Corporate social irresponsibility

Brazil's Vale has combined so many as to have earned the audience award as the worst corporation in the world. Recognition less coveted by companies, ilPublic Eye Award, was delivered in 2012 during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It is an international certificate that puts to shame the companies most devastated as to environmental and social sustainability. The event is organized by the Berne Declaration and Greenpeace Switzerland. The mining company has beaten stiff competition from five other multinational corporations, perhaps best known to the general public: Japan's TEPCO (which owns the Fukushima nuclear), Korea's Samsung, the British Barclays (winner of the jury prize due to speculation on food), the Swiss-based Syngenta and the American Freeport McMoRan.

To the online vote was attended by over 88 thousand people, and of these, 25,042 have expressed their indignation for their behavior in the Vale. In second place went to TEPCO, with 24,245 votes, the third Samsung, optionally with 19 014 clicks.



A candidate Vale for the Public Eye Award 2012 we thought the International network of people affected by Vale through the Brazilian network Justiça nos Trilhos and in collaboration with international NGOs Amazon Randhawa International Rivers.

The multinational company is the second company in Brazil, the second mining company in the world, the world's largest producer of iron and is present in 38 countries. "The corporation - reads the website of the award - has a history spanning 60 years marred by ongoing human rights abuses, inhumane working conditions and exploitation of nature without rules."

In the selection of the six finalists, in addition, the award organizers have given importance at the entrance of the company will lconsorzio Norte Energia, which is responsible for the construction of the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River in Pará (northern Brazil). This work force to dislodge about 40 thousand people, affecting directly or indirectly fourteen indigenous communities, flooding an area the size of Lake Constance and the drying up of 100 km of the river Volta Grade do Xingu.

But this, apparently, is only the tip of an iceberg called "corporate social irresponsibility." Or at least that is what emerges from the book "The price of iron - How enriches the largest multinational iron and resist as victims worldwide." In this text, published by EMI, in fact, the two authors analyze the behavior of multinational considering the respect for human rights and the environment, each according to his specific expertise. On the one hand there is Gesualdi Francis, founder of the Center New Development Model and author, among other things, the famous "Consumer Guide critic." On the other hand there is Dario Bossi, a Comboni missionary who has lived for years in Brazil, where she coordinates the campaign "On track to justice."

From the book emerge the steps that led multinational adrift ethics. Founded in 1909 on the initiative of an entrepreneur in the United States, in 1942 the company passed to the Brazilian, who renamed Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (Cvdr). It went on sale in 1995 with an operation that raised a lot of criticism (according to the then chief operating officer, Fabio Barbosa, the real value of the company was $ 40 billion, while it was sold for a billion and a half).

In a few years Cvdr, as well as having changed its name to Vale, "has increased by four times its capital and has become a powerful multinational" and "today is a giant with 145,000 employees and a turnover in 2008 of $ 39 billion dollars, higher than the gross domestic product of a country like Kenya. "The company, which is still read in the text, "owns coal mines in Australia and Mozambique, nickel mines in Canada and Indonesia, metallurgical industries in North America and Europe." Although it remains the cornerstone of iron mining in Brazil.

By limiting the discussion to the South American country and the steel industry - Vale has also gained much enjoying incentives for the agricultural sector - the authors conclude that "the logic prevailed gain" and "the result was the enrichment of the few behind the nature of the workers, the community. "In detail, the greater industrial development has occurred in a corridor of 150 km, between Maraba and Açailândia, where there are a dozen plants, all for the production of pig iron and due to heavy pollution: coal slag, phenols, carbon dioxide, fine particles. And in the city of Açailândia, the five companies present, ie the Vale do Pindaré, Viena, Siderúrgica, Guda Nordeste, Fergumar and Simasa, "run around fourteen blast furnaces" and "none of them is equipped with filters, coal dust are dispersed in the air, fall on the surrounding neighborhood is deposited everywhere. "With consequences that it is easy to imagine: "Inevitably the spread of diseases, allergies, asthma, bronchitis, migraines, cancer."

And the environmental damage is not limited to pollution. To produce one ton of cast iron, in fact, serves approximately one ton of coal, which in turn requires much wood to be produced. And so it was chosen to cultivate eucalyptus, a plant that grows easily in a short time and is therefore able to provide coal at low prices. Too bad, though, that these "plantations kill biodiversity, are disappearing thousands of animal and plant species." Meanwhile, "the Amazon rainforest continues to be destroyed at a rate of 22,000 square kilometers per year."

Leaving on many other details, the authors emphasize that "the worst forms of child labor are found in charcoal, places dedicated to the transformation of wood into charcoal." Between Maraba and Açailândia if they number in the thousands, and in particular the numerous charcoal organized as sole proprietorships, "avail themselves of the labor of the most desperate," "dirty, malnourished, sick, are required even in slavery: no time, no rest without a roof worthy of the name, without salary, without the freedom to move away. "So much so that in recent years the Brazilian labor inspectors have revealed at least 300 cases of slavery in this area.

But what does all of this in the Vale? First of all, "in 2004 It has been at the center of a scandal because entertained business relationships with businesses sued for the use of workers in slavery," the Simasa and Margusa. "The news of the discovery of slaves in charcoal went around the world, the reputation of the steel companies came out bruised." And so the biggest giants decided to build their own charcoal. "It also opted for this solution, in 2005 he set up its kilns near Açailândia to supply its factories of cast iron under the name of Carajás Iron Guso." But this choice has a damaging effect: "The charcoal industry is located near the California district, more than two thousand people are forced to breathe the smoke coming out of the 70 kilns set up by Vale ',' many complain of difficulty breathing, sinusitis, conjunctivitis» . And the promises seem to have remained waste paper: "In 2006 the company had promised to install filters to reduce the activity of chimneys and coal, but he never did." Again, the conclusion is, "money has had the better of the people."

The damage caused by Vale are also linked to rail to transport iron from the Carajas mines to the port of Sao Luis, "every day hundreds of cars, endless convoys, running up and down the railroad." And since the tracks run free, without any protection, "there are hundreds of incidents" and "It does not spend for security," even though every year along the railroad running 100 million tons of iron, an average of 300,000 tons per day.

In conclusion, to say the numbers reported by the book, "In 2008, the production activities of Vale has left on the ground 657 million tons of mine tailings and metallurgical pose soils and waterways at risk of contamination." Moreover, "in the same year, Vale produced 487,000 tons of carbon dioxide, has consumed 335 million cubic meters of water and has released 1,562 cubic meters of waste chemicals such as alcohol, carbonates and other pollutants."

Finally, the book explores the controversial presence of Vale Canada (through the Inco), Peru (the branch is called Miski Mayo sa), New Caledonia (Goro Nickel), Indonesia (Inco). In each of these countries have reported problems with the workers (remember the strikes lasted several months in Canada between 2010 and 2011), with local communities and with the environmental protection associations, very critical of his actions .