Blog of Q's

Well, jes put yer dawgs up here on the table and lemme see what yew think about this here problem.

… Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle and CSR leader Timberland …
teamed up to address the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Cheadle, who earned
his Oscar nomination for “Hotel Rwanda” depicting a similar
humanitarian crisis in Africa, designed a black leather boot with a
picture of Africa as well as the slogan “Stomp Out Genocide” on the
sole of the shoe …
(From csrwire.com, 10/26/05)

Free Enterprise Action Fund Calls on Calvert
Investments and KLD Research to Withdraw Sponsorship of ‘Socially
Responsible’ Conference Featuring Speaker Who Advocated Violence
Against Fund Managers

Washington DC (PR WEB) October 10, 2005 – Action Fund Management LLC
(AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF)(www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com),
asked Calvert Investments and KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. to
withdraw their sponsorship of an upcoming “socially responsible”
investor conference featuring a speaker who advocated violence against
the principals of the FEAF.

….One of the scheduled speakers is Max Keiser, the founder and CEO of
KarmaBanque. In a September 28 podcast originally posted on the web
site KarmaBanque.com, Keiser denounced the FEAF as an “appeaser to
global warming and climate change terrorists” and said, with respect to
the principals of the FEAF, “I think the kids, the children of these
people, should knife them.” (1)

Some Question Structure of Giving, Which Allows Company More Flexibility
By David A. Vise, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, October 12, 2005; Page D04

Google Inc. is launching an unusual corporate philanthropy campaign
that will focus on fighting poverty and disease in Africa, addressing
energy and environmental issues, and assisting nonprofit groups by
giving away free online advertising. Rather than doing all of that through a traditional corporate
foundation, which has certain tax advantages, Google is setting aside
the equivalent of 3 million shares of stock, worth more than $900
million, to fund an entity called Google.org. It is separately putting
about $90 million into a newly created Google Foundation, officials
said.
   
By using Google.org for the bulk of its charitable giving, the company
will have greater flexibility in how it deploys the funds since the
affiliate will not be subject to the restrictions imposed on
foundations by the Internal Revenue Service. For example, Google.org
will be able to invest in projects promoting entrepreneurship in Africa
that are off limits for foundations because the programs turn a profit.
It will also support charitable initiatives that spread the use of
technology and could be viewed as questionable for a foundation since
they are closely related to Google’s business.

Shareholder activists said Google’s charitable commitment raises
questions about whether this is an appropriate use of company cash or
whether company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page ought to make
donations to their favorite causes personally. …

Friday, September 23, 2005
…
The
Washington-based U.S. Business and Industry Council, which classifies
itself as “very conservative,” says the White House and the Gang of
Six have formed an alliance that is straying from conservative
principles such as balancing the U.S. budget and protecting domestic
manufacturers.

“We emphatically reject the idea that the only
way we can restore our competitiveness is to reduce our level of
taxation to Third-World levels,” says Alan Tonelson, 52, a research
fellow at the council, which represents about a thousand manufacturers.

From the Financial Times, April 22, 2005. Thanks to Michael Allen for alerting us.

Factory managers in China are becoming increasingly sophisticated at
falsifying worker time cards and payroll documents to disguise
irregularities including underpayment, excessive hours and inadequate
health and safety provision. Auditors estimate that more than half of
factories they see in China are forging some of their records …The
widespread forging of records threatens to undermine the aims of the
corporate social responsibility movement, a response by multinationals
to the concerns of customers, non-governmental organisations and trades
unions about issues including human rights and the environment.
…
The factory manager said he had assigned a team of six employees to
create a paper trail of fake documents for foreign buyers. Some of
these workers punched fake time cards to give the impression that the
stipulations of buyers were being met. One was charged with creating
matching payroll records on the computer.
…
One Hong Kong-owned toy factory even assigned workers to rubbing
falsified time cards in dirt to make them look genuine … Some
factories coach their employees ahead of auditors’ visits on how to
answer their questions. One sign posted in a footwear factory in
Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, and obtained by an
auditor reminds managers of the various weekly working hours required
by different buyers. “Please educate the workers well to avoid telling
the client the truth,” it says.

A document used in October 2003 to coach workers at a factory in
Huizhou, another city in Guangdong, warned staff that the factory had
received notice that Liz Claiborne representatives would be coming for
an audit the following Tuesday. “All departments and all work places
should organise a training for workers to prepare for this,” it said,
warning that “workers should not be allowed to let the buyers know that
we have given prior training to workers based on the specifics of the
workers’ interview”.
…
While persuading most auditors that his records were genuine was not
hard, said the Guangdong factory manager observed by the FT, workers
were harder to control. “I just stand outside the door and pray to God”
during worker interviews, the manager added.

Every year, the Wall Street Journal and the
Heritage Foundation publish the Economic
Freedom Index. It is all about good governance. They plot every country in
the world, and there is a perfect curve between governance and economic
performance…if governments don’t play their role in creating the foundation of
good governance, I don’t think we can create the market solution.

Two
other observations from this conference if I may; profit was not a dirty word.
And it is in many UN forums and others with campaigning NGOs. They seem to be
almost afraid of a relationship with business, and profit is dirty somehow. The
other thing that struck me is, if we succeed in bringing the least developed
countries out of poverty, and you look back in history, I think you will find
that there was a very unique relationship that developed between the private
sector, NGOs and national governments that made it all possible. I am not sure
how much the UN plays a role in that though…

By ROBERT B. REICH (New York Times, February 28, 2005)

… The problem is, the choices we make in the market don’t fully
reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn’t want our
community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall)
yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com. In addition, we may
not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn’t directly
at stake. I don’t like what’s happening to airline workers, but I still
try for the cheapest fare I can get.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers
in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social
choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with
more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance,
for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and
services. My inner consumer won’t like that very much, but the worker
in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the
minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees
to organize and negotiate better terms.

I wouldn’t go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble
free trade with China and India – that would cost me as a consumer far
too much – but I’d like the government to offer wage insurance to ease
the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I’d support labor standards that
make trade agreements a bit more fair. …

From The Wall Street Journal Online, February 25, 2005 1:22 p.m. EST  (subscription may be necessary)
Associated Press, February 25, 2005 1:22 p.m.

LOVELAND, Colo. — Nearly 20 workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. voted
against union representation Friday, rejecting a proposal that would
have established the first union inside any of the retailer’s stores in
the country. …

Earlier this month, the company said it would close a store in Quebec
because of what company officials called “unreasonable demands” by
workers trying to negotiate the first-ever union contract with the
retailer.

In 2000, 11 workers at the meatpacking department in a Wal-Mart in
Jacksonville, Texas, voted to be represented by the UFCW. Shortly
afterward, Wal-Mart eliminated the position companywide, insisting the
move wasn’t related to the election. The Bentonville, Ark.-based chain,
has more than 5,100 locations world-wide.

by Peter Davis (Feb. 9, 2005)

… Despite varied attempts to apply a quasi-scientific approach to the
topic, most corporate responsibility case studies still lack any degree
of intellectual or academic rigour…There are some notable exceptions
to this rule. For example, Shell’s studies of its impacts on its
“fence-line” communities – those close to its oil instillations – are
thorough and insightful. International Alert’s work on the
relationships between companies and conflicts is also thoughtful and
analytical…

To be sure, for some aspects of the corporate responsibility agenda,
[the] quantitative approach works perfectly – environmental factors
such as waste emissions for example…

We are all familiar with the structure of a typical corporate
responsibility “case study”: a brief description of the activity;
quotes from admiring participants; local officials saying how valuable
the event/ investment/ activity was; all accompanied by pictures of
smiling people…

The world of academic social science has produced tomes upon tomes to
enable researchers rigorously to analyse qualitative data…First we
need to know the point of view of a study’s author…Second, case
studies must take into account the views of a true cross-section of
those involved…Third, interviews and the gathering of information
should be as neutral as possible and the questions asked need to be
made explicit in any write-up. This also requires careful consideration
to be given to factors that might prevent people from giving open,
frank and truthful responses – fear of oppression for instance.
Finally, if comparisons are meaningfully to be drawn between different
case studies, then the methodology used needs to be comparable – we
need to know that we are not comparing apples and oranges…

(from cswire.com)
02/10/2005 Press release from: Oracle Corporation

Oracle and Economist Intelligence Unit Announce Results From Corporate Responsibility Survey

… “Executives take a
pretty hard-headed view of corporate responsibility,” said Nigel Holloway, director of executive
services, Americas, at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “They feel strongly that ethical business
conduct helps to sustain their company, but that charitable work and links to NGOs are less central
objectives.”

“Corporate responsibility and accountability have expanded beyond community
involvement and into the boardroom,” said Steven Miranda, vice president of application development
at Oracle.

What amazing irony in that last statement. The full report is at: www.oracle.com/go/?&Src=3695272&Act=5