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From: John Richard, INTERNET:jrichard@essential.org
Sender: o-imap@CHUMBLY.MATH.MISSOURI.EDU
To: Patricia Dines, 73652,1202
Date: Sun, Dec 22, 1996, 10:57 PM
Subject: MULTINATIONAL MONITOR: THE TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 1996
Embargoed For Release For More Information
Monday, December 23, 1996 Please Contact:
PLEASE OBSERVE EMBARGO Rob Weissman at
(202) 387-8030 or
Russell Mokhiber at
(202) 737-1680
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR ANNOUNCES TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 1996
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Caterpillar, Daishowa, Daiwa,
Disney, Freeport, Gerber, Mitsubishi, Seagram's, and Texaco are
the Ten Worst Corporations of 1996, according to an article in
the December 1996 issue of Multinational Monitor magazine.
Multinational Monitor's ten worst list, now in its
ninth year, is designed to highlight the most egregious acts of
corporate crime, violence and other wrongdoing.
Russell Mokhiber, the author of the article, chastises the
Clinton administration for "failing to confront corporate crime
and violence head on" and for failing to "admit to an ugly
reality -- corporate crime and violence inflicts far more damage
on society than all street crime combined."
Mokhiber points out that while the FBI reports burglary and
robbery combined cost the nation about $4 billion in 1995, white-
collar fraud, generally committed by educated people of means,
costs at least 50 times as much -- $200 billion a year, according
to very conservative estimates.
Similarly, while the FBI puts the street homicide rate at
about 24,000 a year, the Labor Department points out that more
than twice that number -- 56,000 Americans -- die every year on
the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung, brown
lung, asbestosis and various occupationally-induced cancers.
The Ten Worst Corporations for 1996 are:
* ADM, for committing price-fixing crimes that cost
consumers $500 million. [PD NOTE: an ag corporation]
* Caterpillar, for anti-union practices.
* Daishowa Inc., for clearcutting timber areas in Alberta,
Canada, then suing a citizen group in Canada for trying to bring
public attention to the company's destructive activity.
* Daiwa Bank Ltd., for committing financial crimes that
resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in customer losses.
* Disney, for hiring sweatshop contractors in the Third
World, including Burma and Haiti, to sew Disney garments.
* Freeport McMoRan, for polluting areas near one of its
copper mining sites in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
* Gerber for pressuring Guatemala to exempt baby food
products from the country's tough infant formula law.
* Mitsubishi, for destroying tropical rainforests around the
world and for tolerating widespread sexual harassment at
Mitsubishi Motor's Illinois facility.
* Seagram's, for lifting a 48-year old voluntary ban on
broadcast advertising of distilled spirits.
* Texaco, for mistreating minority employees, and then
seeking to destroy documents to cover up the episode.
Multinational Monitor, founded by consumer advocate
Ralph Nader in 1980, is a monthly magazine that focuses on issues
of multinational corporate power.
- end -
Russell Mokhiber
Essential Information | domain:
russell@essential.org