Corporate America and sweatshops and crimes

We Must Stand Together Nickelback
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4NVYtzlQA&ob=av2e

Justin Moore - "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away" Official Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WnZNQf1ao&feature=related

Dell, Microsoft, HP, IBM Sweatshops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0fpRHefTe4

Nike sweatshops - Try not to cry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVuScVCF1Ws&feature=related


Wal-Mart Christmas Sweat Shops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WutW8usfTTg

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nike
Excerpt:

Kobe Bryant as the Marketing Comeback Kid

"Time heals a lot of marketing wounds," said the director of the University of Southern California's Sports Business Institute. In June 2003, basketball star Kobe Bryant signed a four-year, $45 million endorsement deal with shoe company Nike. Weeks later, Bryant was accused of sexual assault. Now that the criminal case has been dismissed and a related civil lawsuit settled, "Nike and Mr. Bryant are slowly relaunching the star's career as a product endorser." But even while Bryant's legal problems abounded, Nike had "an under-the-radar campaign intended to keep the star's cachet high among shoe collectors and other taste makers." That included limited releases of shoes "customized for Mr. Bryant that landed in upscale sneaker boutiques," raffles of shoes with Bryant's signature, and others with his personal logo, a "dagger-like etching." While "traditional consumer-product companies" are staying away from Bryant, Nike "recently rolled out its first Kobe print campaign." [1]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kasky_vs_Nike
Excerpt:
Kasky vs Nike was the title of a landmark legal case in which Marc Kasky, a resident of San Francisco, launched a legal action in April 1998 against Nike in which he claimed that public statements by the company had misrepresented factory working conditions. At the heart of the case was that the statements made by the company were "commercial speech" and thereby subject to regulatory restrictions relating to false and misleading advertising an not protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The case was settled out of court in September 2003.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_abuzayyad.html  (Abuzayyad was the GM while I was at IBM.  He had one floor of blding. 12 remodeled during that time and it cost 3 million $.  The floor was closed off and never used because at the time IBM was in the midst of a downsizing...  they had folks traveling countrywide known as headhunters looking for new employees......... and at the same time downsizing and the employees were pissed off.  This was back in the late 80's and early 90's during Louis Gerstners reign as emperor.)  ...cal
Excerpt:

http://www.nfbcal.org/~anordley/IBM/Air/SVL/  (I worked at the Santa Teresa lab for a while and the drive and landscape were beautiful.)  ...cal
Excerpt:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=IBM
Excerpt:

Labor

IBM is one of the major purchasers of electronics produced at the Lite-On Computer Technology production facility in Shijie Town, Dongguan Province, China (founded 1997).^[2] By early 2008, the facility employed about 5000 people who enter the company by paying agencies based in Shijie town, Dongguan, 500-600 yuan (for men) or 200 yuan (for women). ^[3] While Lite-On production schedules follow a normal 8-hour workday, breaks consist of only 10 minutes twice a day and are unpaid – further, overtime work in the evenings, on weekends, and especially during busy seasons, is mandatory and can reach up to 100 hours a month, in violation of both Chinese Labor Law and the [EICC] standard. ^[4] Basic wages at Lite-On complied with Chinese minimum wage laws (690 yuan/month in 2007), but until mid-to-late 2007 when overtime began being paid at twice the standard weekend rate (8.24 yuan/hour) the company violated overtime wage laws by paying over 2 yuan less per hour. ^[5] A fire in the factory in February of 2008 has caused workers to be extremely concerned about their safety, and as of May 2008 production had not yet fully resumed at full capacity due to the damage the fire had caused. ^[6] Workers are charged up to one quarter of their wages on food, electricity, and water for eating and living in the factory dormitories, which house up to 16 people per room. ^[7] Research conducted by [SACOM] and [Bread for All] in early 2008 concluded that workers at Lite-On were unaware of their rights under either [EICC] standards or any of the codes of conduct of Lite-On’s customers, including IBM.^[8]

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0401/036_print.html
Excerpt:




Full Disclosure Daniel Lyons, 04.01.02

IBM was boldly using revenue from patent licenses and profits from asset sales to shrink its reported overhead costs. That accounting doesn't fly anymore.

In a post-Enron world, murky accounting is punished on Wall Street, and even mighty International Business Machines Corp. is not immune. When the New York Times disclosed on Feb. 15 that IBM had used the $340 million gain from the sale of an optics business to reduce fourth-quarter overhead costs, investors hammered the stock down 5%. Louis V.Gerstner Jr., IBM's boss from April 1993 to Mar. 1 of this year, doesn't want any tarnish on his record. So now it is time for a little restating.

Key number here: "selling, general and administrative expenses," a.k.a. overhead. In its Jan. 17 news release on 2001 earnings, IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people) had SG&A at $15.5 billion, down 8% from six years earlier even as it added $14 billion in annual revenue. To arrive at this number IBM used the controversial method of counting some revenue sources—chiefly patent fees and gains on asset sales—not as revenue but as reductions in SG&A. How's that again? A patent fee has the effect of reducing overhead? "I've never heard of anyone doing it that way," says Fred A. Hickey, an accountant and the editor of The High-Tech Strategist, a financial newsletter in Nashua, N.H.


http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/ibmpension/?yguid=74860432

 Message #45074 of 71044 < Prev | Next >  March 25, 2002

Pitt thinks there is more than enough regulation in place already relative to
the auditing of corporate accounts. If you disagree, please let your
representatives in Washington know! The voices of corporate lobbyists are
getting louder, insisting that congress do nothing...
Janet Krueger
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-000021572mar25.story?coll=la%2\
Dnews%2Dcomment%2Deditorials
SEC Chief's Blind Eye
How's this for odd timing in the post-Enron era? At the same moment the Justice
Department is indicting the accounting firm Andersen for its role in a debacle
that surely will cost thousands their retirements, the chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission is speaking out against cracking down on the
industry that allowed such corporate abuse.
Nervous investors long for someone to restore the public's faith that capital
markets are free and fair. But SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt told the House
Financial Services Committee Wednesday that Congress should back off from
regulating auditors. Pitt does not deny that the industry has troubles.
Appearing Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee, he acknowledged that
Enron had shaken public confidence in corporate governance and accounting
regulation and he suggested that the 1990s bull market had pushed corporations
to fudge and obscure "potentially adverse results." In other words, "to lie."
Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), members of the
Banking Committee, have proposed tough regulations that include forcing
companies to switch auditors every four years. Pitt, like others in the Bush
administration, sees any new regulation as onerous and says it would only hamper
industry. Instead, he wants to let the SEC and the free market handle all
problems. He is on the right track in arguing for stronger enforcement by the
SEC, more timely disclosure statements and stiffer penalties for senior
corporate officials who provide misleading information. He also wants to create
a private-sector "Public Accountability Board" to help oversee what little
regulation he does embrace. None of this would cause crooked accountants to lose
sleep.
The board that Pitt proposes would not wield subpoena powers. What's more, Pitt
refuses to tackle the most egregious problem, namely the lavish consulting fees
that auditing companies can collect from the very corporations whose books they
are supposed to police. (About half of the $52 million that Enron paid Andersen
in 2000 consisted of such fees.)
Lawmakers must decide whether to heed their angry, jittery constituents or Pitt.
We suggest the former. Move ahead with legislation to rein in the auditing
industry, whose work investors must trust completely if they are to regain full
faith in capitalism. For his part, Pitt could still play a constructive role. A
lawyer who amassed millions representing big accounting firms, he could stop
trying to protect his former employers and worry about protecting his new
client--the public.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to
www.lats.com/rights.

IBM Almaden Research Center

650 Harry Rd
San Jose, CA 95120

(408) 927-1000

http://start.cortera.com/company/research/k3n2lun9k/ibm/
Excerpt:

IBM

5600 COTTLE RD
SAN JOSE,  CA  95123-3696  |  view map

(408) 256-1600
Buy Detailed Profile $5.00 | view a sample http://www.ibm.com/

COMPANY DETAILS

Location Type: Branch
Industry: Computer Storage Devices
Ownership: Public
Year Founded: 1911
Sales Range: Over $1,000,000,000
Employees: Over 300,000
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http://cruiselinelobbyistrelatedtoabramoff.blogspot.com/
Excerpt:

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=976
Excerpt:
ABRAMOFF PAL TIED TO MOB MURDER
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A man who purchased SunCruz Casinos with lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2000 has told authorities he knows who killed the casino's founder the following year, according to a report published Friday.

Adam Kidan told authorities in a 2 1/2-hour interview last month that John Gurino, who was later killed by a business partner, shot SunCruz founder Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis in 2001, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The paper did not say how it obtained the taped interview.

Of course he knows who killed him, since he was responsible. After Florida forced Boulis to sell because suddenly non-citizens couldn't own a cruise ship line, Abramoff and Kidan "bought" the line by forging a $23 million wire transfer on a closed account and using borrowed "flash" funds- they invested nothing. When an enraged Boulis confronted Kidan about the $147 million fraud, there was a fight.. and a few weeks later he was dead, shot in his car in a mob hit. The MSM has been startling silent about the fact that this giant pal of Bush and every top Republican, not just stole hundreds of millions, but killed people who protested. MORE