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It is never easy choosing the 10 Worst Corporations of the Year – there are always more deserving nominees than we can possibly recognize. One of the greatest challenges facing the judges is the directive not to select repeat recipients from last year's 10 Worst designation.

The no-repeat rule forbids otherwise-deserving companies – like Bayer, Boeing, Clear Channel and Halliburton – from returning to the 10 Worst list in 2004.

Of the remaining pool of price gougers, polluters, union-busters, dictator-coddlers, fraudsters, poisoners, deceivers and general miscreants, we chose the following – presented in alphabetical order – as the 10 Worst Corporations of 2004:

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They list:

1. Abbott Laboratories: Drug-Pricing Chutzpah
2. AIG: Deferred Prosecutions On the Rise
3. Coca-Cola: KillerCoke.org vs. CokeKills.org
4. Dow Chemical: Forgive Us Our Trespasses
5. GlaxoSmithKline: Deadly Depressing
6. Hardee's: Heart Attack on a Bun
7. Merck: 55,000 Dead
8. McWane: Death on the Job

... but then the article is abruptly cut short and the last two are missing...???

Still and all, it's an excellent article. Read it here...

[ 29 January 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

[ 29 January 2005: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

So which 10 Canadian corporations would babblers nominate for the "Worst 10 of 2004"?

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
[QB]Sorry, Boom Boom, both those are both *American* corporations in your article. QB]

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:
lol do we even have 10 corpoartions that aren't an american subsidy? Alcan maybe or Magna

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P&G marriage to Gillette to cost 6,000 jobs
Canadian staff less vulnerable: Analyst

The following article from the Marxist-Lenninist Party of Canada shows why

Organized labor holds a pile of shares in almost all of the corporations above. Nothing effects corporate behavior more than money (I think we can all agree on that.

If you want to do more to these corporations than bitch about their practices, may I suggest that you lobby one of their major shareholders.

That being the Ontario Teachers Union. If the union threatened to dump millions of the stock that they own in any of the corporations that I am listing below, you can rest assured that the corporation will listen. Downward pressure on stocks is the nightmare of all CEOs.

The figures listed below are the Ontario Teachers Unions share numbers. The dollars are in millions. I am just listing those that have been mentioned so far. They own tobacco company shares and other 'evil' shares as well.

Walking the talk indeed.

Alcan Inc. $232.5
GlaxoSmithKline plc $31.6
Molson Inc. $57.0
Magna International Inc. $74.9
Nortel Networks Corp. $168.4
Proctor & Gamble $23.0
Loblaw Companies $36.8

So whats it going to be? Ethical funds with low single digit returns? Or ownership in the evil corporate empire with an 11% return?

But at least Big Labour (ostensibly) works as a democracy of, by and for the membership. There are no such provisions to control Big Business. There, The Almighty Dollar is *all* powerful.

Thus those holding the dollars hold some of the responsibility for the actions of the corporation.

Many of us know that the OTU plan has invested in some highly questionable companies. As Radiorahim pointed out over on the Loblaws thread, though, the teachers do not have control over their plan, rather, the Ontario government does. The Teachers have at times made noises about demanding greater control, although I don't know how frequently or seriously. Unless the Teachers establish control over their own plan, though, its really the Ontario government's ethics that are subject to question not the union members.

On the Loblaws thread, you responded to Radiorahim with some comment about the Teachers' plan having a good return on investment, which didn't really address the control or ethical responsibility points at all.

Anyway, I think this deserves its own thread. I could start it but I would prefer if you did, assuming you are actually interested in exploring this topic rather than just using it as a debating ploy. I'm interested in your opinion whether union members' pension funds ever should be invested according to any criteria other than the highest short-term rate of return to capital.

[ 30 January 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I just feel that people are focussing too much on the corporations themselves when they protest or complain when there could be more effective means of having an impact on them.

Pulling some money out of corporations would have immeasurably more impact on their practises than any group of people screaming and banging tamborines at anti-globalization protests.

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Pulling some money out of corporations would have immeasurably more impact on their practises than any group of people screaming and banging tamborines at anti-globalization protests.

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Not for public awareness. And if you don't have a majority of the public clamoring for changes in business practices, who's going to change them?

[ 30 January 2005: Message edited by: angrymonkey ]

Look to the owners, not the operators and you may begin to have more success.

I wonder how many people who own mutual funds know or even care what those funds are invested in? I dont doubt that many only look at the + or minus at the end of their annual statement.

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Originally posted by C.Morgan:

So whats it going to be? Ethical funds with low single digit returns? Or ownership in the evil corporate empire with an 11% return?

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The funny thing is that actually, ethical funds often have perfectly decent returns. That's where my long-term money, such as it is, is parked and it's doing decently. The concern is more just how ethical they really are; their filters often mean relatively little. And evil corporate empires don't generally have 11% returns, either--at least, not over very much time.

Not that I think that sort of thing is a solution. But there's no reason not to go with it while working towards more serious approaches. My money has to go *somewhere*.

To be honest, I tend to think concentrating on particular instances of vicious corporations rather misses the forest for the trees. The structure of corporate governance and the legal system it's intertwined with predispose corporations to become evil. A good introduction to why would be the movie "The Corporation". A corporation is a machine for generating and exploiting externalities. More to the point would be promoting alternative ownership structures for production. Co-ops and such.

[ 30 January 2005: Message edited by: Rufus Polson ]

I see ideas such as that as being possibly more productive than simply condeming corporations and protesting.

I think a good deal of people do not realize that if they were to track down the shareholders of these companies, that the trail could very well lead right into their own backyard whether through mutual funds or pension plans.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:

Not that I think that sort of thing is a solution. But there's no reason not to go with it while working towards more serious approaches. My money has to go *somewhere*.

To be honest, I tend to think concentrating on particular instances of vicious corporations rather misses the forest for the trees. The structure of corporate governance and the legal system it's intertwined with predispose corporations to become evil. A good introduction to why would be the movie "The Corporation". A corporation is a machine for generating and exploiting externalities. More to the point would be promoting alternative ownership structures for production. Co-ops and such.

[ 30 January 2005: Message edited by: Rufus Polson ]

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