by Tony Palmeri
January 6, 2002
Every January, Multinational Monitor releases a list of the 10 worst multinational corporations of the previous year. Wisconsin's Fox Valley has no shortage of corporations behaving badly. The corporations listed below (most of which were not founded in the Fox Valley nor headquartered here) are aided and abetted by an uncritical corporate media, lapdog and toadying politicians trained to look the other way, and a public school system that produces vastly more passive consumers than active citizens. What Multinational Monitor (MM) editor Robert Weismann said about the MM top 10 can be said equally about those listed below: "They appear in our lives everyday, disguised as 'respectable members of the community.' They deserve public opprobrium, and, in many cases, government sanction."
After listing and describing the top 11 worst in the Fox Valley, I will present a briefer description of those Fox Valley corporations that deserve a "dishonorable mention" for 2001.
The Top 11:
*Wisconsin Central Transporation Corporation: Based in Rosemont, Illinois, this railroad outfit has had one of the worst safety records in the world since 1987. The company's motto ought to be "Speed, Greed, and Bleed." Wisconsin's poet laureate Ellen Kort wrote a poem entitled "Derailment" about Wisconsin Central's 1996 Weyauwega travesty that forced 2,300 people from their homes. Additionally, along with two other corporations (Clariant and Hydrite Chemical--both of which are in the dishonorable mention category), Wisconsin Central has dragged its feet in reimbursing home owners and small businesses evacuated during a December 2000 chemical spill.
It's no wonder Wisconsin Central executives could not find time in all of 2001 to settle with Oshkosh residents. They were too busy negotiating the terms of a merger with the Canadian National Railway Company, itself a poster child for putting profits over people at every rail turn. The merger cost about 100 jobs in Wisconsin.
Finally, it must be pointed out that while it took many years, many tragedies, and threats of government sanction for Wisconsin Central to develop a real interest in security gates at rail crossings, they actively pursued another type of Gates: Microsoft's Bill Gates, who owns 9% of the company.
*Sodexho: In this August press release, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union declared a "victory" against Sodexho, the food service provider behemoth that tried to do on the UW Oshkosh campus what it had done elsewhere. While grassroots union activity and the intervention of UW Oshkosh Chancellor Rick Wells were able to get Sodexho to back off from its union-busting tactics, UW Oshkosh students remain angry at the corporation's behavior.
*Lapham-Hickey Steel: Despite facing an aggressive and hostile anti-union response from management, workers at the Lapham - Hickey plant voted to unionize in March of 2001. In August, the union members voted to strike. They were seeking reasonable pay increases of 3.5% per year, retroactive to May, in a two-year deal. Management wanted to place a freeze on salaries the first year and demanded the right to review whether to increase salaries next year. The company would not budge an inch, and in October the workers voted to return to work unconditionally so they could at least collect unemployment. Winnebago County Labor Council President Steve Dedow says that "the struggle will continue at Lapham."
*Wal-Mart: Is there a city in the United States where this monster has not wreaked havoc? In Oshkosh in 2001, Wal-Mart engaged in secret negotiations to purchase land from New Life Community Church that will be used to build a "superstore." The company took advantage of the fact that the Oshkosh Common Council is either too lazy or too dense to ask serious questions about the consequences of rezoning an area from residential to commercial without even knowing what the potential commercial development might be. Can't wait to see what kinds of infrastructure improvements the city will be expected to make to accommodate the Wal-Mart. One also must wonder what will happen to the existing Wal-Mart in town once it is vacated. When Walgreens vacated Main St., taxapayers ended up footing the bill to raze the building and create a still not yet in existence park on the site.
*The Entire Paper Industry: Seven corporations (Appleton Papers, NCR, Georgia-Pacific, P.H. Glatfelter Company, SCA, Sonoco, and Riverside Paper Company) are responsible for cleaning up from the Fox River the PCBs that were dumped by the industry from 1954-1990. These corporations have spent many years and much money trying to obfuscate the extent of the problem, demonizing the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Natural Resources, and threatening to leave the state if they are forced to pay for a cleanup. Finally in 2001 the EPA and DNR came up with a cleanup proposal that makes the polluters primarily responsible for the cleanup, but the plan has been called inadequate by environmental groups and the cleanup won't even start until 2003. See the Fox River Watch for more details.
*Plexus and SMTC: We hear lots of propaganda these days about the need for Wisconsin to recruit and retain modern, Silicon-Valley style electronics assembly outfits in the state. Neenah's just over 20 year old Plexus Corporation may be that type of "modern" industry, but the manner in which they treat workers is most certainly "old-fashioned." According to the Appleton Post-Crescent of July 15, 2001, Plexus in April laid off more than 100 workers with no advance notice. Two women interviewed in the article were hired almost immediately by another electronics firm, SMTC in Appleton, but then laid off there after barely two months of work. Is this what is meant by the "new economy" in Wisconsin?
*The Gannett Corporation: All of the major Wisconsin newspapers with a Fox Valley reach are now owned by Gannett: The Appleton Post-Crescent, The Green Bay Press Gazette, The Fond du Lac Reporter, The Oshkosh Northwestern, The Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, The Marshfield News Herald , The Sheboygan Press, The Stevens Point Journal, The Wausau Daily Herald, and The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. All of these papers at one time had local ownership or at least connected with their local communities in a meaningful way. They are now corporate clones of each other, cutting costs in every way possible up to and including the [lack of] maintainence of mostly atrocious web sites. In Oshkosh, The Northwestern now frequently runs ads for a funeral home on the front page. A symbol perhaps of the death of community journalism in the Fox Valley causes by the greed of the Gannett Gang?
*Time Warner Cable: After 4 years of mostly secret negotiations between the city of Oshkosh and Time Warner, the two parties inked a new 15 year deal in 2001. In November of 2000 Dan Rylance wrote an essay for Commentary that closed with this thought: "Let's hope that executive sessions between Oshkosh City officials and executives of Time Warner won't produce another long-term franchise before there are public hearings. Let in some sunshine first." No such luck. The public was completely shut out of the process, and the agreement reached provides no guarantee that Time-Warner will be more consumer friendly than has been the case in the past. When I pay my almost $40 bill for the basic package I find myself saying "gee, I can't wait for 2016."
*Touchpoint-Aurora: The crime of the health care industry reached Oshkosh in a dramatic way in 2001, with 15,000 people caught in the middle of an ugly legal battle between two health care giants. Touchpoint won in court against Aurora, but everyone loses as long as health care in the United States continues to have more to do with the values of Milton Friedman than the values of Hippocrates.
*K-Mart: Wisconsin's Consumer Protection Administrator Bill Oemichen issued a consumer alert against K-Mart in 2001 after the company continued to overcharge customers throughout the state. Just two years ago, K-Mart was hit with a $101,000 fine (one of the largest in the state's history) for inaccurate scanners. Though stores in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis were the worst, a 2001 state investigation found inaccuracies in 16 out of 33 stores including those in Appleton and Green Bay. Oemichen gave serious consideration to filing criminal charges against the company.
*Van Zeeland Oil Company: I almost feel bad adding Van Zeeland to the list, since they are "small potatoes" compared to the other 10. However, something has to be said about what looked like an attempt to take advantage of September 11 panic. Van Zeeland owns 11 gas stations in the region, including the Jackson St. Mobil. On September 11 at about 5 p.m., with Americans gripped in fear after the terrorist attacks, Van Zeeland raised gas prices from $1.69 to $2.95 a gallon. Todd Van Zeeland told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he rolled the prices back three hours later after cashiers were threatened at the stations. Van Zeeland actually made the argument at the time that the price hike was designed to "protect" a limited gas supply and encourage customers to go elsewhere for gasoline. A business owner can't be prosecuted for exploiting a crisis and lacking sound judgement, so instead Winnebago County District Attorney Joe Paulus charged Van Zeeland with violating a state statute that makes it illegal for stations to change their prices more than once in a 24 hour period. Van Zeeland later apologized and announced that any extra profits would go to the American Red Cross.
Dishonorable Mentions:
*Miles Kimball: Announces layoffs right before Christmas. Bah humbug.
*Experimental Aircraft Association: Continues to exaggerate attendance at its annual fly-in.
*Oshkosh B'Gosh: The poster child for what has happened to the apparel industry since the passage of NAFTA, they continue to use the Oshkosh name even though not one stitch of clothing is made in that city. B'Gosh chooses to manufacture the genuine article in workers' paradises like Honduras. Now even white collar staff at the Oshkosh corporate office are being let go, as reported in the Oshkosh Northwestern earlier this month.
*Odyssey Productions, Inc.: These guys are (were) small potatoes (like Van Zeeland) in comparison with the others, but we should not let it be forgotten that this outfit was able to get the Winnebago County Board to invest over $1 million in taxpayer money to build a race track on the basis of highly inflated attendance projections. Their actions will make it much more difficult for all county small businesses to get public assistance in the future. At the very least, he said sarcastically, if a company is going to inflate attendance figures they should change their name to EAA and dramatically inflate the numbers. That will get them local newspaper, Chamber of Commerce, and political support.
*Walgreens: The company pulled out of downtown Oshkosh, leaving an empty box for the taxpayers to deal with. Whatever happened to loyalty to a community?
*Clariant and Hydrite Chemical: These two corporations involved in one of the worst chemical spills in the history of the city of Oshkosh spent the entire year of 2001 dragging their feet on compensation for the victims.
There you have it: the 11 worst Fox Valley corporations of 2001 along with 6 dishonorable mentions. Of course, every time someone tries to put a list like this together the corporate toadies out there try to shoot down the messenger with accusations that s/he is a union flack, a communist, or something worse. I tell the toadies that my thinking about corporate abuse and especially the labor/management relations part of it is guided largely by this radical thought:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights."
My word, sayeth the corporate toady! What kind of anti-American radical could have uttered such a dastardly sentiment!
None other than Abraham Lincoln, my friends, he being the first Republican President.
I would like to produce an annual list of the worst Fox Valley corporations. To do so, help would be appreciated. If you are a budding muckraker or simply a concerned citizen, please do keep a file in 2002 of those corporations behaving badly. Can we actually have an impact? Margaret Mead sure thought so, saying: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."