Roger Award: Tranz Rail Tries It On

4 April 2002 Winner(S) To Be Named For The Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation In New Zealand In 2001

The six finalists for 2001 are: Tranz Rail; Monsanto; Carter Holt Harvey; Mobil; United Water and British American Tobacco (BAT). This strong field contains the current titleholder and two times winner (Tranz Rail); one other previous winner (Monsanto) and a runner up (BAT), plus one brand new entrant (United Water).

The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational that has the most negative impact in New Zealand in each or all of the following fields: unemployment, monopoly, profiteering, abuse of workers/conditions, political interference/running an ideological crusade, environmental damage, cultural imperialism, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, health and safety of workers and the public.

The judges are: Sukhi Turner, Mayor of Dunedin; Glenn Turner, world famous cricketer and coach (and Sukhi’s husband); Prue Hyman, academic and feminist, of Victoria University; and Michael Gilchrist, leading trade unionist, of Wellington.

The finalists take the Roger Award very seriously indeed. This year, for the first time ever, one of them (Tranz Rail) approached all the judges and the organisers, asking for senior managers to meet with us to discuss "safety and company ownership issues", plus to bring us a letter from the Managing Director. We declined, saying such an approach was quite improper, in any sort of contest. Tranz Rail responded that "ownership changes" mean that it is no longer a transnational and should be "ineligible" for the Roger! Such desperation to get out of the spotlight of this Award proves that we must be right on target. In the immortal words of Corporal Jones of "Dad’s Army": "They don’t like it up them, sir".

The Roger Award is part of our challenge to the "Centre-Left" Government - are you going to do anything to control and roll back the power of our real, unelected government, the transnational corporations?

Friday April 12; 7.30 P.M., Freyberg Square, High St, Auckland

Ends

© Scoop Media