Activism

Between 400 and 500 protestors took to the streets of a provincial capital to protest a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant backed by China’s leading state-run oil company, in the latest instance of popular discontent over an environmental threat in a major city.

The protest, against a $5.5 billion ethylene plant under construction by PetroChina reflected a surge in environmental awareness by urban, middle-class Chinese determined to protect their health and the value of their property. A similar protest last year, against a Taiwanese-financed petrochemical venture left that project in limbo.

The recent protest, which was peaceful, was organized through Web sites, blogs and cellphone text messages, illustrating how some Chinese are using digital technology to start civic movements, which are usually banned by the police. Organizers also used text messages to publicize their cause nationally.

Please click here for the full story. 

Campus activists have traditionally gone after corporate offenders on issues such as fair trade and sweat shops, and the multi-hundred billion dollar growth in school endowments in recent decades is a huge opportunity to change corporate behavior.

Enter the Responsible Endowments Coalition (REC), which helps students and other university members to push corporate reform on human rights, environmental responsibility and equal opportunity. AlterNet caught up with REC executive director Morgan Simon to discuss the crucial role that endowments can play in forcing economic change.

Please click here to read the interview.

Greenpeace and more than 100 other environmental groups have denounced projects for burying industrial greenhouse gases, exposing splits in the green movement about whether such schemes can slow global warming.

Many governments and some environmental organizations such as the WWF want companies to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the exhausts of power plants and factories and then entomb them in porous rocks as one way to curb climate change.

To read the full article click here.  

The company at the centre of an environmental debacle that killed hundreds of ducks at an oil sands tailings pond north of Fort McMurray has taken out full-page newspaper advertisements apologizing for the incident.

The open-letter style ad comes less than a week after reports of birds seen on a toxic waste water pond at the company's Aurora mine site.

To read the full story, please click here

The International Labor Rights Forum is hosting the Mother’s Day Roses Raffle to offer people throughout the United States a chance to send a special gift to a loved one while also advancing the rights of women in the Latin American rose industry.

There are 40,000 flower workers in Ecuador and over 100,000 in Colombia, working to grow, harvest, and package the roses and carnations sold in the United States. More than half of them are women who commonly face labor rights violations including sexual harassment, pesticide-related illnesses, and forced pregnancy testing. Proceeds from the raffle will support the legal, health and safety, and advocacy work done through ILRF's Fairness in Flowers Campaign.

For more information, please click here.

A report released by EarthRights International (ERI) documents the ongoing human rights abuses, including the use of forced labor, in the Yadana pipeline region of southern Burma (Myanmar).

The first in-depth look at conditions in the pipeline region since Chevron Corporation joined the Yadana Project in 2005, the report details Chevron’s role in financing the military regime in Burma and highlights Chevron’s continuing legal liability for abuses associated with the pipeline. Chevron acquired its stake in the pipeline by purchasing Unocal Corporation, shortly after Unocal paid compensation to settle a lawsuit over its own complicity in Yadana Project abuses. Chevron remains the largest U.S. investor in Burma.

Click here for the full report.  

New Voice of Business is working on AB2944, the California Business Leadership and Innovation Statute, with an organization called “B Lab,” in the effort to add California to the list of 31 states that currently have “constituency statutes” like AB2944 on their books.

These statutes give companies, executives and directors the option to include the interests of various stakeholders, in addition to shareholders, in their decision making process. There is nothing mandatory about this, companies may continue to only consider shareholders’ short term interests if they choose to. It simply gives companies the option to look more broadly without fear of shareholder retribution.

Something like this was introduced in the California Assembly in 2004 but did not go anywhere. This is a new time and completely different players are involved. And this time New Voice of Business is helping to lead a campaign to mobilize businesses, business organizations and business people to demonstrate strong business support for this. We are also working to gain the support of the California Chamber along with many other business organizations.

The first hurdle is coming up on April 29th when AB2944 will first be heard by the Assembly Judiciary Committee – and we’d like you to let them know that the business community and public support this.

What you can do right now:
Go to the New Voice of Business website  and download prepared letters of support that have already been addressed to each committee member.

Add your name, business (if applicable), and signature to each letter.

Fax your letter to each Representative (numbers are already on the letters) and to New Voice of Business.

Forward this email to a friend (5 would be terrific) to let them know about this important legislation.

A month from the Judiciary Committee hearing, it goes to the full Assembly and then to the Senate. It will likely go through the end of September before it gets through all the hoops.

We are asking all of our business friends to join the campaign to make California the 32nd state to adopt the constituency statute. This has all the key elements of successful effort:
It will cost you nothing to support this
It will take just a few minutes of your time
It will positively impact California and California business
This is winnable

It clearly demonstrates even further (as we did with AB32 and the Million Solar Roofs campaign) that there are new voices of business in America and California who are saying that the times are changing and that the time for business-as-usual is over.

Sincerely,

Elliot Hoffman
Co-Founder and CEO

Two environmental activists from the climate action group, Plane Stupid Scotland, have climbed onto the roof of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to protest against plans for expansion of Scottish airports.

To read more, please click here

Shareholder activists are encouraged by the high percentage of votes cast in favor of making mutual funds genocide-free.  In a second round of voting on genocide-free investing, 25% of shareholders of Fidelity’s Mid-Cap Fund, 21% of its International Discovery Fund, 22% of its Overseas Fund and 23% of its Canada Fund voted for the genocide-free investing proposal. Similarly, on March 19, 27% of shareholders of Fidelity’s Capital and Income Fund and 28% of its Select Health Care Portfolio Fund voted in favor of the proposal.  The proposal has been submitted to a wide range of other mutual funds with votes scheduled in coming months.

According to industry insiders, it is highly unusual for a social concern to receive such a high percentage of the vote, when opposed by management. Chief among the reasons for these low numbers is the large number of votes that simply follow management’s guidance, including institutional voters, “insider” voters, and many ordinary investors who reflexively check the “vote with management” box. The consistently high vote totals for genocide-free investing suggest that this proposal resonates strongly with shareholders.

More votes on the genocide-free investing proposal will take place on May 14 at shareholders’ meetings for 15 additional Fidelity funds including the $72 billion Contrafund, the $50 billion Diversified International Fund, and the $39 billion Magellan Fund.

For more information please see investorsagainstgenocide.org.

Giant purchasers like Wal-Mart and the States of Ohio and Michigan should implement policies that protect the rights of workers, rather than abuse them, two sweatshop workers told hundreds of people at events throughout the Midwest during a tour that took them to churches, universities, and union halls in 10 cities. The event was co-sponsored by the International Labor Rights Forum and SweatFree Communities.

“Because the United States imports many products from Costa Rica, I want people here, like consumers and governments, to know that their bananas and pineapples are produced in inhumane conditions with very low wages, in total violation of environmental and labor laws, and causing major health problems and other difficulties in life for the workers in these industries,” said Didier Leiton, who spent 18 years picking pineapples and bananas for Del Monte in Costa Rica. Wal-Mart sells Del Monte products in its stores. “The companies don’t pay enough for us to buy food and support our children’s education. We earn less than the minimum wage.”  

The workers joined human rights and labor organizations in calling on Wal-Mart and Governors Ted Strickland and Jennifer Granholm to address ongoing problems by enforcing policies that require fair wages, a healthy workplace, and a voice on the job. Specifically, the groups invited the Governor to join the emerging State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium, which would stop tax dollar support for sweatshops. The States of Pennsylvania and Maine are currently leading the Consortium effort.

To read the full release, please click here .