31 January, 2012Almost 90,000 people participated in the online Public Eye awards for the worst company 2012. The People's award went to Vale with 25,042 votes and British Barclays received the jury prize.
GLOBAL: At a press conference coinciding with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Public Eye Award announced the winners of the vote for the most evil companies in 2012. This year the mining giant Brazilian Vale collected the most votes of 25,042. The second prize went to the Japanese Tepco, with 24,245 votes for its gross negligence in safety practices at its nuclear power plants.
The international jury awarded the global award to the banking giant Barklays whose speculation on food "futures" drives up global food prices at the expense of the poorest.
Vale got nominated for building the Belo-Monte-Dam in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where potentially 40,000 people will be forcefully evicted. However, this is not the only reason for Vale to be blamed for the most socially irresponsible corporate behavior.
For a number of years unions across the world have been fighting against Vale's anti-union behavior. Workers in different countries faced unjust lockouts and dismissals while resisting the company's attempts to erode working conditions and deny basic labour rights at Vale operations worldwide.
Fair Deal Now at Vale has been one of the most powerful campaigns over the recent years organized by United Steelworkers (USW) and supported jointly by the IMF, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The campaign started in 2009 and lasted for 18 months before a deal for 3,500 steelworkers in Voisey's Bay/Goose Bay, Labrador, and in Ontario, Canada, was finally reached at the end of January 2011.