Issue 7 - Campaign Updates
Multilateral Agreement on Investments
Disgruntled lobbyists and negotiators at the OECD in Paris are beginning to wonder if their dream Multilateral Agreement on Investments will ever be finalised. Talks have reached a deadlock due to the number of reservations filed by national teams. Everybody wants everybody else to sign up to the MAI's 'disciplines', it seems, but nobody wants to leave their own country unguarded. Meanwhile, unfavourable press coverage has been causing acute embarrassment to the media-shy conspirators. Leaked documents suggest that it may now be shelved indefinitely.

Meanwhile the campaign has been growing across the world. In the UK, an extensive letter writing campaign, organised by the World Development Movement, has caught uninformed ministers unawares - and ten local councils have passed resolutions condemning the OECD's actions.

Corporate Watch, WDM and Third World First have organised a series of 'referendum actions'. staged in town centres across Britain. The Green Party also staged a UK wide opinion poll. Results, polled from thousands of randomly interviewed members of the general public, show that the MAI has support from little more than 1% of populace. Most action has so far followed the 'Dracula strategy'. aiming simply for maximum awareness-raising amongst the public and in goverument. Dragging the thing out into the light seems almost sufficient to kill it. Even so, April 20th saw activists from the mysterious-but-sexy Corporate Action Network occupying the London offices of the International Chamber of Commerce, at 14 Belgrave Square, London. The ICC, one of the world's most influential corporate lobby groups, has been a keen supporter of the MAI and was even asked to help drat) sections of the treaty. Even though CAN activists were quickly thrown out by police. the ICC's commitment to public dialogue led the director, Richard Bate, to invite them back for a chat later that week. They have nothing to hide, and are more than happy to talk to anyone. So if you wish to discuss the matter further, why not give Richard a ring on 0171 823 2811, but please try not to take up too much of their time - ICC UK has only friur members of staff and they are very busy people.

In spite of the OECD's difficulties it is not yet time to break open the champagne. Two more MAI clones have been unearthed. Negotiations for the Transatlantic Business Agreement will be ongoing at the Transatlantic Business Summit on 27th April, and the International Monetary Fund intends to change its articles of association so as to be able to enforce MAI-like disciplines on nation states. Could the MAI-campaign be the start of a deeper inquiry into the global economy?

For the latest on the MAt, check out the followingweb-sites: www.rtk.net/preamble www.gn.apc org/ri sc www.prudhs.demon.co.uk www.citi zen .Org/pctrade/mai .html www.islandnet.com'~ncgs/mai site www.foe.orglgalmai.html www.tlio.demon.co.uk

Support the Sacked Magnet Workers
On September 3rd 1996, Magnet Kitchens sacked 350 skilled workers for legitimately striking.
A below inflation rate pay offer was only extended to 60% of the workforce, while the other 40% were offered a nil basic pay rise for the fourth year running.

The workers, some of whom had been with the company for up to 40 years, were sacked by the Managing Director David Williams - who had been with the company for only 42 days.

A £660,000 offer (to be shared out amongst the strikers) was recently rejected by the negotiating team. Following its withdrawal, strikers were surprised to receive registered letters offering them funding fur retraining with an agency - also unacceptable.

The workforce at Magnet Kitchens has been increasingly casualised, with agency employees receiving just £3.20 an hour.

Some sacked Magnet workers, supported by the GMB and redundant Derbyshire miners, have set up a camp in Croxton near the picture-postcard mansion of the Chief Exec of Berisford, Magnet Kitchens' parent company.

After four attempts to set up the camp. (pieces of land all around Bowkett's estate kept being suddenly and mysteriously rented by the Bowkett family) a plot of land about a mile and a half away from the estate was leased by the strikers. and a 'chicken farm' established. A recent attempt to invoke a local mediaeval law on pageants, which allowed strikers to hold a 'chicken farm festival' in the village, inspired a few people to turn up dressed as chickens. However security were waiting with dogs. Scaffolding has now gone up with a big sign that can be read from the road. 'Picturesque Croxton, near St Neots in Cambridgeshire. is well worth a visit' and the neighbours would seem all too happy to point out Bowkett's house, which has a right of way running through its garden.

The Magnet strikers are still picketing seven days a week by the gates of Magnet in Darlington. There are also demonstrations going on at London showrooms of Magnet Kitchens.

International support for the sacked Magnet workers is growing, with members of the CGT union in Spain occupying the offices of another Beresford company, Welbilt, who supply catering equipment to our fast food 'favourites'.

Similar actions - illegal under British laws against secondary picketing - are likely to place in France, Germany and the US.

Letters of support and donations to: Secretary, tan Crammond. 109 Jedburgh Drive, Darlington. Co. Durham, Fax/Tel: 01325 282389. The Women's Support Group can be contacted via Shirley Winters on 01325 350964. Web address: http:I/www.gn.apc.org/magnetstrikers

STOP PRESS: On 24th April strikers voted 47 to 34 to accept an £850,000 compensdtion package - an average of just £8,500 each
Huntingdon Death Sciences Campaign.
The campaign against the biggest animal tesfing laboratory in the country continues. During the week before Christmas, campaign organisers decided to close the camp recently established outside the Huntingdon life Sciences (HLS) offices, because too much time was being spent camping rather than catnpaigmng. in response, HLS put out a press release deriding the campaign as ineffectual. It couldn't have been more wrong. Shortly afterwards, all three of the coach companies that had been ferrying IlLS's 1400 employees to work pulled out, .~ollowing demonstrations against them.

Then the campaign discovered that the ~perative Insurance Society (CIS) had a ililion pounds worth of shares in HLS. The Wcnt company of CIS is called the lopera five Wholesale Society (CWS).

AIthough the Co-operative Bank. which is a division of CWS, has refused to invest in HLS, CWS seems to have swallowed Huntingdon Life Science's PR and the findings of a pharmaceutical company's 'independent review'. CWS says they are satisfied that no systematic animal abuse is taking place. Once campaigners learned that CIS had shares in Shell too, they realised they were banging their heads against a brick wall. However, there is now interest in the issue from members of UNISON, the union operating within in CIS. Demonstrations against HLS recently took place in Suffolk, and pickets are continuing at the HLS site in Wilmslow, Cheshire, as well as twice a week at the main gates of the main research centre near Huntingdon.

The 26th March saw the first anniversary of the screening of "It's a dog's life", the undercover film that exposed malpractice at HLS. HDSC are appealing for information, especially from ex-employees (contact ) HDSC, P0 Box 325, Cambridge CB 1 2VE Tel. 0589 026435.
BNNR
Despite earlier (broken) promises from the Labour government that it would not be built, construction of the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, a six lane, 27 mile toll motorway through the West Midlands green belt is set to start as early as January 1999.

If built, the BNRR would cut through sensitive habitats and archeological sites such as Chasewater Heath (a nationally important wildlife site), and increase traffic (by 40% according to the Department of Transport's own figures) on the M6 north and south of the West Midlands.

This will no doubt add to pressure to widen the M6 (the Highways Agency have already earmarked _415 million of public money for this project).

Nine schools will be severely affected by the pollution generated by this motorway. Three schools back directly onto the route. Meanwhile, toll booths on the motorway will be specially sealed to protect their operators from toxic fumes.

No cost-benefit analysis on the BNRR has ever been carried out. Research by expert consultants suggest that such an excercise would prove that the road is not in the public's interest.

Midland Expressway Ltd, the company planning to build the BNRR, is jointly owned by Kvaerner and Autostrada. They now have to convince some banks to lend them enough money to build the BNRR - is your bank going to ilsk money on this project?

If you would like to communicate your views about the BNRR to Midland Expressway Ltd, you can contact them at 20 Eastbourne Terrace, London W2 6LE, Tel: 0171 262 8080. Kvaerner can be contacted at St James, 23 King Street, London. Tel: 0171 7662000. For more information on the campaign, contact West Midlands Friends of the Barth, do 54/57 Allison Street, Birmingham B5 5TH, Tel. 0121 632 6909. Website is http:Ilwww.newwave.co.uk/vividlweb/blag/b nrrlrdptest.htm Or phone 0797 0301978 for camp info. They need people and cement.
Reinstate Nigel Cook Campaign
The Reinstate Nigel Cook Campaign recently took their protest to the annual Brtt Awards ceremony in London's Dockland Arena on 9th February. Hundreds of supporters, with placards and banners, gave out thousands of leaflets to those attending the glitzy ceremony asking them to raise the issue of poverty pay with the record label managers of PolyGram. Infamous anarchist band Chumbawamba left the ceremony to greet protesters and enourage them to fight on until their demands were met.

PolyGram managers gave orders to sack trade unionist Nigel Cook when he started to organise a union at M&S Packaging (Blackburn) Ltd, an outsourced operation of the Blackburn based multinational CD manufacturer PolyGram, where workers were paid as little as £3 an hour.

Under the Job Seekers Allowance rules, Nigel had been forced to register with job agencies that supply casual labour to companies such as M&S Packaging - which is how he came to be working in a place with no security of employment, no holiday or sick pay, no shift allowance and no basic maternity rights. Workers were allegedly having to stand throughout twelve hour shifts and had to ask permission to use the toilet.

Conditions such as these - the realities of casualistion and the so-called "flexible labour market" - are behind the vast profits of multinationals such as PolyGram. In 1996. Polygram's sales were _3 billion and its board of directors were paid _6.2 million. A national demonstration against PolyGram is being organised for the first anniversary of Nigel Cook's sacking. It will take place at 11am on 23rd May at Glenfield Park, Blackburn, and speakers from trade unions and other groups are invited to take part - contact : Reinstate Nigel Cook Campaign, P0 Box 14, Accrington, Lancashire, BB5 IGG Tel. 01254 679605. London Support Group: Tel. 0171 837 1688
Forest Action Network
FACTS: Only 22% of the Earth's original forest remains largely undisturbed and 70% of the world's frontier forests are in Canada, Russia and Brazil. Meanwhile 53% of British Columbia's (BC'S) Coastal Temperate rainforest has been logged and the remaining pristine va]leys have already been slated for industrial logging. One company has been charged and penalised for breaking provincial legislation 136 times and plans to start logging in eleven intact valleys in the next 2 years.

Forest Action Network (FAN) has been campaigning in BC to stop the destruction largely caused by a handful of large companies including MacMillan Bloedel, Doman and Interfor. The campaign has now been taken to international level with groups being established throughout North America and Europe, including our very own FAN UK.

Fan UK is determined to aid the campaign to stop logging in the Great Bear Rainforest by a variety of means, including raising public/consumer awareness, pressuring the Canadian Government, convincing UK companies to cancel contracts with Interfor and Doman and, of course, through direct action. Thanks to the work of Greenpeace and other groups, the campaign has already enjoyed some success. In November DIY superstore B & Q announced that it is phasing out orders of Hemlock and Cedar from BC. They were soon followed by Larch-Lap. Then Lenzing, an Austrian company, announced its decision to stop buying pulp from Doman and Sainshury's Homebase also recently announced that it would be phasing out its supply of BC lumber. Do It All produced a similar statement on March 1St. Meanwhile, a campaign has been launched against a number of companies, including Wickes which is known to sell BC lumber ('ethical shoplifting', anyone?).

We are also targeting Enso, a large Finnish logging conglomerate, which is acting as Interfor's European softwood agent (if you're interested, their UK headquarters are in Otpington, Kent).
FAN UK has just set up a central office in Norwich, are being given a Zodiac by FAN Canada and are planning various actions for the near future. To get involved in the campaign, please contact: FAN UK, 42-46 Bethel Street, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 INR. Tel: 01603611953 Fax: 01603666879 Email: fanuk@envirolink.org www: http://www.fanweb.org
ASH
On-going litigation in the UK by lung cancer victims against Imperial Tobacco and Galla,gher has overcome another hurdle, and will proceed to trial by ihe beginning of next year. Cases brought against the tobacco industry in the US have brought a large number of tobacco industry documents into the public domain, some of which can be viewed on the internet: do a search under "tobacco resolution".
Ashton Court Quarry
The battle to save 20 acres of public parkiands on the western edge of Bristol from the ravages of Pioneer Aggregates (Australia) conflnues. Pioneer are now on record as stating that they won't begin to expand their Dumford Quarry until September, as the area's badgers are currently cubbing, and the meadow will soon be active again. This same meadow is due to be 'translocated' (an attempt will be made...) and the receptor site is being prepared with a great big fence around it. Security has increased massively, with an estimated _21, 000 a week being spent on guards alone.

It's rumoured that while Pinkertons are being paid _12 an hour per guard, they are paying the employment agency just _8/hr, who are in turn allegedly paying the security guards just _4.25/hr. A few (rather wet) weeks ago a camp was set up; it is appealing for people, cakes and sprouts.

Contact: Bristol FoE on 0117 942 0129 or the camp mobile (0467430211). Or you can write to 10-12 Picton St, Montpelier, Bristol B56 SQA. Website: http:IIwww.gn.apc.org/cyclingIashton
Lessons from Liverpool
The Liverpool dockers were forced to settle their dispute, but the problems of casualisation, privatisation and above all anti- trade union laws, remain. An international discussion has now begun, analyzing what happened, and what we can do now.

On 12th April last year, 30, 000 people joined the March for Social Justice. This year, we can do it again - on 30th May in London.

While millions of pounds are wasted on the Millenium Dome, lone parents, disabled people, students, teachers, local authority workers, hospital workers - just about everyone except the corporate fat cats - are struggling for justice against a government that has failed to deliver its promises for a better society. The 28-month strike in Liverpool created a strong network of national and international supporters that the Merseyside Port Shop Stewards and their London Support Group are determined to keep together.

For further information on this year's March for Social Justice, please send a stamped/addressed envelope to: London Support Group, 31b Muswell Hill Place, London Nb. Tel. 0181 442 0090 The Dockers Shop Stewards can be contacted on 0151 2073388
Wake up to the facts, not the taste!
News from Baby Milk Action: Did you know that the Nestle boycott is the best supported consumer boycott in Britain? In a recent survey by Ethical Consumer magazine, 78% of their readers said they had taken action against Nestle.

You are probably already aware of Nestle's long history of promoting baby milks in violation of the World Health Organisation's marketing code. You may also know that the World Health Organisation estimates that 1.5 million infants die as a result of unsafe bottle feeding every year (that's one needless, pitiful death every 30 seconds!) And you may already be doing something about it - by boycotting Nestle and supporting Baby Milk Action's work to end company malpractice.

The campaign has brought about important changes and constantly challenges Nestle as it goes about its unethical business. On 23rd May from II to 12 we at Baby Milk Action would like you to help shine a spotlight on Nestle more brightly by supporting a demostration outside Nestle UK HQ in Croydort. You can show your support by publicising the event, coming to Croydon, writing to your local paper about Nestle and adding names to the pledge not to buy Nescafe until Nestle abides by the letter and spirit of the WHO/UNICEF International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.

Contact Baby Milk Action for a poster and petition form, leaflets and briefing papers or check the website at http://www.gn.apc.org/babymilk for the latest campaign news.
BARC - Bingley Anti-Road Campaign.
A camp is being set up south of Bingley by the River Aire. The proposed Bingley "relief' road was put "on hold" last July during the government road review. However the camp is being set up anyway, to deter the government from proceeding with the road. If built, the road would cut through a 10,000 year old fen mire and SSSI. and increase traffic in Bingley centre by 6000 vehicles a day (DoT's own figures). Usual requests for people. polyprop, boots and cake.
Waterwatch
Waterwatch are currently campaigning for the Water Company Dividend, paid up from the privatised utility to the plc. to be restricted to 20% of pretax profits. This would allow more money to be reivnvested in the water industry, which would bring prices down. Water companies would still improve profitability, as they would get 20% of these profits.

Waterwatch is also challenging the assumption that prices can be slashed without reducing investment in the industry, and is calling for better investment in infrastructure as a part of the current periodic price review.

On 22nd December, Yorkshire Water held a special EGM in Leeds to try to reduce its liability to Advance Corporation Tax. Waterwatch think that this was effectively a move towards a tax avoidanc~e scheme - with the money to finance it coming from Yorkshire Water Services (i.e. from customers' bills.) Check out the Waterwatch website at:www.neilirving.demon.co.uk