Prioritised Proposals: Corporate Power
The Process
The new Corporate Power campaign theme was chosen by students at the Forum 08. Students were then asked to submit their specific campaign proposals by December 2008. We received an amazing 25 proposals.
Check out the full list of all Corporate Power proposalsreceived
All proposals received were sent to the Management Committee for consideration and prioritisation, based on the campaign strand criteria guidelines. The full list of prioritised proposals is available below.
Check out the list of prioritised proposals
As a result of the prioritisation process, seven topics were chosen to go forward as campaign options, often with several proposals under each topic to be merged. Where several proposals were grouped under one prioritised topic, the proposers were asked to work together to come up wtih one final proposal. It is these seven campaign proposals that will be presented at the Forum 09 in March.
Check out the seven final campaign options
Prioritised Proposals
1. Ethical Investment
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethical Investment & Funding in Universities |
Alice Hemming & Lucy Hiscox, Cardiff |
To campaign for universities to have a publicly available and transparent ethical investment and funding policy. To campaign against universities receiving funding from ‘unethical’ corporations especially private military companies. This is based on the premise that students should receive an unbiased education. |
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Ethical Investment |
Jonathan Walter & Jessica Creighton-Hird, Liverpool |
To reflect the aspirations of our educational institutions and to promote greater internal transparency and accountability, we feel that our universities should make commitments to invest their/our money ethically and seek to encourage greater corporate social responsibility. This campaign wouold aid groups in campaigning and putting pressure on their universities to adopt ethical investment policies. |
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Ethical Investment in Universities & Colleges |
Adie Mormech & Alex Fountain, MMU |
Campaign to make universities’ investments and research projects transparent, create a national standard for analysing and rating the ethical nature of these investments and ultimately eradicate university unethical investments. Crucially, establish an Ethical Investment league. |
2. Workers’ Rights
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Stopping Corporate Abuses of Workers |
Alex Wood, Aston |
Most clothes and products are made by workers paid poverty wages and denied human rights. We must both oppose abuses of workers and support democratic solutions. This campaign deals with the problem and solution, through the twin aims of 1) Stopping the worst abuses of workers by corporations and 2)Campaigning for the extension of alternatives such as Fairtrade co-ops and sweat-free organisations. |
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Global Living Wages |
Emily Reid & Sephi Allen, Edinburgh |
To lobby the government to create a law enforcing British corporations to pay national and international workers a standard living wage. To increase awareness of exploitation amongst the community and especially within the student population. To expand people’s knowledge of worker’s rights’ abuses beyond the clothing industry and sweatshops. |
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Workers’ Rights |
Daniel Fisher & Harry Giles, St Andrews |
To campaign against the ways in which the rights of university-level student workers are being jeopardised by corporate power. As a student network attempting to tackle corporate power, People & Planet is poised to play a vital role in promoting the rights of student workers who may not be aware of the avenues that are available to them when those rights are transgressed. |
3. Reclaim Education
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Reclaim Education |
Malcolm Harris & Emma Hughes, Edinburgh & Cardiff |
Corporate presence in an educational institution transforms it from a powerhouse of learning and social progress into a provider of corporate recruitment and personal gain. This campaign would have three main goals: halting and reversing tacit privatisation, addressing academic funding, and ultimately reducing corporate influence in the education sector so that schools, colleges and universities exist for the public good. |
4. Tax Justice
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tax Justice |
Karina Watkins, Bristol |
To expose the secrecy of international trade, the way multinational corporations are skipping their tax obligations around the world and the consequences of this for the many millions living in poverty as a result. Then campaign to put pressure on the government to ensure MNCs and large accountancy firms increase transparency around their operations (through country by country reporting) and stop them skipping their tax obligations. |
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Tax Justice & End of Corporate Personhood |
Hanna Plant & Molly Uzzell, St Andrews |
Corporations should be held accountable to their legally required tax payments and held to uphold Tax Justice. Details of corporate Tax payments should be made mandatory in all financial reporting, including not only the tax paid but as to who is accountable for the use of that tax i.e. government. This aspect of Tax dodging should also be made more publicly aware. Also demand an end to corporate personhood, which structurally enables the lack of management responsibility. |
5. Alternative Consumption
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Taking Corporate Power Out of Our Universities |
Amy Hall & Alys Mumford, Cardiff |
To prevent outlets chain stores or cafes from opening on University campuses. To boycott ones already in place and encourage the university to remove them. Also to encourage university to welcome local businesses/cafes to open on campus in replacement. |
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Alternative Consumption |
Daniel Fisher & Harry Giles, St Andrews |
To promote alternatives to corporate-driven consumerist consumption models. People & Planet groups could run campaigns encouraging their SUs to start cooperatives, or to run campaigns to save local suppliers driven out of business by the economic climate. |
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Supermarket Monopoly |
Sophie Robinson & Emma West, Cardiff |
To target/boycott big supermarkets like Tesco or Asda and raise awareness about their mistreatment of suppliers and farmers. To challenge brand loyalty. To encourage student to shop local and support small businesses. Could involve getting rid of supermarket outlets on campus. |
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Food and Corporate Power |
Lewis Bassett & Tom Antebi, Roehampton |
We propose to tackle and fundamentally undermine the corporate control of food and its related economic structures which cause serious issues with health, freedom and the climate. wo large scale corporate commodities, agrofuels and mono-culture cash crops, have had a significant impact on recent food shortages and food price escalation. These are trends set to increase with further use of agrofuels as well as accelerated climate change. |
6. Public Transport
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Public, Not Profitable: Public Transport |
Beccy Talmy & Amanda Grimm, Cambridge & Edinburgh |
The privatization of public services means that they are driven by profit rather than the interests of people and the planet. This campaign would focus on public transport as a means of promoting nationalization over corporatisation. That would allow it to target the cultural power of corporations by promoting a positive alternative. Also key to the environmental movement. |
7. Total Ethical Procurement
Name of proposal |
Proposer(s) |
Summary of proposal |
Download the proposal |
Comment on this proposal on the web forum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Ethical Procurement |
Matt McMullen (Group Support Volunteer) |
The Total Ethical Procurement (TEP) campaign aims to abolish the environmental destruction and labour rights abuses that educational institutions currently fund through their purchasing of unethical products and services. All products brought by educational institutions should be socially just, labour abuse free and environmentally sustainable, from electronics, garments and stationary, to construction materials. |
Note: the proposer may choose to take forward Total Ethical Procurement as a stand-alone proposal, or to join it together under the topic of either Workers’ Rights or Alternative Consumption.
Choosing the new campaign
The projected life cycle for the Corporate Power campaign theme is six years, 2009-2015. During this time, we will seek to run several campaign strands.
It is recommended that at the Forum 09, we choose one or two campaigns strands only, with one prioritised to be launched in September 2009.
After that, other campaign strands will be chosen at variable intervals, either to replace the initial campaign strand or to run alongside it. This process will continue throughout the six years.
Points to bear in mind when choosing campaign strands are that although they can be entirely distinctive from each other, our multi-stranded approach should enable us to campaign in a coherent and comprehensive manner, particularly given the time-scale.
Campaign Strand Criteria: Guidelines
The Management Committee assessed all the Corporate Power campaign proposals received on the following criteria, which students were asked to consider when writing their proposals.
An ideal campaign…
1. … tackles a root cause of a significant human rights, poverty or environmental injustice. It could link these together.
2. …is demanded by those affected or in solidarity with them.
3. … has specific, achievable goals or aims at a local, national or international level over its planned lifetime. It could have several interim goals as well as or instead of one big goal.
4. … includes a range of possible actions and strategies catering for people with different skills, levels of experience and preference of campaigning methods in the network.
5. … is relevant to students, in schools, colleges and universities; both in the existing P&P network and those we seek to engage, particularly in Further Education colleges, newer universities and schools in disadvantaged communities.
6. … is relevant to the entire network in the UK, possibly with separate goals and actions in regions with devolved government.
7. … works within the autonomous groups structure of People & Planet.
8. … can involve the network in planning and running to encourage understand of the issue and more generally active global citizenship.
9. … uses People & Planet’s strengths as a student network.
10. … has opportunities for cooperation with other groups, including those in the Global South, but contributes something unique to their work in the area.
11. … has a body of research and resources available to us in order to develop the campaign.
12. … fits in with and draws from current and past People & Planet’s campaigns.
