World's Top Corporate Criminals

Many corporate companies are complicit in violating human rights & the society environment. As the free trade market continues to force forward the World economy, holding corporations accountable for their worst practices becomes clumsy. Unfortunately, corporate companies are working harder than ever to canvas abuses instead of preventing them.

It does not have to be the real world. People can use their investment power to endorse Fair Trade, force the companies to do the right thing, and avoid those that violate human rights and the society environment. In doing so, there is possible to pressure these companies to put people and planet ahead of profits.

Global Exchange has compiled a fresh list this year 2016 “Most Wanted” corporations based on issues like violations of human right, unlivable working conditions, low pay, & voting rights; climate change denial, environmental destruction, & climate change denial, just some of a name.

Four corporations, McDonald’s, Koch Industries, Monsanto & Chevron were on earlier lists but are included once again, as the corporate behavior of these companies has come to egregious levels this year and integrity repeat attention.

These Ten Top Corporate Criminals list is a mentor to what companies like Energy Transfer Partners, Exxon Mobil, H&M and others are doing to blunt human rights and the environmental society.

The Top Corporate Criminal List:-

1. Energy Transfer Partners - the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

2. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) - profiting off of the confinement of American peoples and immigrants.

3. DESA (Desarrollos Energéticos S.A.) - the construction of dams on Indigenous Lenca lands in Honduras.

4. Exxon Mobil – crack down on climate science and lagging action on global warming for decades. 

5. Koch Industries - investing 889 million US dollars to clout the outcome of 2016 Congressional races from 2015.

6. McDonald's Corporation - illegal pay practices from 2015.

7. PepsiCo - violating worker rights, harming local communities, along with destroying rainforests, Indigenous Peoples’ lands, and causing huge greenhouse gas emissions by draining and burning of peat lands for manufacturing of palm oil.

8. Chevron - its reversal to clean up the Amazon forest.

9. H&M corporate - its decline to ensure the safety of workers in Bangladesh.

10. Monsanto - the development of genetically engineered wheat.

11. Dunkin’ Donuts - Dis-Honorable Mention (Backslider).

1. Energy Transfer Partners

Recently on 3^rd September 2016, viewers of Pacifica’s Democracy Currently! programs were shocked to see private surveillance guards from the Dakota Access Pipeline attacking demonstrators with dogs and pepper spray as they protested the pipeline’s construction.

On August 25, just days before the 3rd September assault, more than 30 national & tribal environmental organizations had joined together to write a letter to President Obama, calling on President Obama to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. And on September 9, minutes following a federal judge declined the Tribe’s request for an injunction to stop construction on the pipeline, the Obama administration made a surprise announcement that it would not give permit the project to continue currently. Sustained action is essential to keep the pipeline from being built.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition

Ø  Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Ø  No DAPL Solidarity

Ø  Respect Our Water

2. Corrections Corporation of America - CCA

As the Center for Media & Democracy has written, “Private prison companies are making a killing off today's broken & prejudiced criminal justice system. Industry giants like CCA rake in billions in profit every year from locking extremely black and brown people in few of the country's most dangerous prisons.”

Global Exchange notices the Obama Administration’s recent directive to stop using private contractors to incarcerate federal prisoners as a small, but significant, move in the right direction. Furthermore, on 29 August, 2016 the Homeland Security Department announced it will re-examine its use of private prison corporations to hold immigration hostages. But added on public pressure is essential to get private contractors out of the prison business generally.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Movement for Black Lives

Ø  Color of Change

Ø  Global Exchange

3. DESA - Desarrollos Energetic S.A.

In March 2013, during a peaceful protest at the dam office Tomas Garcia was shot and killed, and in March 2016 Berta Caceres, an internationally known Lenca woman, and Goldman Prize winner, who had formed the defense of the Gualcarque River, was shot and killed in her home. Harassment of COPINH members continues, as does their struggle to protect their lands.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  COPINH

Ø  Greenpeace

Ø  Friends of the Earth

4. Exxon Mobil

In the late 1970’s Exxon Mobil scientists reported to their own corporate management that carbon dioxide from the world's use of fossil fuels would increase global temperatures drastically and wreak havoc on the planet and its inhabitants.

Take Action with these organizations:

Ø  Greenpeace

Ø  350.org

Ø  Climate Action Network

Ø  CREDO Action

Ø  Rainforest Action Network

Ø  Corporate Accountability International

5. Koch Industries

Koch Industries first appeared on the 2014 and again in 2015 Most Wanted list. In 2015, Global Exchange highlighted Koch’s major funding of the Institute for Energy Research and other lobbying groups to stifle the EPA’s Clean Energy Plan by enlisting a group of conservative governors.

This election year Koch Industries is focusing on Congressional campaigns, aiming to defeat environmentalist candidates like Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. The NY Times reports that "twice as many Koch network dollars will be in play in 2016 than were in play in 2012: $889 million, only slightly less than the $1 billion that the Democratic and Republican national committee’s each expect to spend on the election."

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Corporate Accountability International

Ø  Koch Cash

Ø  Sierra Club

6. McDonald's Corporation

McDonald’s Corporation first appeared on the 2015 Most Wanted list. This is an update

McDonald’s has had a long history of practices such as unpaid overtime, misrecording of timecards to reduce pay, failure to pay the minimum wage, and failure to pay wages owed to employees who quit or were fired. Payscale.com found that in 2016 the average national salary for a non-managerial fast-food worker at McDonald’s was $7.13-$9.14.

In July 2016, one of a several lawsuits filed in recent years accusing McDonald’s of unfair pay practices was granted federal class-action status, which is often the only practical and affordable way to sue when many people are affected.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Fight for $15

Ø  SEIU (Service Employees International Union)

7. PepsiCo

Pepsico is charged with violating worker rights, along with destroying rainforests, harming local communities and Indigenous Peoples’ lands, and causing massive greenhouse gas emissions by draining and burning of peatlands for production of palm oil.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Rainforest Action Network

Ø  International Labor Rights Forum

Ø  Greenpeace

Ø  SumofUS.

8. Chevron

Chevron first appeared on the 2014 Corporate Criminals list. This is an update. While drilling for oil in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest region, Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – operated without concern for the environment or local residents.

On August 18, 2016, a U.S. appeals court blocked the enforcement of a U.S. $9.5-billion judgment against Chevron Corporation brought by a group of Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples. The appeals court ruling upheld a lower court ruling that had found that a pollution judgment against the U.S. oil major in Ecuador was the product of fraud and racketeering, and therefore, unenforceable in the U.S.

Chevron/Texaco has yet to be held accountable for the damage it has caused in the Amazon.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  Amazon Watch

Ø  MoveOn

9. H&M

In May 2016, the International Labor Rights Forum, the Clean Clothes Campaign, the Maquila Solidarity Network and the Worker Rights Consortium issued a joint statement regarding H&M, “An analysis of the latest safety action plans for H&M’s strategic suppliers in Bangladesh reveals that three years after the Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed 1,134 workers producing apparel for global brands and retailers, the majority of H&M’s factories are still not safe."

This means that hundreds of thousands of workers in these factories are at risk of injury or death should a major fire occur.”

Urge H&M to ensure the required safety repairs at its suppliers in Bangladesh so that there are no more Rana Plazas.

Take action with these organizations:

Ø  International Labor Rights Forum

Ø  HM Broken Promises

Ø  ILRF for women’s rights

10.  Monsanto

Monsanto first appeared on the 2014 Corporate Criminals list. On September 14, 2016, the German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer agreed to buy Monsanto for $66 billion dollars. If approved by regulators around the world, it would create a vast conglomerate combining pharmaceuticals, pesticides and “high tech” crops.

Join the growing movement to stop Genetically Engineered wheat.

Take action with this organization:

Ø  Green America

11. Dis-Honorable Mention (Backslider): Dunkin’ Donuts

Dunkin' is the largest retailer of coffee by the cup in America. For over a decade, Dunkin’s espresso beans have been certified Fair Trade – guaranteeing a minimum price per pound of coffee, plus a premium that farmer cooperatives can use to support their community. But all of that is about to change. Dunkin’ recently told the farmers it is ending its purchase of Fair Trade coffee (reported by Green America).  That puts farmers at a big risk. The loss of the premium alone could result in farmers losing $2.4 million per year – funds that go to buying seeds for the next harvest and ensuring that farmers’ children have three meals a day. While Dunkin’ Donuts’ track record on fair trade was good over the last decade, its sudden drop of the fair trade premium for farmers is disappointing. Call on Dunkin’ Donuts to continue to source Fair Trade coffee.

Take Action with this organization:

Ø  Green America.

Courtesy: Global Exchange