Like people that make clothes sold in the UK, or miners who mine metals that end up in phones, or women who burn their hands shelling cashew nuts sold in supermarkets, or communities living next to oil fields.  

51 of the world's 100 biggest economies are Multinational Corporations (MNCs)- they are richer, and often more powerful than governments. However these companies lack any real accountability for the way they treat communities and the environment because they have outgrown existing forms of legislation and regulation. We think the UK government has the responsibility protect the rights of poor people and the environment from UK-based multinational companies through legislation.

Below are some example of human rights and environmental damage that MNCs carry out regularly.

Trade has the potential to lift developing countries out of poverty if they are allowed to compete on fair terms and their workers are treated fairly.

Gas Flaring in Nigeria

The Niger Delta is one of the world’s 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems and is home to some 31 million people. It is also the location of massive oil deposits, which have been extracted for decades by the government of Nigeria and by multinational oil companies. In Nigeria companies including Shell, Total and ExxonMobil make profits from huge oil reserves but 70% of the population, 84 million people, still live on less than US$1 a day.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) describes the region as suffering from “administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict.” This poverty, and its contrast with the wealth generated by oil, has become one of the world’s starkest and most disturbing examples of the “resource curse”.

Oil has generated an estimated US$600 billion since the 1960s. Despite this, many people in the oil-producing areas have to drink, cook with and wash in polluted water, and eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins. Local communities in areas with oil live alongside non-stop gas flaring where the gas from oil extraction is burnt off into the atmosphere, which causes sickness, local pollution and contributes to Climate Change.

Gas flaring by oil companies in Nigeria is greater than anywhere else in the world despite the 20-year old regulations to ban it. This marks a serious but unnecessary contribution climate change. By 2002 flaring in Nigeria has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa combined. Climate Change already impacts the region through food insecurity and the rising costs of extreme weather damage. Flares also contain toxins, such as benzene, which pollute the air. Local people who live and work alongside the flares with no protection complain of asthma, bronchitis, the intense heat and roaring noise from the flares.

According to Amnesty International, "The people of the Niger Delta have seen their human rights undermined by oil companies that their government cannot – or will not – hold to account. They have been systematically denied access to information about how oil exploration and production will affect them, and they are repeatedly denied access to justice." 

The creation of a UK Commission for Business, Human Rights and the Environment will create a precedent for Europe based companies to be held accountable for their actions abroad in the country they are registered in and provide access to justice for the poorest people in the world.

For more information please go to:

www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/lessons_not_learned.pdf

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR44/017/2006

Kenyan Tea Industry

The British famously love their tea, brewing 165 million cups a day – an astonishing 60 billion cups a year.2. But according to a recent report by War on Want, A Bitter Cup, tea producers receive less than 1% of the cost of tea in the UK. A tea picker in Kenya earns just 1p for every £1.60 box of tea sold in the UK.

Tea workers in Kenya earn on average less than £40 a month – less than a living wage. A survey conducted by the ILO and WoW concluded that in order to pay for adequate food, shelter, travel, medical costs and school fees, Kenyans need 10,000KES (£79.03) a month to survive, which is twice what they currently receive.

Rising global food prices over the last few years has resulted in families not being able to afford to feed their families adequately. It is estimated that 60% of tea-pickers children are underweight and a significant proportion of this figures suffer from malnutrition.

Tea-pickers are employed on a day to day basis with no contract or security. This allows the employers to have a flexible workforce to meet the demands of the market but at the cost of plunging families into deeper poverty when there is little work. Factory workers generally get a better deal but the factory owners are still keen to keep the majority of workers on temporary contracts so that they are not eligible for employment benefits such as sick pay, holiday pay and maternity pay. Under Kenyan law, a worker is entitled to a permanent job after 3 months. To avoid this, factory owners lay off temporary works just before the 3 months and then immediately re-employ them.

“I have worked as a casual worker in the factory for the last 10 years. I sign a contract of three months for  very new engagement with the factory.”

The work itself also comes with dangers. Tea pickers are on their feet all day with heavy baskets on their backs, often on uneven terrain and in harsh weather conditions. Injuries are common, as are respiratory and water-borne diseases.There is often exposure to pesticides and insecticides, which the ILO cites as one of the major health and safety hazards tea workers face.

We are campaigning with War on Want through the CORE Coalition to call for an independent UK Commission for Business, Human Rights and the Environment. This would have the power to hold UK based companies and their suppliers operating abroad more transparent and accountable.

See http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/A%20Bitter%20Cup.pdf for more information.

Campaign Objectives and Goals

There are 3 objectives which have defined our Corporate Accountability campaign since the beginning of the Big Dress.

Accountable – Broader responsibilities for directors of companies so that if they do not take al the necessary steps possible to limit the negative socil and environmental impacts of their businesses they are legally accountable for the damage they cause.

(Directors duties)

Careful – Allowing communities harmed by UK companies’ overseas operation to bring cases against them in the UK, if justice fails them in the country in which an abuse took place. (access to justice)

Transparent – Companies should report annually on their global social, human rights and environmental impact to clear standards with the effectiveness of this monitored.  (reporting)

1. Greater transparency of business operations
2. Better accountability of businesses for their impacts on people and the environment
3. Improved access to justice for victims of harmful corporate conduct

Currently we are campaigning for the creation of a UK Commission for Business, Human Rights and the Environment, working towards the access to justice goal which was not addressed in the Company’s Act. This commission would seek to make UK MNCs more accountable for their actions by investigating any complaints made against them and their subsidiaries for abuses abroad, and providing abused workers with access to justice in the UK or Europe from the MNC in question. Crucially, it would have the authority to order compensation for victims, as well as other forms of redress.

Company’s Act

The SPEAK Network, as part of the Corporate Responsibility (CORE) Coalition, was instrumental in securing changes to the Companies Act, helping to improve the impacts of UK companies on people and the environment. As a result:

1. company directors must now consider the environmental and social impacts of their decisions
2. the largest public companies have to annually report on their environmental and social impacts

BUT access to justice for victims of corporate abuse hasn’t yet been rectified so that is why we, as part of the CORE Coalition, are now focusing on it!

So what is the Big Dress?

The Big Dress is a creative petition made out of thousands of squares of fabric with messages calling for greater legal accountability for MNCs. The idea grew out of the desire to use SPEAKs creative gifts in campaigning nationally and locally, but no-one would have dreamed that it would have turned into the world’s biggest dress which doubles as a marquee!