Action Briefing Feb 2003 - Mar 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Corporate Globalisation: Bringing It All Back Home

For a week in January, Birmingham played host to Friends of the Earth's pilot Corporates Roadshow - a program of events highlighting and challenging the power of big business in our lives.

The week kicked off on Tuesday 28th with a local food night at the Warehouse Cafe. After an excellent two-course meal of local cuisine that proved food doesn't have to be transported around the globe to taste great, the packed Cafe heard talks by Eliot Whittington from Oxfam and Karen Leach from Localise West Midlands on how buying local can feed the world.

The question of whether big business really rules the world was aired at Thursday's Public Debate in the Victoria Suite of Birmingham's Rep Theatre. Chaired by FoE Campaigns Director Liana Stupples, the debate brought together FoE Corporate Accountability Campaigner Craig Bennet, local free range egg farmer Ian Hannington, National Secretary of Amicus AEEU Section Danny Carrigan, and John Turner, a solicitor with Birningham's largest law firm (Wraggle & Co.), who advises large companies like Ford, Peugeot, General Motors and BAA on the ins and outs of environmental and health/safety issues.

Although we all enjoy the benefits of a globalised world - travel, cultural diversity, the internet, email, (both invaluable to activists the world over)- it is corporate globalisation that raises the problems. Power has shifted away from communities and their elected representatives to big business, who, under something called the "Fiduciary Duty", are required to above all else return a profit to their shareholders. To redress the resulting democratic deficit, argued Craig, new regulations such as the Corporate Responsibility Bill are essential. But John and Danny believed that, although there was a need for big business to embrace democratic accountability, too many regulations would strangle the economic life of the UK. Maybe the solution lies with people like Ian who, by building up a small business from scratch and adapting to the demands of a local market, can boast something the supermarket giants never could - fully traceable, locally produced, fresh produce with green credentials.

Friday night was given over to a film festival at the Electric Cinema which featured three films each showing different stories of how people have successfully taken on big business. Ken Loach's Bread And Roses, tells the story of a strike by foreign "illegals" in Los Angeles who, exploited as low paid janitors and ignored by their union, take matters into their own hands. Michael Mann's The Insider, is the true story of a former tobacco industry executive who turns whistle blower. Finally, Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brokovich depicts an individual's fight to expose the link between water pollution and devastating illness in a local community.

On Saturday we declared Open House on Corporate Power at Carrs Lane Church Centre, an all day activists' festival packed with film viewings, talks, stalls, workshops, prop making, a special farmers' market in New Street, and even a visit from FoE Director Tony Juniper. In his speech to the 100-strong gathering, Tony reminded us that the current climate of corporate globalisation was not an accident - it was a state of affairs that had been deliberately contrived by business and government, and it was up us all to try and uncontrive it. Following interesting workshop sessions on GATS, localisation and the WTO, and after several more lengths had been added to the "No Money For New Oil" Baku pipeline (a prop for a day of action in London on 25th March), the week was rounded off with "Sold Out?", a Jibbering Records club night at the Custard Factory's Cafe des Artistes.

A huge thank you and well done to absolutely everyone who made this an extremely successful and fun week.

James Botham