What is the TABD?

The Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) is a powerful lobby group bringing together The CEO's (Chief Executives) of many top Northern America and European trans-national companies (TNC's), working towards the goal of creating total free trade. It is the many of the worlds largest TNC's that make up the TABD, with a strong representation of controversial industries such as the chemical/biotech industry (Bayer, Monsanto, BASF, Pfizer) and the weapons industry (Aerospatiale, TRW, Boeing). The TABD describes its function as "an informal process whereby European and American companies and business associations develop joint EU-US trade policy recommendations." Working together with the European Commission and US Administration they help shape US-EU trade policy including in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), creating a united US-EU front. With a focus on US-EU trade relations, the TABD helps the process of globalisation through working on eliminating trade barriers by encouraging a new round of WTO trade liberalisation and implementing it's ‘early warning system', also consolidating minimum trade regulations in pursuit of total free trade. In practice, through the TABD, US and EU businesses form working groups and produce reports which are then used to inform policy-makers. Further consultation and lobbying occurs at a yearly conference which brings together CEO's and senior-level government representatives, including the highest level decision-makers such as the WTO Director-General and the EU Commissioner for Trade.
Currently, the TABD is busy lobbying for a new round of trade-liberalisation at the next WTO meeting in Quetar in November. Lobbying inside the WTO is an important part of the TABDs activities. The TABD works to bring together the interests of the US and the EU, making recommendations and strategies before the WTO meeting so that a united front can be made. If the TABD gets its way, and a new round of liberalisations is agreed on at the November meeting, a serious step will have been taken in the globalisation process, in which further sectors are deregulated on the path to true, global free trade. It is also a step that is opposed to by many third world countries and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Trade barriers, such as health, social and environmental protection regulations, are hindrances to free trade. Conflicts can arise in the WTO when one country disputes another country's trade discriminations as illegal in the WTO rules of trade. A common example of such disputes is when a country's environmental policy does not allow that country to buy certain goods because of the environmental consequences of their use or production. Within the WTO, the disputing country can take the other country to the WTO dispute panel, where a decision is made as to whether the policy in question can be used (see the US/EU banana dispute in the Chiquita section on page 3). Most often, such protection regulations are deemed void by the dispute panel. This obviously has huge implications on the products we, as consumers, are offered and the means in which they are produced.
In regards to trade barriers, the TABD has implemented an "early warning mechanism". This is a method that identifies possible trade barriers before they become conflicts at, for example, the WTO level. The "early warning mechanism" identifies the barrier and then drafts its own strategy for dealing with the potential conflict in the hope of clearing it up before it becomes a full-blown conflict. For example, the UNs draft bio-safety protocol was detected by the TABD through the early warning system. The protocol is a proposal to help deal with the issues surrounding genetically modified (GM) products, including the right of countries to regulate international trade in GM foods - the TABD has identified that a country (such as the US which is closely aligned with the almost-monopoly of US biotech companies) could, in the future, create a conflict at the WTO with a ‘country' (such as the EU) which has banns on GM foods, probably resulting in the eradication of the EU ban. The EU's proposal to accelerate the phase out of ozone destroying gases (HFCs) is another potential "trade barrier" detected by the early warning system, as is the EU's possible ban on animal testing in cosmetic products. In each of these cases, the TABD has drafted its own strategy on the issue, pushing for a watered-down version of the original proposal based on cost-benefit analysis of "social and business consequences" and "industry-driven technical and commercial solutions". Often the early warning system is simply used as an emergency brake, in the hope of delaying such protocols and proposals. It is a system that solves problems between governments behind closed doors, infiltrating governmental processes at the earliest stage possible and creating the opportunity for big business to intervene in cases where corporate lobbying in Brussels has not led to the desired response.

The power of the TABD as a lobby group, and hence the power of the TABD's recommendations through its early warning system, is not to be underestimated. The companies involved are indeed some of the largest in the world and many of them have intricate ties with top Government officials, particularly in the US (see the sections on Monsanto, Boeing, and Halliburton for examples).

A further goal of the TABD in the struggle to deregulate international trade, is to implement centralised approval procedures for products. For example, to create a transatlantic (US-EU) version of the US Food and Drug Authority (FDA), to give approval to products on environmental and health grounds. Such procedures would eliminate any conflict, such as the above examples, that could and do arise between the EU and US. The TABD sees this as an important goal since such different regulations exist between the EU and US. Typically, the US is extremely liberal, and the EU relatively conservative when it comes to product regulation, as shown in the example of the EU's banns on GM foods versus the US's strong support for the biotech industry. The concept of industry regulating itself - deciding what is safe for consumers and what is acceptable means of production, is in itself extremely dangerous when it can be seen over and over again that the first priority of a TNC is profit, not people or the environment.
The TABD is, then, a dangerous collection of businesses. The TABD is shaping international trade behind closed doors through its work to bring together business and government and create a common standing point between the US and EU. The early warning system is not an acceptable, and certainly not a democratic, way of dealing with trade conflicts, the purging together of US and EU trade policy is of no-ones benefit but giant, profit hungry corporations and a new round of trade liberalisation at the WTO's meeting in November will only further inforce the power elite's greedy exploitation of the worlds people and resources.

Company info:
Here are a few examples of what is so "evil" about TNC's. All of the companies below will be in Stockholm.

Boeing is a very, very large corporation, making both commercial and military aircrafts. With Boeing's recent merger with McDonnell Douglas, it has become a company with annual sales of a staggering $50 billion, and the only US domestic manufacturer of commercial planes, controlling a further two thirds of the international market. Boeing is the US's second largest weapons contractor.

Just as daunting as Boeing's economic force, is the company's political power: Boeing employs no less than 70 lobbyists in the US. In a six month period, Boeing spent more than $3 million to influence federal policy, with the company's minions lobbying on a broad range of issues that indluded tax policy, the budget, telecommunications, health care, land use, utilities, environmental policy, labor law and relations with China. Jacking up the military budget is a task to which Boeing devotes particular energy, an understandable concern as Boeing alone receives $2 billion in annual contracts from the Pentagon, plus McDonnell Douglas's contracts which are worth four times that amount.

Even within the US, Boeing has a bad labor rights record, having lobbied to hold down rates for unemployment insurance and having backed the Clinton administrations workplace initiatives that undercut unions. Boeing has joined with other big companies in pressuring legislatures to hack away at workers compensation programs and pushing plans that would cut the amount of payments to injured workers and diminish the quality and extent of the medical treatment they receive.

Finally, and sickly enough, in 1995, Boeing not only avoided paying any federal taxes, but received a $33 million rebate from the US treasury, making its effective tax rate minus 9%.

BRITISH PETROLEUM (BP)

BP is another huge company, with annual sales of $68.3 billion. Like most oil companies, BP has a shocking history of disrespect for both the environment and labor rights and, as with most other giant corporations, spends a fortune of dabbling with government policy to ensure its huge profits.

BP is in Greenpeaces's Filthy Fifty list and in Friends f the Earth's Secret Polluters list. BP has a long list of environmental disasters, such s the 1991 30,000 gallon spill from a BP-chartered oil tanker, which severely disrupted the environment of the nearby Huntingdon beach in California. In response, the Sate of California drafted new legislation to improve tanker safety, as part of the far-reaching ‘Big Green' environmental proposals. Sadly the proposals were defeated by a 3:2 majority. BP had spent $171,000 to help oppose the bill.

BP has long been lax in regards to occupational health and safety, which led to a series of strikes in 1988 after the Piper Alpha disaster. Workers wanted union recognition and improved safety rights. BP did not agree and started to recruit non-union labor. In 1989 a number of workers were said to be suffering from Pulmonary Silicosis as a result of inhaling dust containing silica at the BP plants, later three workers died in two explosions in only 10 days at BP Grangemouth refinery. The company was forced to pay $750,000 for breaches of Health and Safety laws.

BP has been criticised a number of times in the past for its mineral operations on tribal peoples lands. The company has now pulled out of minerals, but continues to search for oil and has been criticised for its activities in the Amazon where a number of Indian Reserves have been effected.

BP has animal testing undertaken by subcontractors including the breeding of poultry layers through its subsidiary BP Nutrition, and is the supplier of strategic non-civilian products used in weapon systems, having received contracts fro the US Ministry of Defense for more that $15 million between 1985-89.

CHIQUITA
Chiquita, described by Catholic Bishop Thomas Gubleton as "an evil institution for exploiting the poor" and being Multinational Monitors 4th ranking of the worlds worst corporations, is one of the major players in the international banana industry. Chiquita controls 70% of the world market for bananas and does business in many developing countries, but particularly in Latin American countries where cheap labor and lax environmental laws can be found.

Although Chiquita still owns vast plantations, since the beginning of the 90s trans-nationals such as Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte have gradually relinquished direct ownership of plantations, preferring guaranteed supply contracts with medium and large scale producers from the countries that actually grow the bananas. This allows Northern-based corporations to shift the responsibility for labor and environmental conditions in the plantations onto local shoulders, arguing that they have no control over these conditions and that (uninforced) national legislation is in place to ensue minimum standards are in place.

The banana industry is well known for its labor rights and environmental problems. Chiquitas huge plantations are characterised by low pay, extremely dangerous exposure to heavy pesticides and strong action against unions. Deforestation and waste management are further problems; in Costa Rica, with every tone of bananas produced two tones of waste is created (mainly through the packaging process). In regards to the massive levels of pesticide use, 25,000 plantation workers in 12 developing countries are currently suing Chiquita and other companies for using DBCP, a pesticide that causes cancer, birth defects and sterility. According to lawyers representing the workers, Chiquitas use of pesticides has sterilized 3,500 male banana workers in Costa Rica, Panama and the Philippines.

Chiquitas shocking disrespect for basic human rights was grossly displayed in 1994 when, at the height of a strike against Chiquita, the company closed four banana farms in northern Honduras, fired 1,200 temporary workers and told 800 permanent workers to choose between relocation or termination. The fired workers lived in company towns and to keep their jobs, Chiquita said they had to move to faraway plantations. Chiquita told those remaining at one of the plantations, called Tacamiche, to move out or face eviction. Chiquitas first eviction attempt was in July, storming the area with four hundred police and soldiers, arresting 26 plantation residents, injuring 75 more with tear gas rubber bullets and clubs and destroying 200 acres of corn and beans planed two months before. This eviction being unsuccessful, the second eviction occurred in February 1996 when Chiquita had finally gained the approval of Honduras' president and judiciary after the public outcry following the initial eviction. On this second attempt, 500 troops and over 400 Chiquita employees pounced, unannounced, on the village making 100 arrests. They bulldozed everything: subsistence crops, homes, the school, three churches, the health post, kitchen utensils, books bedding, tools and radios. Since, fired workers at the three remaining towns are resisting the same fate.

Not so very suprisingly, then the Enquirer published a series of articles in May 1998 about the Tacamiches eviction, it was forced to denounce the series, the lead reporter, Micheal Galgher was fired, an apology and payment of $14 million was made to Chiquita and all traces of the articles disappeared from he internet.

But Chiquitas influence digs deep not only into the media, but into the US ‘democracy' too (not to mention Latin American governments; the Columbia government has opened an investigation in to the allegations of Chiquitas employees bribing Colombian customs officials). Chiquita has poured millions of dollars in to US politicians and parties, particularly in regards to the US's WTO challenge of the EU's protection of its former colonies' banana markets. The EU's former colonies, particularly those in the Eastern Caribbean, rely heavily on EU banana sales, and are generally smaller, family run farms using far fewer pesticides. The EU was protecting these countries by restricting the import of competitively priced plantation bananas (such as Chiquita's bananas) and importing rather from these former colonies. While the US government has vigorously supported Chiquita, accusing the EU of restricting free trade by unfairly protecting its producers and importers and pushing up prices for consumers, European officials counter that the Americans seek to bully small Caribbean and African producers out of business by pushing the interests of giant conglomerates that have cut costs by riding roughshod over workers rights and environmental concerns. This is a very classic WTO case, in which the US won, resulting in some 200,000 farmers plus many others standing to lose their livelihoods in countries where 30-50% unemployment rates are the norm. This is all being pushed by the US despite practically no US jobs being in danger due to the EU's selective buying and it being widely understood that displacing Eastern Caribbean banana farmers will push many of them into the illegal drug trade.

The Ford Motor Company is a gigantic and powerful company, the worlds number two auto maker. Like all the rest, Ford has a slick PR department and a bad labor rights record, using notorious ‘maquiladores' factories in Mexico who are known for low pay and terrible conditions.

Not only is Ford a company that oppresses its workers in developing countries, but Ford is also a company that is willing to spend millions of dollars on promoting an environmental image while simultaneously doing business that destroys the planet. Fords cars and light trucks are the worst carbon emitters of any major auto maker, Fords fuel efficiency is the worst of any auto maker and Ford is the second worst polluter overall of any auto-maker. Regardless, Ford has spent as much on a recent ‘greenwashing' campaign as it would cost to roll out a new line of cars, including the purchase of almost 40% of last years Time magazines special Earth Day 2000 edition (which reads more like a massive advertisement than a serious piece of journalism).

Fords shameful safety scandal in the early 90's is a classic example of the TNC tendency prioritise profits before people. Critics say that Ford should be criminally prosecuted for reckless homicide in connection with the more than 90 deaths and hundreds of injuries that resulted when 15 inch tires that are standard equipment for the Ford Explorer failed, causing catastrophic accidents. Internal documents from Ford show that the company did not make changes recommended by its engineers after early tests showed a tendency for the Explorer to roll over, choosing instead to recommend a lower tire pressure than the tires had been designed for. By 1993 at least five lawsuits had been filed against Ford from the victims families; almost all were settled, and settled with gag orders prohibiting the attorneys and the families from disclosing information about the cases to the public or the relevant authorities. "There is no question that the company knew they had a problem. But they kept it secret". The tires where not recalled until 1999 in most parts of the world, and not recalled in the US until 2000 when the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration began investigating.

Halliburton is a huge US oil services company with sales of $17.3 billion per year.

Halliburton is best known for its business with one of the worlds mast brutal dictatorships, the Burmese government. Halliburton and one of it's subsidiaries, Bredero Sham, have been involved in both the Yadana and Yetagun pipeline projects. The notorious Yadana pipeline is an environmentally damaging project on behalf of which, according to the US Federal Court, "egregious human rights abuses were committed, including murder, torture, rape, forced labour and forced relocation". A Californian judge recently found that Yadana partners knew of and benefited from these abuses.

The Yetegun pipeline, running parallel t the Yadana pipeline, is associated with the same pattern of gross human rights abuses. To be involved in the Yetegun project is to knowingly accept brutal violations of human rights as part of doing business" says Katie Redford of EarthRights International. But, as former CEO Dick Cheney says "you've got to go where the oil is. I don't think about it (political volatility) very much". For Halliburton, "not thinking very much" about political instability, human rights or environmental protection has been a financially successful strategy.

It is no suprise, then, that Halliburton is one of the driving forces behind the corporate coalition called US-Engage**, who, along with the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), struck down the Massachusetts Burma law. This law was a selective purchasing measure, modelled after laws that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa; a law supporting Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyes calls for sanctions to weaken the brutal military dictatorship. Halliburton, US-Engage and the NFTC, however, succeeded in wiping the law through the US Supreme Court.

Halliburton does business in many other controversial places, including Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria.

Halliburton is also known for the political activity of one its former CEOs, Dick Xhenney. As Kenny Bruno writes, "Dick Cheney the Secretary of Defence wages war on Iraq; Dick Cheney the businessman gets contracts to cleanup the damages and turns Halliburton into a giant defence contractor. Dick Cheney the government official makes high level bank contacts; Dick Cheney the businessman obtains huge government loans for his company". Cheney was a candidate for vice president in the recent US elections, however his ethical standards, particularly in regards to business practices, have rightly been questioned by the media. This is only one of many, many example of CEOs and top corporate board members being also involved in high level politics.

**Us-Engage (a pro-free trade lobby inluding Halliburton) lobbies, like most free-trade supporters, for the irradication of trade sanctions being placed on certain countries for political means. The classic example is South Africa - the trade sanctions being placed here befoe the end of apartheid have been widely recognised as playing an important role in pressuring South Africa to abolish apartheid. Since sanctions are a ‘hindrance to trade',however, and therefore not opatable with free-trade US-Engage supports the policy of ‘engagment' instead. According to this strategy, American democratic values should spread simply through the engagment of trade. It is easy to see, however, that large corporations don't have democratic values anyway - clear from all the buying out of legislators and lack of transparancy in corporate business. Obviously the theory of engagment is just another excuse for large corporations to do business with whever they please, regardless of any moral standards that any decent human-being or real democracy would demand.

Unilever is a huge corporation -the worlds largest tea company, owning plantations in Kenya, Tanzania and India. Beyond Lipton, however, Unilever actually owns almost 150 brands, including Calvin Klein cosmetics, Dove, Pepsodent, Omo and Impulse.

Unilever is known for its terrible working conditions in developing countries in connection with the tea industry. For example, almost all tea is grown on plantations, where workers (mostly women) are dependent on the plantation for jobs and are thus completely powerless to improve their situation. Wages are generally extremely low and living conditions appalling. Meanwhile companies, like Unilever, which do the blending, packaging and marketing of the tea (in the consumer countries) cream 30-50% of the retail price.

As such a huge corporation, Unilever has huge market power and a frighteningly strong grip on the tea market, not to mention the other 150 or so brands that Unilever controls. In the mid 80's, when the Indian tea price started to rise, Unilever and other corporations acted to bring it down by temporarily boycotting Indian tea. When the Indian government tried to set a minimum export price, the TNC's collectively withdrew from the market, forcing the government to retreat and slash the price.

Recently, Unilevers gross attitudes to the environment and third world people were exposed when, in March 2001, Green peace accused Unilever of "double standards and shameful negligence". Unilever was busted allowing its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever, to dump several tonnes of highly toxic mercury waste in the densely populated tourist resort of Kodaikanal and the surrounding protected nature reserve of Pambar Shola, in Tamilnadu, Southern India. It was asserted that contaminated waste was simply dumped behind the factory wall on to the slopes leading to Pamgar. "Unilever is taking advantage of lax environmental controls in a developing country that would not be tolerated in rich countries. Unilever claims to be concerned for the safety of its operations and the environment, but this attitude clearly does not stretch to India", says Navroz Mody of Greenpeace in India.

Walmart, "the worlds largest and most unpleasant retailer", is an American chain-supermarket. Walmarts, like McDonalds, are homogenous, giant boxes, situated on cheap, suburban land, selling bargain priced goods. With sales of 136 billion, Walmart is literally the worlds largest retailer.

A massive grass-roots movement exists in the US, which has to date blocked 86 Walmart stores. The most obvious of reasons for such a resistance, is Walmarts record of mashing small town economies with its incredible buying power which allows it to offer such competitive prices as the kill the competition all together. Walmarts founder, Sam Walton, writes in his autobiography ‘Made in America', that driving hundreds of family run and other smaller businesses out of town in the creation of his retail empire "was as inevitable as the replacement of the buggy by the car...Some people tried to turn it into this ‘save the small town merchant deal' like they were whales or something that deserved to be protected" Walmart is also hated because it is such a symbol of consumer culture playing a massive role in the shaping of retail culture and the nature of urbane development through its consolidation of sprawling urban car culture.
Walmart also has a shockingly poor record on respecting trade unions and labour rights, on compliance with environmental standards and on respect for local decision making processes to suit its global corporate strategy, paying poor salaries and sacking people on the spot for joining unions.
Walmart is known for selling sweatshop goods and using child labour. Walmart is one of 17 retailers facing a $660 million action in the US courts brought by garment manufacturers in the US Pacific protectorate of Saipan. They allege they suffered beatings forced abortion and infested quarters in the employment of Walmarts supplier. Walmarts current attempt to expand into Europe has serious implications for the credibility of attempts by big charities and campaigning organisations to encourage retailers to introduce voluntary codes of conduct preventing sweatshop goods being sold in the UK and Western Europe. Walmarts voluntary code of conduct is not monitored by reputable and independent labour-rights groups but by its own exclusive buying agents. The code allows Walmart to use products made by children of 14 and 15 but "prefers" they work no longer than sixty hours a week.
Walmart, as the US's biggest retailer, is also its biggest gun-seller. US campaigners for tighter gun control laws accuse Walmart of marketing firearms too irresponsibly and being too lax in selling weapons to teenagers. (When rock star Sheryle Crow alluded to this on a recent record Walmart banned it from their 2500 stores)
Walmarts plans to build a new store on top of a Native American cemetery in Tennessee is creating a further uproar against
this widely hated company.

http://www.tabd.nu
http://www.tabd.com
http://www.transnationale.org
http://www.corpwatch.org

also, corporatewatch in the UK and ASEED in Holland have lots of info on the tabd, TNC's, and globalisation issues like biotech etc.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)