Ralph Nader speech at the Corporate Responsibility and the North Country symposium

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Consumer advocate Ralph Nader speaking at a symposium on "Corporate Responsibility and the North Country" in Duluth. The day-long session was one of seven being held around Minnesota sponsored by the Minnesota Public Interest Research Foundation.

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The student perks are just part of an overall a similar a movement going on throughout the country to build new Civic institutions. I think it's important that we recognize that one of the burdens of a complex society which can be defined as a society that affects people in many ways beyond their control their daily lives. At one of the burdens is an increased effort and citizen development and action. Now it's only when you look at it as an opportunity that it ceases to be a burden as an opportunity of living in a democracy where citizens can not only shaped their values but also have them respected in the political economic and social a process before this can happen. There has to be a heightened perception of just what is happening where the power is how are people's lives being affected. Over the years there has clearly been a growing development of centralized economic and political power 200 large corporations in our country control almost 70% of the manufacturing assets. Are they control a great deal of government power to stay local and federal level and they control the economic wealth and they control the most important lever of of power in the country, which is the ability to say you can work here or you can't work here. Now who in the world ever thought that the United States of America 215 million people the most powerful country in the world exceptionally wealthy national natural resources would be dominated by 200 giant corporations whose Allegiance is to themselves and who have been able to converge their own economic car with political power by government to further subsidize promote and extend their influence. This is clearly not something that's conducive to a Democratic Society. You can take the angel Gabriel and put the angel Gabriel at the head of Armco and Republic steel companies and the angel Gabriel would have a problem at being responsive to the local communities. I just want a difference over the angel Gabriel is not ahead of Armco steel or Republic Steel. And so there isn't even that generic restraint. operating at the present time It is important to know is that corporations must justify their impact on human beings in more than just power term that is a must be able to justify more than just to be able to say we can do what you want and you have to take it. Now the modern Corporation is very little study from our schools to our political dialogue. The giant Corporation is not a major issue in the national election when it should be easy major issue in the national election. The giant Corporation is not The giant Corporation is not studied in our elementary secondary schools. And in college has the giant Corporation and its connection with government Authority through tax privileges subsidies promotions of protections from competition here and abroad and elsewhere. These aren't studied with any particular detail indeed. The modern Corporation can be seen as the most concerted concentrated unified form of power that this country has ever seen. It is camouflaged by extremely glib and widely disseminated Madison Avenue public relations strategy and its benefits are highly visible in terms of Of the company's own value system while it's risks and harms are highly invisible as a large corporation has become expert at not only publicizing its benefits as it sees them but also exaggerating them wildly all at the same time. It is either suppressed or deterred the exposure of a tire now who created a giant Corporation the corporation is a legal entity. It's created by the state. That's the first rule of understanding a corporate institutions corporations are chartered by state governments. They receive their legal legitimacy by the state Corporation commission's weather in Delaware or Minnesota or else we're giving a group of individuals who want to form a corporation the right to incorporate their assets the right to have limited liability. And the right to engage in contracts and other activities now what the state gives the state can condition. The reason why corporations must have a charter is because they have certain privileges that ordinary individual simply do not have one of them is limited liability. Another is the ability to diffuse and shield the exercise the power for this reason and others are system of law and the United States has required the chartering of Corporations and return for meeting a certain set of conditions ice to the powers of officers the corporation the directors of the corporation to shareholders of the corporation and the kind of information a corporation must report and two kind of legal standards and must adhere to This whole state chartering situation develop a well over a hundred years ago and it hasn't developed much sense. That is at the time when the basic law state chartering was develop corporations. We're not dealing in automobiles are not dealing in no clear power. They were not dealing and oil drilling and they were not dealing in massive Excavating technology that affected the environment. They were relatively small modest almost one might say family-based economic Enterprises, but after the Civil War and the corporations began to expand through merger acquisition the notorious John D Rockefeller, take over the oil refining industry example bean and probably the most prominent case and point are these corporations amass such wealth that there were there were periods in our history when a man such as JP Morgan. could decide whether the US government was going to be extended the necessary line of credit to continue its activities in particular emergencies this of course, it has extended its since those early days in the 20th century to corporations that are larger than many countries in the world Exxon last year grossed 46 billion dollars in 1 year that place is it in the western hemisphere in this order first United States second Brazil third Exxon. And General Motors is not but far behind running neck-and-neck with Canada. These are corporations that employer close to a million people various countries around the world including this country and they are run and not by the shareholders. They are run by a few Executives at the top chairman of the board the president in conjunction with a very accommodating board of directors representing Insurance Giants banking Giants another industrial Giant in a web of a interlocking interest that service one each other's corporate objectives. Beyond this there are new forms of corporate Behavior one is called the joint venture a joint venture is a corporate Enterprise that is basically owned by two other corporation, which should be competing with one another Armco Sandra publicar to steel companies presumably they should be competing with one another but they have been permitted by a a excessive excessively in different a justice department to pursue what is an effect of joint venture to excavate from the earth of Minnesota Metals by which their business is extended through a Fabrication in and say Now where does the corporation get its legitimacy from it gets it not just from the chartering law a butt from entering into contracts contracts mutually agreeable between it as a seller and other buyers by entering into labor agreements with workers and a by obeying all the all the other laws of the state and the nation. Now that's only one area of a potential legitimacy. The other of course is to respect certain common decency, which if the law hasn't caught up to recognize them and protect them by law are nevertheless Curry important and until recently one of these common decency has been that a corporation does not destroy other people's health safety and property in order to keep its cost at 11 that it's so desires and and maximize its profits and sales are this common decency has more recently in our history. Venice constant and environmental pollution laws, which are really another way of saying Thou shalt not destroy human beings love shall not destroy the natural resources, which are inextricably related to the well-being of human beings now and for many their future Generations, Now between these legitimacy in the potential and the realities of whether they're really observe is raw power the raw power to engage in an employment and environmental blackmail, whereby companies can say to the community and we will do this and you will abide by what we will do. Otherwise we will abandon this economic Enterprise unemployed workers wreck the local economy and go somewhere else on where the community appreciates are predatory activities. Babe, this kind of this kind of institutional crime this display of corporate Outlaw Eisen. I is of the utmost seriousness and it cannot simply be countered by saying while there are rules of law that will curb these outrageous because as we know of the law can be twisted delayed distorted manipulated revoke by the sheer economic power and legal advocacy and political influence of this Corporation or particular corporation and you in the case most of Interest here and the reserve mining company, which is owned by Armco and Republic. The reserve mining company is a is a legal entity. It has no inherent right and amiable right to destroy other people's health safety or property I'd has no inalienable right to devastate and area both chemically as well as physically on the grounds that it must feed the hungry jaws of its factories down in Ohio and elsewhere and never mind the future Generations who must Avail themselves of the economic recreational and other potential of these of these regions. Now, of course, if a company can say, well we are engaged in this country and a serious War times struggle is a foreign powers. We must develop Alyssa romitorio quickly so we can transform into airplanes and tanks and other equipment in order to save our Shores in our country from being overtaken. What kind of quid pro quo which sometimes makes a particular generation say? Well, we have to sacrifice in this way because of the interest in National survival. But what really is reserve my knee and arm cone Republic parents. What are their steak in doing what they're doing? Are they trying to save the United States of America? Are they trying to prevent epidemics with the materials that they're producing? What are the stakes and here is where we come I think to the nub of the problem. The stakes are utterly trivial for utterly trivial steaks Reserve mining has been exposing future generations to Untold risks of cancer and other maladies because the only state that's involved is a small percentage of profit retained by a company which is making among the highest rate of profit on its investment in the United States about 30% return on its investment. After taxes. You will notice that Ford motor company has been satisfied with less than a 11% return on his taxes. And if Henry Ford is satisfied with 11% return on his taxes, what kind of gentleman run Armco and Republic Steel in the first place. When you have a region a region in a state where there is a dominant industry and a dominant corporate employer. Namely taconite Mining and Reserve mining Corporation and where the principal source of jobs and the principal the economy is that mining activity you have the potential for very serious abuses of Keegan ionic and political power. There's no countervailing power there. No alternative Apollo's local economies held in a kind of extortion at grip where it is told and some any certain and uncertain terms. Then it must abide by the by the dictates of its corporate Masters Oro become a disaster area from the point of view of of unemployment. Now that is completely incompatible with the United States Constitution and with any free Subs of a Democratic Society. Now this company town or company region phenomena exist. In other parts of the United States the paper mills and Main the textile mills in North Carolina the copper smelters in the southwest part of the United States even Gary Indiana city of substantial size is largely a company Town under the ages of us steel and the behavior. These corporations is absolutely outrageous from the most charitable point of view US steel for example refuses to let the local property tax assessor and Gary examine in detail its books. It's simply that bills itself for the property taxes. It thinks it should pay and then send the check to the city of Gary and if the city of Gary wants to challenge Us in court, the legions of lawyers ministering u.s. Steel will tie up these property tax receipts for a long time. And in the meantime, how are the schools going to run? And how are other Municipal activities going to run? That's the leaver that u.s. Steel has and when Senator Muskie sent his investigators to Gary Indiana few years ago. They concluded after study that the u.s. Steel plant certainly the largest steel plant in the world was under assessed by 123 million dollars under assessed by $123 in areas such as main the text via paper mills place in the local environment and Justified on the grounds that that's the smell of progress. That's the smell of employment. And of course when you have workers whose only job potential is the local paper melt as a workers I can tend to agree that that is the smell of the payroll now that is a very cruel choice is it not to say to people in effect. All right workers and Silver Bay, here's your choice jobs and cancer or no jobs and no cancer. What kind of choice is that? That's the choice of a corporate dictator. That's your choice of a corporation which refuses to depress. It's already too exorbitant profits gluttonous profits a few percentage points in order to aggregator the necessary Capital to guard windshield. It's an environmental poisonings and destruction. Now that is a totalitarian Choice. That's the choice that dictators and invoke for their subjects jobs and cancer. No jobs. No cancer Corsa companies. Don't put it that way. They just say jobs are no jobs. The critical footnotes are left for Citizens environmental groups health specialist lawyers for environmental causes and house causes to fill out the footnote. One of the most in one of the most amazing displays in our institutional history in this country is the way corporations can engage in consistent lying and get away with it year after year after year. Let me give you just several examples when the US government wanted to require the auto companies to put in shoulder harness seat belt combination General Motors submitted a statement to the Department of Transportation saying that shoulder harnesses and seatbelts were bad for three reasons one a mess up people's clothes to they would possibly lead to the rupture of internal organs and three that there's no proof that it's a safety feature the answers. Of course, they're quite simple one and they mess up people's clothes better to have them wrinkled than bloody. 2 as far as rupturing internal organs presumably General Motors preferred the alternative of thousands of Motor Vehicle occupants heading through windshield so they can rupture their Scott instead and 3 that there's no evidence of it being safe Volvo turned around and showed the US government and it took Volvo a company small enough to be put in GM's Hip Pocket and took Volvo to show that they study of 60,000 accident proved Beyond any doubt at all, the life-saving effect of the use of these seat belt shoulder harness combinations. You see this nothing to deter these companies from saying the most outrageous things I'm saying the most outrageous lies as to for example, whether they had a plan for landfill disposal by Reserve mining. What did the reserve mining Representatives tell the judge? And what did they actually have finally have in their files at the same time? They had of course. There's no company the size of reserve it wouldn't be thinking about landfill alternative to dumping some 64000 tons everyday into Lake inferior, which they renamed. 900 Lake belongs to who does the lake belong to reserve mining? Of course not and why is reserved mining free to use it as its private sewer and gave it that right sheer power might makes right that Lake belongs to Eternity belongs to Future Generations belongs to present generations and give you an illustration of how difficult it is without an adequate perceptual Precision to deal with the terrible waste that the reserve mining operation and similar operations are generating. And most people are sensitive to over forms of violence like fires storms landslides in the Light Street crime any reserve wine in case you have a silent cumulative form of violence. or forms of violence asbestos asbestos does not provoke immediate pain. It doesn't pinch you therefore. It's easy to conclude that it doesn't hurt you. But I suggest this is one of a number of very serious cumulative forms of silent violence in this land poured out from our Industries and mines do first contaminate the air water and soil and then because human beings are of the world are water and soil to poison or destroy these human beings. Now there's always an incubation. Operating here. That is the company can contaminate your health environment. And make profits for 20-25 years or more before the effect is shown. on you so there is a Time differential is quite serious. The benefit in terms of profits is now the cost in terms of health Devastation is later and just like the coal companies when they mind under actual towns in Pennsylvania and they took all the call and they got all the profit and then they abandon the town and then the subsides began in the homes begin to partially collapse row after row of houses and they couldn't find who was responsible because the corporation had left there was no bond posted the benefits were now and the devastation is later. I'll take the ice best to situation. It gives you a very good lesson on corporate power one. You can never rely on corporations to provide you with an early alert as to the poisons that they are dumping into your health environment. You cannot rely on them, you know that from your experience with Reserve with all its awesome research capability and its parent companies in Ohio Why didn't it make the analysis of precisely what it had been dumping and is continuing to dump into Lake Superior. Why did it leave it to Citizens and scientist to make the discovery? As far as I know Arlene Leto doesn't have a laboratory. She doesn't have all these facilities, but she had an emergency that something was wrong that you can't dump that much every day in Lake Superior and not have certain consequences and her ethical curiosity. Led her to point to this potential of asbestos the scientist outside Reserve. Did other work to substantiate it and when it was finally substantiated Reserve mine and its lawyers moved into second gear which was denied that there is a hazard first do not disclose event of the what you're dumping into people's Health environment II is if you finally have to admit that certain materials do enter the health environment then deny that are harmful. And then put the burden of proof on the victims with the burden of proof on the victims and with a battalion of lawyers on the part of the corporation's. Years can go by Ken play. Many incubation periods can extend where it'll be too late by the time something happens for many people just like it was too late for the workers in the Roman house plan in Philadelphia when they came down with it liver cancer just like it's too late for the workers in the rubber plants. Now coming down with various kinds of deadly diseases due to the chemicals that they're exposed. Just like it's too late for the asbestos insulation workers. Half of which home come down with some form of cancer just like it's too late for the uranium workers 25 to 30% of whom died from lung cancer due to radon gas coming from the mines. Just like it's too late for many workers. Who were either told by the corporation or an adequately defended by the union that they had no choice, but if they wanted a job they had to accept a shortened lifespan. Now let me illustrate the kind of stubbornness that these companies are capable of these companies are run by human beings who go to church on Sunday at times who belong to the Red Cross who probably contribute to a local charity. They might help with a Boy Scout Troop as well. But when they're inside that Corporation, they are not personally reliable. They have an Institutional shield around them and they can behave like the criminals. They are repeatedly They have no personal responsibility. There is no chance that any of these gentlemen will ever be prosecuted and go to jail. No matter how many workers and how many inhabitants died from the asbestos in the air or in the water? The technical dispute apparently covers not only asked bestest in the water, but asbestos in the air. Nothing is interesting certain in this country in the public health literature. It's that ass bestest fibers in the are ingested through the lungs causes cancer a variety of cans there is no dispute. Now what about asbestos in water ingesting it instead of breathing it. What's the evidence here? It's not as hard as it is. That's bestest in the air. but In many ways it raises a more fundamental question. Why take the risk? What is the benefit that accrues to taking the risk? Why find five ten fifteen years from now. I suddenly upward curve in the level of gastrointestinal cancer and this area of, Minnesota. What is the benefit? Is the country being saved? Are foreign Intruders being repulsed. What is the benefit the benefit is Shelby 30% return 20% return on profits? Let me read to you a section from the Journal of Pediatrics volume 57 number for April 1976. This. With carcinogens and drinking water cancer-causing substances been drinking water. They refer to Duluth and Duluth, Minnesota Asbestos and substantial amount has been found in the water supply, which is apparently been contaminated since 1955 with Industrial Waste into can I can I order discharge into Lake Superior asbestos when inhaled is known to be cancerous and Men. No, now, what about the water? They refer to the number for ports with came out before the asbestos controversy really erupted here. They said both reports point it out then an animal experimentation ingested asbestos fibers have not produce cancer, but there appears to be no doubt that there is an increased frequency of human gastrointestinal cancer after occupational exposures presumably from asbestos that has been swallowed. When this kind of cancer is induced the pathway taken by the asbestos is unknown might be through the lungs and are the gastrointestinal tract and short the animals pass that were made didn't show a production of cancer. But the Journal of Pediatrics says there's no doubt that in human beings. There is an increased frequency of gastrointestinal cancer after occupational exposures to ask bestest that has been swallowed swallowed. There is a great deal of data dealing with workers who are exposed to asbestos plants and asbestos insulation activities in the light working in shipyards in World War II and that's the report then needs to be given serious consideration in short the dialogue is not Reserve mining sayings Please Beyond A Reasonable Doubt. If you ask bestest were pushing into Lake Superior that gets in your drinking water is harmful to you the issue and the question should be posed this way you reserve mining prove Beyond a reasonable doubt that the S bestest is safe or stop putting it in our bodies. I know there are relatively conventional ways to avoid this a specialist and being put into Lake Superior. It's not a matter of technology to be discovered even being done by other companies. It's not a matter of anything but the level of profits that Reserve mining through its parents aren't going Republic want to maintain when a corporation has been a judge in court to have been discriminating against workers because they're too old or because they're women or because their minority groups the law of the land now says they must give back pay. American Telephone and Telegraph company Ma Belle to give millions and millions of dollars in back pay for discriminating against women. By the same analogy when a company has been operating for almost 20 years exposing workers and residence to risks of cancer and other diseases. It is required under a civilized rule of law and that company compensate that all of those profits that were taken at the expense of the People's Health the add it up and made a financial obligation on the part of the company. United States developed into the most powerful economy in the world in very significant part because the people who work the land own the land. We're a land of small farmers the homestead I possibly the greatest economic invention in human history. Was not a it was not a land of serfs or peasants. Although there are enough shareholders and sharecroppers in the South to almost qualify them as peasants Obion lies the plantation mentality characterizing Brazil and Mexico and other nations did not Prevail in this country. The belief was that the land is best taken care of and made most productive by those who have a permanent State they live there they work there. Not by absentee corporations who are interested in getting as much as they can out of these gigantic holes in the land and then leaving the terrible Legacy to the residence as they go elsewhere in their search for profits. that I think is an important principle for you to discuss and deliberating what citizens policy should be toward the reserve Mining and other similar problems in this part of Minnesota. Probably issues dealing with timbering issues dealing with dumping waste with or without permits and to landfills And many other environmental issues that affect Recreation tourism Health employment and what you're going to pass on to Future Generations. I want a corporation becomes an entrenched Outlaw when it refuses to prevent its activities from Wrecking violence and property damage definition human beings. It loses its legitimacy to continue operating in business. It is far more destructive. In terms of present future generations and the far more heralded types of Street crime corporate crime. Is it epidemic levels in the United States bribes the green racket in New Orleans the Equity Funds a scandal in in California 200 million dollars worth of forged insurance policies Every Day brings your new reports of new kinds of corporate crimes and yet you don't see crime in the Suites being a principal campaign issue do you because it isn't crime the politicians condemned. It's certain kinds of crime Crimes by criminals who don't make campaign contributions. The Upper Midwest had many of its forestlands denuded over a century ago and economies are paying a penalty for that. Companies now are searching out the oceans to kill off the remaining whales. Corporations not only are noted for their irresponsible acquisition exploitation of resources, but they also have no sense of limits. They will actually eliminate the very source of their raw material if it is a finite Source like the New England's that are Timber without reforest Rena or eliminating the whales or the fish. Or dumping so much pollutants into the waterways that Fisheries are are stripped very badly, whether they're commercial or recreational. Some of you represent active citizen groups here and it's important. I think that you not only develop a detailed series of reports about what is going on what the future projections are of raw materials activity in this part of the state and the health and employment and other consequences, but also to develop a list of Demands that you are you should make these companies go after all are operating in an area that you're going to be living in in in using far longer than they are. And I would first recommend is that you asked Reserve mining? To make a list of all chemicals that in anyway are used and it's processing activities and it's an industrial and Mining activities and the extent to which these chemicals are finding their way into the health environment because you may be surprised as to the additional scope of contaminants beyond the asbestos issue. Sometimes when one particular contaminant get so much public attention is very little attention to what else is company or these companies are throwing into the environment General Electric Plant in the Hudson River was being criticized for years for certain kinds of pollutants and just recently was learned that it been dumping PCB into the Hudson River contaminating the fish requiring prescribing a fishing and now they have to do Change the bottom of the river for miles in order to try to clean up that process is going to cost General Electric 20 million dollars if indeed is required to pay that bill the Hudson river which produces drinking water for a number of communities is contaminated with PCB which is a known producer of disease. And there's no reason for that to have been dumped into the river in the first place. So a list of disclosed chemicals and other substances that Reserve mining or other similar companies are engaged in handling and disposing of The second recommendation I have in the group whose representatives are here United citizens for Clean Water and Air are quite familiar with this. The second is to develop a system of organizing people who care there a lot of people care, but they care individually and they have to be linked up with one another in order to care as a community and to have more effect in furthering their cares against entrenched interests. Some of you may be very concerned about electric utility rates or power plant sighting. And for that we have proposed a check-off system on your utility bill, which would be required by state law a Ponzi utility companies electric light and gas companies for every month. They send you the bill. They have to provide you with a square on the bill which invites you to make a voluntary contribution to a Statewide citizen action group was full-time staff that you control one contributor one-vote a lawyer's Economist physicist Engineers ecologist Etc to represent your interests individually and together Visa V. The electric light the electric gas and telephone company so that when they accompany stand before the utility commissioner before the legislature, you have your own investigators and Advocates an expert in touch with you and in touch with themselves in terms of their technical. Advocacy. See you build up an economic and political base tours. Present your interest if you're interested in obtaining information about that proposal, which is now pending in 10 states and may sweep the country and a few years because it doesn't cost the taxpayer. Anything doesn't create another government agency and it's just another Civic institutions hard for politicians to fight that just to jump down if you have a pencil, it's right to PO Box 19312, Washington, DC 19312, Washington, DC 20036 or a list of addresses and materials on the table somewhere here for those of you who want to get additional information. I'll be the influence of of Corporations is so pervasive those of you who've worked with mPerk. I think you have seen how some corporate interest in this day. We're trying to reach the regions in order to try to get them to revoke of the system that makes hampered possible on the various college and universities campuses. The problem of Core Power is so pervasive that in about a month as he sent it will commence hearings on a proposal to require Federal chartering of giant corporations. These would include corporations the size of Armco and Republic. The theory is quite simple is that corporations are too big and too geographically spread around the world to be chartered by a little State like Delaware or other other states. And that the federal charge me to Corporation would rewrite the chartering mechanism would rewrite what people have permitted corporations to do via the charter which is like the corporation's Constitution. In such ways to bring it up-to-date commensurate with modern technology modern hazards modern economic power modern a transnational influence all of the world and the chartering the new Charter a proposal which the Senate will be considerate will focus on the rights of five distinct groups shareholders workers consumers the residents of the community around the plant tour company and taxpayers taxpayers because they are directly or indirectly off and subsidizing corporations and they've got a stake which is not being legally recognized shareholders and workers and consumers for obvious reasons. They have to have certain rights and residents of a community because they're often exposed to the poisons are contaminants of the industrial activity a kind of compulsory consumption of violence. That's exactly what it is unless you can avoid Inhaling is a compulsory consumption of air pollution born violence to list one form of pollution. The charter of the federal Charming proposal would require new and detailed forms of disclosure had it been in effect 20 years ago. Reserve would have had to tell the public what it was dumping into Lake Superior. It gives shareholders the right to not only more directly choose the directors of the corporation stead of having them chosen by a self-perpetuating clique of officers of the corporation. You have them give us a ride for cumulative voting in the celebrated case that you had with with your utility company here where an individual wanted to represent in consumers wanted to be elected to the board of directors. If the federal chartering principal was in effect that time Not only would a person have been elected but any group of citizens who could amass 8% of the shareholders Vote or so could have elected a member to the board of directors. Should honey Federal chartering would also give taxpayers a right to ask and and have supported the supposed benefits from taxpayers subsidize incorporation through loopholes preferences accelerated depreciation straight out cash subsidies and song proposals which illustrate a desire on the part of some members of Congress at least to bring the chartering mechanism up to the needs of the people today given the size the power the technology of the giant Corporation. I know there are some good reports some good studies on how to study a corporation and how to deal with its Outlaw power or it's abuse of power and I'm sure some of you are in touch with groups around the country who have prepared these kinds of manuals others also and importance to be attached to shareholder challenges during the annual meeting, even though you're not likely to win your challenge you would be likely to give national attention to the reserve mining situation. You should have is your ambition in terms of getting national attention to the reserve mining situation a level of attention obtained by a young woman who is accused of robbing a bank in California. Patty Hearst if Patty Hearst can get that much attention through the news media that what Reserve mining is done and is doing to Lake Superior. And the in the region here in Minnesota should be able to command that kind of attention if you think that's not possible. I suggest you look at the history of the struggle by the coal miners in the late sixties against the coal companies on black lung that it started out with no coverage at all and within two or three years it was on Cronkite and the various new shows and news magazines as a routine process of disclosure. Once you get a critical mass breakthrough in this type of thing, you will get the attention that this issue deserves because your struggle is going to be a struggle that many other communities and Company towns and regions will have to engage in or are engaging in throughout the country. Why in some of these company Town say they completely control the local police and they decide who's going to be a lawyer in the town like North Carolina is one textile mill the controls the town if you want to be a lawyer you have to go to the mill and say is it? Okay if I'm a lawyer in this town, of course, they control City Hall and Doug and there's a whole place where there's control the control the land on which the workers have their little homes and apartments and that kind of power is simply not compatible with a presumptive democratic a living. Let me conclude on on this note cuz we're going to have a exchange. I do want to hear the representative of Reserve mining. It's not the first time I've heard it, but I do like to hear what they come up with recently. The importance here of of these issues is simply not restricted to reserve mining you have pesticide applications in the Timberlands, which are a serious health problems. You're using to 45245 D. You've got a seriously look into it in Nova Scotia a few weeks ago pesticide spraying. I don't think it was too for 5T but a pesticide spraying the emulsifier used in the pesticide was documented is the direct cause of the death of six children right near Halifax Nova Scotia by a team of scientists Adele housing University, and it was just fortunate that they were there and they made the connection because those children would have died in the parents would never thought it was due to the pesticides and and and their application. You also have the the question of dumping of chemical waste in this area of Minnesota weather indeed. Your Arrowhead Regional Council is doing anything about it. Whether indeed the the state is doing anything about it whether anybody knows where all is dumping is taking place or whether seeping and end reaching water tables or otherwise leading to the buildup of of a major health minutes. overriding question of course is one of of health and economic well-being and you can never never tolerate making those go at cross-purposes one another the cruelest type of spectacle to observe his workers. So concerned about their corporate Masters stripping them of their jobs that they turn around and support the most awful corporate disease activities, even though they and their children are being the victims because they think they have no other employment opportunities if any such anytime a situation like that arises anytime corporations have the almost unique unilateral overwhelming authority to say to the people in the community. If you want jobs, you're going to have to take these public health risks and suffer these Pub these diseases. That itself seems to me to be sufficient to disqualify and the corporation from doing business in that region. Now, there are four examples. There are legal rules in our country that permit the Takeover of land by the state for public purposes. And these public purposes are far less important than the public purposes to be served by preventing a company like reserve mining from devastating and turning an area of Minnesota into cancer cancer territory far far less important domain practice by the state or federal government has been a long entrenched Authority in our history. And I think we better extend it in the following way. If a company proves itself to be a consistent Outlaw if it proves itself to have a consistent content for the rights to live the rights to be healthy among its workers and among the residents that company as a chartered company loses its right to do business just like a for jumping some states if they auto repair dealer is found to be consistently cheating the customers the state government agency revoke the license of the auto repair & Auto. Ears out of business. consequently consequently, I think it's important for those of you who are working in the Civic Arena to sit down with the workers sit down with the Union try to Enlighten the United steelworkers Local here has been taking the easy way out try to Enlighten them in to say to them luck. It is jobs and help the company has the money to achieve both if the company refuses to do that if the companies willing to consign to disease and death thousands of people at the contaminated destroy the local environment. Then there must be an alternative plan to get the state of Minnesota to the. Which is the Takeover with compensation equivalent to the depreciated value of an abandoned Reserve mining site of the entire operation, which will be run by the citizens of the state of Minnesota to benefit the state of Minnesota. If all kinds of businesses can have their licenses revoked for cheating people out of a few thousands of dollars or a few millions of dollars then clearly for a company of the shown itself refusing to obey the most Elementary dictates of environmental sanity. and worker safety Do you also lose its right to continue profiting from this kind of parallel to start destruction? And this should be done after Cyril deliberations and meetings of all people concerned in the whole region in order to present it or to the state legislature in Minnesota and Minneapolis Minneapolis. It's very important for this to be a given due deliberation because that's your only bargaining power left the politicians in the state of Minnesota and found a great way to avoid the responsibility the elected officials they say well the matter is in the courts and we have no, this is silence some of the most Progressive liberal elected officials both in the state and in Congress, and when you silent Center to Hubert Humphrey and Center Walter Mondale, you're performing quite a I don't know where else they've ever been silenced. So you need an alternative plan to present to them which is not in the courts, which is not under litigation to give them the convenient rationale to avoid facing up to an extraordinarily serious problem in their state. And clearly if you would if you would bring together these kinds of good of Goodwill and citizens in furthering these alternative plans. You will be able to confront Armco and Republic. When is a response to this kind of environmental and employment black men into the workers in this audience or who have people who are working for a reserve? I suggest that you look at some of the Advanced Medical slides of workers. In other parts of the country will come down with a specific disease and cancer. I suggest you see for example the description of some of the men working for the Johns Manville plant in New Jersey who won day were a hundred 80 lb and a few months later were 80 lb before they die. that is not a kind of picture that has paraded before the workers every day that they go to work. But if they don't realize that that is what could happen here on an epidemic scale and Reserve won't be around to bail him out and won't be here to compensate for. Then they will continually make themselves vulnerable to this divide-and-rule tactic of Reserve making these people take the cruel choice of a high risk of disease and jobs or no jobs. Don't let that choice be inflicted upon you and that way you Harbor your hands not just the future of present Generations, but many many generations. Who come after you. And who will wish that you devoted the organization and the intelligence and the drive? to solve this problem so that there's something healthy useful productive passed on to them in subsequent years and centuries and I'm like some other dilemmas. This is not a dilemma where they can throw before you a Mac and a massive benefit. It's strictly a matter of whether it's going to be super exorbitant profits or exorbitant profits. Thank you.

Funders

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