "lawless Rambos."

DynCorp's questionable actions in Haiti include its training of the
national police force after the first coup against President Aristide,
paving the way for (Tonton Macaoutes) to return to power.

In 2001, a mechanic with DynCorp blew the whistle on DynCorp employees
in Bosnia for rape and trading girls as young as 12 into sex slavery.
According to a lawsuit filed by the mechanic, "employees and
supervisors were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior
[and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, [and] forged passports."
The mechanic observed DynCorp employees buying and selling women and
bragging about the ages and talents of their female slaves. DynCorp
fired the whistleblower, who later claimed that "DynCorp is just as
immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can break they do."
The company transferred the employees accused of sex trading out of
the country, eventually firing some. None were prosecuted.

Who's working on it:
** CorpWatch
** International Labor Rights Fund and the Law Offices of Cristobal
Bonifaz are handling the Ecuadorians' suit, with help from EarthRights
International, Amazon Alliance, and Friends of the Earth.

FORD MOTOR COMPANY

CEO: William Clay Ford, Jr.
Contact the Corporation: Ford Motor Company
P.O. Box 685
Dearborn, MI 48126-0685
Email: wford@ford.com

Human rights violations: environmental degradation, climate change,
fueling wars for oil

The US automobile industry is fueling America's addiction to oil.
Automobiles are the single largest consumer of oil in the US, a
country that constitutes less than five percent of the world's
population but consumes 25 percent of its oil. The US addiction to oil
is linked with a host of human rights and environmental problems,
including human rights abuses in countries such as Nigeria, Ecuador,
Sudan, South Africa and Indonesia. The US oil addiction has prompted
the US government to cozy up to human rights violating governments
such as that of Saudi Arabia. It has pushed indigenous people off
their land and destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of
rainforests, which are home to half the planet and animal species on
the planet. It has fueled wars for oil, such as the war in Iraq, which
has so far caused the deaths of more than 2,100 US troops and an
estimated 27,000 to 100,000 Iraqis. It has polluted cities,
endangering the health of millions of people who live in high-ozone
communities and leading to hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood
asthma. And, by being a major contributor to global warming, has
increased the likelihood of extreme weather events like Hurricane
Katrina, which killed at least 1,289 people.

Among automakers, Ford Motor Company is the worst. Every year since
1999, the US Environmental Protection Agency has ranked Ford cars,
trucks and SUVs as having the worst overall fuel economy of any
American automaker. Ford's current car and truck fleet has a lower
average fuel efficiency than the original Ford Model-T.

Ford is also in last place when it comes to vehicle greenhouse gas
emissions. According to a recent report by the Union of Concerned
Scientists, Ford has "the absolute worst heat-trapping gas emissions
performance of all the Big Six automakers." In fact, if Ford were a
country, it would be the 10th largest global warming polluter
worldwide, behind Italy.

Amazingly, despite the company's recent greenwashing PR campaign, its
record has actually worsened. According to Ford's own sustainability
report, between 2003 and 2004, the company's US fleet-wide fuel
economy decreased and its CO2 emissions went up. Ford is also lobbying
to prevent the U.S. and state governments from improving the
situation: the company has lobbied against lawmakers' efforts to
increase fuel economy standards at the national level and is also
involved in a lawsuit against California's fuel economy standards.

Who's working on it:
** Bluewater Action Network
** Energy Action
** Jumpstart Ford, a coalition of Global Exchange, Rainforest Action
Network and the Ruckus Society

KBR (KELLOGG, BROWN, AND ROOT): A SUBSIDIARY OF HALLIBURTON
CORPORATION

President and CEO: CEO Andrew Lane
Contact the Corporation: KBR
601 Jefferson Street
Houston, TX 77002
Phone. (713) 753-2000

Human rights violations: Overcharging and providing unnecessary
services on taxpayer's dollar, bribery, exploiting third country
nationals

KBR is a private company that provides military support services.
Notorious for its questionable bookkeeping, dishonest billing
practices with US taxpayer dollars, and no-bid contracts, KBR has
violated human rights on the U.S. dollar.

KBR's dubious accounting in Iraq came to light in December 2003 when
Pentagon auditors questioned possible overcharges for imported
gasoline. Former employees have testified about KBR's billing for $100
laundry bags and $45 cases of soda, failing to provide simple
mechanical parts such as oil filters, feeding soldiers outdated
rations, and charging for meals never served. In June 2005, a
previously secret Pentagon audit criticized $1.4 billion in
"questioned" and "unsupported" expenditures.

However, given KBR's history, this is no surprise. In 2002 the company
paid $2 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit that accused
KBR of inflating contract prices at Fort Ord, California. In 2000, the
GAO scrutinized KBR for overcharging and providing unnecessary
services in the Balkans. Bribes to local officials (such as in
Nigeria) or subcontractors also appear to be part of KBR's modus
operandi.

Many third-country national (TCN) laborers have been hired by KBR to
"rebuild" Iraq. Generally hailing from impoverished Asian countries,
they have unexpectedly become part of the largest civilian workforce
ever hired in support of a U.S. war.

An intricate network of subcontractors who recruit and employ most
TCNs lowers the prime contractors' costs and hinders any oversight by
contract auditors. The laborers often take out usurious loans to pay a
finder's fee for the overseas jobs. Once abroad, the workers find
themselves with few protections and uncertain legal status. TCNs often
sleep in crowded trailers and wait outside in scorching heat to eat
"slop." Many lack adequate medical care and put in hard labor seven
days a week, 10 hours or more a day. Few receive proper workplace
safety equipment or adequate protection from incoming mortars and
rockets.

KBR is now accused of perpetuating the same system in areas destroyed
or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Reports have surfaced about KBR's
subcontractors exploiting TCN's (this time, Latinos), many of whom are
unpaid, unfed, living in squalid conditions and suffering from
untreated ailments.

Who's working on it:
** Corpwatch
** Center for Corporate Policy
** Halliburton Watch
** Houston Global Awareness

LOCKHEED MARTIN

CEO: Robert Stevens
Contact the corporation: Lockheed Martin Corp
6801 Rockledge Dr
Bethesda, MD 20817
Phone: (301) 897-6000

Human Rights Abuses: War profiteering, warmongering

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest military contractor. In 2003,
the year of the Iraq invasion, the company held $21.9 billion in
Pentagon contracts. Providing satellites, planes, missiles, and other
lethal high tech items to the Pentagon keeps the profits rolling in.
Since 2000, the year Bush was elected, the company's stock value has
tripled.

A large company like Lockheed Martin has the ability to shape it's the
business environment, and marketing war is very beneficial to the
bottom line. As the Center for Corporate Policy
(www.corporatepolicy.org) notes, it is no coincidence that Lockheed VP
Bruce Jackson -- who helped draft the Republican foreign policy
platform in 2000 -- is a key player at the Project for a New American
Century, the intellectual incubator of the Iraq war.

Lockheed Martin is not the only defense contractor that goes behind
the scenes to influence public policy, but it is one of the worst.
Stephen J. Hadley, who now has Condoleeza Rice's old job as Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs, was formerly a partner
in a big DC law firm representing Lockheed Martin. He is only one of
the beneficiaries of the so-called revolving door between the military
industries and the "civilian" national security apparatus. These war
profiteers -- the makers of the Trident missile; aircraft like the
F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-22 and the C-130 Hercules, as well as
high tech space based military components like the DSCS-3 satellite --
have a profound and illegitimate influence our country's international
policy decisions.

Who's working on it:
** Brandywine Peace Community
** Center for Corporate Policy
** War Resisters League

MONSANTO

CEO: Hugh Grant
Contact the Corporation: c/o Kathleen Klepfer, Chief of Staff for Hugh
Grant
800 North Lindbergh Boulevard
St. Louis, MO 63167
Phone:(314) 694-1000
Fax: (314) 694-8394
kathleen.lee.klepfer@monsanto.com

Human Rights Abuses: Displacement, health violations, and child labor

Monsanto is, by far, the largest producer of genetically engineered
seeds in the world, dominating 70% to 100% of the market for crops
such as soy, cotton, wheat, and corn. The company is also one of the
most egregious abusers of the human rights of food sovereignty, access
to land, and health.

Monsanto promotes mono-culture -- the practice of covering large
swaths of land with a single crop. This practice pushes out
subsistence farms and destroys arable land by drastically decreasing
soil and water quality for years, draining soil of key nutrients. The
company also undercuts food prices by flooding countries like Mexico,
India, and Brazil with cheap, genetically modified foods, resulting in
the displacement of millions of farm workers, who are forced to
migrate to cities or work as landless peasants or share croppers.

Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate,
marketed as "Roundup." Roundup is sold to small farmers as a
pesticide, yet harms crops in the long run as the toxins accumulate in
the soil. Plants eventually become infertile, forcing farmers to
purchase genetically modified Roundup Ready Seed, a seed that resists
the herbicide. This creates a cycle of dependency on Monsanto for both
the weed killer and the only seed that can resist it. Both products
are patented, and sold at inflated prices.

Roundup Ultra, a version of the pesticide that is unavailable on the
commercial market, is regularly employed in fumigation of areas of
illicit crop production. However, as it destroys fields of drug
plants, it also destroys subsistence crops like banana, palm heart,
and coffee. Exposure to the pesticide is documented to cause cancers,
skin disorders, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and damage to
the gastrointestinal and nervous systems.

According to the India Committee of the Netherlands and the
International Labor Rights Fund, Monsanto also employs child labor. In
India, an estimated 12,375 children work in cottonseed production for
farmers paid by Indian and multinational seed companies, including
Monsanto. A number of children have died or became seriously ill due
to exposure to pesticides.

Monsanto's yearly profits are $5.4 billion.

Who's working on it:
** Food First
** GM Watch
** GRAIN
** India Resource Center
** Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
** Landless Workers' Movement
** Organic Consumers' Association
** Via Campesina

NESTLE USA

CEO: Joe Weller
Contact the Corporation: Nestle USA
800 N. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91203
Phone: 818-549-6000
Fax: 818-549-6952

Human Rights Violations: Abusive child labor, repression of worker
rights, aggressive marketing of harmful products, violation of
national health and environmental laws

There's a secret in the chocolate industry, and once people find out
about it, their chocolate doesn't taste as sweet any more: Much of the
chocolate eaten all over the world is made of cocoa beans that have
been harvested by illegal child labor, including child slave labor.

The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the
chocolate industry, because more than forty percent of the world's
cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State
Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working
in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in what's been described as the
worst form of child labor. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported
that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from
impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West
African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each. Just this summer, the
International Labor Rights Fund and a Birmingham law firm filed a
class-action lawsuit against Nestle and several of its suppliers on
behalf of former child slaves.

Nestle is the target of this lawsuit and is singled out by corporate
campaigners, because it is the third largest buyer of cocoa from the
Ivory Coast, has processing, storage and export facilities there, and
is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on
the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other
chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced
child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.

Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant
formula in poor countries the 1980s, which may have led to the deaths
of countless children who did not receive the nutrients that would
have been present in breast milk. Because of this practice, Nestle is
still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its
infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized
more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was
contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX), a
component in the packaging's ink. It turned out the company knew about
the contamination for months, but did not recall the formula.

Additionally, violations of labor rights are reported from Nestle
factories in numerous countries. In Colombia, Nestle replaced the
entire factory staff with lower-wage workers and did not renew the
collective employment contract. In Cabuyao Laguna, Philippines, a 3-
year strike against Nestle was partially precipitated by Nestle's
refusal to include the retirement benefits of the workers in the
collective bargaining agreement, despite the Supreme Court's ruling in
favor of the workers. The company has brutally attempted to break the
strike; this year, two unionists, including prominent labor leader
Diosdado Fortuna, have been murdered.

Who's working on it:
** Global Exchange
** International Baby Milk Action
** International Labor Rights Fund

PHILIP MORRIS USA and PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL (a.k.a. the Altria
Group Inc.)

Chairman and CEO: Louis C. Camilleri
Contact the Corporation: Philip Morris USA
Consumer Response Center
P.O. Box 26603
Richmond, Virginia 23261
http://www.philipmorrisusa.com
Email form:
http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/contact_us/contact_us_by_email.asp?a
ction=init
Philip Morris International
Consumer Service
Case Postale 1171
1001 Lausanne, Switzerland
http://www.philipmorrisinternational.com

Human Rights Abuse: aggressively marketing lethal products

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco is the second
major cause of preventable death in the world. Nearly five million
lives per year are claimed by the tobacco industry, whose products
results in premature death for half the people who use them. Among
tobacco companies, Philip Morris is notorious. Now called Altria, it
is the world's largest and most profitable cigarette corporation and
maker of Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament, Basic and many other
brands of cigarettes. Philip Morris is also a leader in pushing
smoking with young people around the world. Philip Morris has
consistently misled consumers about the dangers of its products.
Documents uncovered in a lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry by
the state of Minnesota showed that Philip Morris and other leading
tobacco corporations knew very well of the dangers of tobacco products
and the addictiveness of nicotine, yet they continued to deny these
realities in public until the internal company documents were brought
to light. To this day, Philip Morris deceives consumers about the harm
of its products by offering light, mild and low-tar cigarettes that
give consumers the illusion that these brands are "healthier" than
traditional cigarettes. Philip Morris has actively targeted the
world's youth by researching smoking patterns and attitudes and
targeting youth as potential customers. Marlboro cigarettes are the
top brand for youth in the United States. Although the company says it
doesn't want kids to smoke, it spends millions of dollars every day
marketing and promoting cigarettes to youth. Overseas, it has even
hired underage Marlboro girls to distribute free cigarettes to other
children and sponsored concerts where cigarettes were handed out to
minors.

As anti-tobacco campaigns and government regulations are slowing
tobacco use in Western countries, Philip Morris has aggressively moved
into developing country markets, where smoking and smoking-related
deaths are on the rise. According to a study by the Harvard School of
Public Health, tobacco's killing fields are shifting to the developing
world and Eastern Europe, where most of the world's smokers now live.
Preliminary numbers released by the World Health Organization predict
global deaths due to smoking-related illnesses will nearly double by
2020, with more than three-quarters of those deaths in the developing
world. Meanwhile, Philip Morris' profits continue to grow. In the
third quarter of 2005 alone, Altria's net revenue was $25 billion, up
from 2004 in large part due to the high performance of Philip Morris
USA and Philip Morris International.

Who's working on it:
** Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
** Essential Action
** Framework Convention Alliance
** World Health Organization

PFIZER

CEO: William Steere
Contact the Company: Pfizer
235 East 42nd Street
NY, NY 10017-5755
Phone: 212-573-1000 (switchboard)
Fax: 212-573-7851
Jim Brigaitis, Team Leader Diflucan
Phone: 212-573-7789
Fax: 212-573-3253

Human Rights Abuse: The denial of universal access to HIV/AIDS
medicines

Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world,
representing 11% of the world market, and earning more than $4 billion
dollars in profit per year in the world's most profitable industry. It
is also one of the worst abusers of the human right of universal
access to HIV/AIDS medicine.

In addition to Viagra, Zoloft, Zithromax, and Norvasc Pfizer produces
the anti-retroviral drug fluconazole under the name Diflucan, and
sells it at prices that poor people with AIDS cannot afford. The
company refuses to grant generic licenses of fluconazole to
governments in countries like Brazil, South Africa, or Dominican
Republic, where patients are forced to pay $20 per weekly pill, though
the average national wage is only $120 per month.

Instead of helping eradicate the world's worst pandemic in history,
Pfizer chooses to follow World Trade Organization intellectual
property rules and refuses to grant governments licenses to make
generic, accessible AIDS drugs available to their citizens.

Pfizer also values shareholder profits over safety standards. In
Europe in 2005, it withdrew from scientific studies of a new class of
AIDS drugs called CCR5 inhibitors, choosing instead to rush its own
untested CCR5 inhibitor onto the European market without full
information about the drug's side effects..

Who's working on it:
** ACTUP: New York, Philadelphia, Paris
** Consumer Project on Technology
** Doctors Without Borders
** Generics Now
** Health GAP
** Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
** Treatment Action Campaign

SUEZ-LYONNAISE DES EAUX (SLDE)

CEO: Mr. Gerard Mestrallet
Contact the Corporation: Suez
16, rue de la Ville-l 'Eveque
75383 PARIS Cedex 08
France
Phone: +33 1 40 06 64 00
gerard.mestrallet@suez.com

Human rights abuse: Water privatization

The privatization of water has had a disastrous impact on the human
right to clean water, and the French company Suez is the worst
perpetrator of this abuse. The company's billions of dollars in profit
come at the expense of poor people living in countries where thousands
lack access to potable water, and, because of private water contracts,
are also facing skyrocketing water prices.

Suez goes by many names around the world -- Ondeo, SITA, and others --
to mask its worldwide net of controversial activities. But no sleight
of hand can hide the fact that Suez, which is one of the largest water
companies in the world, has been a leader in turning the human right
to water into an unaffordable luxury. According to Public Citizen,
Suez has raised water rates, cut off the water of people unable to
pay, refused to extend services to poverty-stricken neighborhoods, and
then threatened legal action when contracts are terminated.

For example, in Manila, Philippines, after seven years of water
privatization under a Suez company (Maynilad Water) contract, studies
showed that water rates increased in some neighborhoods by 400 to 700
percent. These studies also showed that the negligence of the company
resulted in cholera and gastroenteritis outbreaks that killed six
people and severely sickened 725 in Manila's Tondo district.

In Argentina, Suez mixed companies have refused to make promised
investments in the water infrastructure, which has resulted in serious
water pollution problems. They also charge high consumer rates and cut
off water access for citizens unable to pay, leaving those most in
need without access to a life-sustaining natural resource.

In Bolivia, a Suez company (Aguas de Illimani) left 200,000 people
without access to water and caused a revolt when it tried to charge
between $335 and $445 to connect a private home to the water supply.
Countless people were unable to afford this charge in a country whose
yearly per capita GDP is $915.

Unfortunately, the IMF and World Bank are playing a key role in
pushing water privatization all over the world. Many countries have
been required to open up their water supply to private companies as a
condition for receiving IMF loans, and the World Bank has approved
millions of dollars in loans for the privatization of water systems.

Who's working on it:
** Corporate Accountability International
** Food and Water Watch
** Stop Suez

WAL-MART

CEO: Lee Scott
Contact the Corporation: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
Tel. (479) 273-4000
Email corporate headquarters:
http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=221

Human Rights Abuses: worker rights violations, labor discrimination,
union busting

Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the world. It owns 5,100 stores
worldwide and employs 1.3 million workers in the United States and
400,000 abroad, as well as a millions more in the factories of its
suppliers. Because of the company's enormity, its business model has a
huge influence on workers and businesses around the world; so far Wal-
Mart has used that influence to ruthlessly drive down costs as a means
of making profit, violating a vast array of human rights and labor
rights along the way.

Many people have heard of the way that Wal-Mart steamrolls its way
into every possible town, destroying local supermarkets and countless
small businesses. We have also heard about Wal-Mart's long track
record of worker abuse, from forced overtime to sex discrimination to
illegal child labor to relentless union busting. Wal-Mart also
notoriously fails to provide health insurance to over half of its
employees, who are then left to rely on themselves or taxpayers, who
provide for a portion of their healthcare needs through government
Medicaid.

Less well known is the fact that Wal-Mart maintains its low price
level by allowing substandard labor conditions at the overseas
factories producing most of its goods. The company continually demands
lower prices from its suppliers, who, in turn, make more outrageous
and abusive demands on their workers in order to meet Wal-Mart's
requirements. In September 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund
filed a lawsuit on behalf of Wal-Mart supplier sweatshop workers in
China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland. The workers
were denied minimum wages, forced to work overtime without
compensation, and were denied legally mandated health care. Other
worker rights violations that have been found in foreign factories
that produce goods for Wal-Mart include locked bathrooms, starvation
wages, pregnancy tests, denial of access to health care, and workers
being fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights.

Additionally, nearly 70% of Wal-Mart's goods are made in factories in
China, a country where garment workers are often kept under 24-hour-a-
day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory
conditions. The Chinese government does not allow independent human
rights groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions
have been crushed. Wal-Mart refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors
and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its
contractors' facilities.

Who's working on it:
** Wal-Mart Watch
** ACORN
** Business Ethics International
** Sierra Club
** Wake-Up Wal-Mart
** International Labor Rights Fund
** United Students Against Sweatshops