A news media group - APN News & Media (ANM) - has been nominated as a "finalist" in the annual Roger Award for New Zealand's worst transnational corporation.The 2007 finalists are:
ANZ
APN News & Media (ANM)
British American Tobacco (BAT)
GlaxoSmithKline
Independent Liquor
Pike River Coal
Spotless
Telecom
The criteria for judging is by assessing the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:
Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural
imperialism.
People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism. Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals.
Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade
The judges are: Laila Harre, from Auckland, national secretary of the National Distribution Union and former Cabinet Minister; Anton Oliver, of France, former All Black and environmentalist; Geoff Bertram, from Wellington, Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, from Christchurch, president of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, from Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union and Cee Payne-Harker, from Dunedin, industrial services manager for the NZ Nurses' Organisation and health issues activist.
To celebrate the fact it is 10 years since the first Roger Award event (also held in Christchurch) and that 2008 is election year, CAFCA is holding a conference - Privatisation By Stealth: Why This Discredited Practice Is Still On The Political Agenda - on that same day (March 16), to precede the Roger Award event.
The Roger Award is organised by CAFCA and GATT Watchdog and is supported by Christian World Service.
- Inquiries - Murray Horton, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA): cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
- CAFCA website: http://www.cafca.org.nz/
