Telecom has been jolly naughty!

TELECOM 'WINS' 2OO7 ROGER AWARD.

Perennial finalist Telecom has for the second time, won the 2007 Roger Award, the award for the worst trans-national corporation operating in New Zealand. Over the past year it joins TranzRail (now Toll NZ) in the hall of shame as the only multiple winners of such a dubious distinction.

Before documenting some of the many reasons why Telecom was awarded the Roger we mustn't forget the other finalists and their claim to shame. Finalists for 2007 were: Telecom, Pike River Coal, ANZ, Independent Liquor, APN News& Media (ANM),GlaxoSmithKline, Spotless and British American Tobacco (B AT).

Pike River Coal was nominated because of the sheer inappropriate nature (not to mention environmental damage) of opening a new major coal mine at the same time as the country is having to face up to the reality of global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.

ANZ was a finalist because of its very shabby role in the ongoing saga of the collapse and takeover of Feltex. lt had already won one prize as a result the Shareholders' Associations’’ annual Golden Glob Award. ANZs recent announcement to outsource 500 jobs to Bangalore despite making a billion-dollar profit here must surely ensure its nomination for 2008.

Independent Liquor, owned by Pacific Equity Partners is there because of its ruthless anti-worker anti-union actions in the pasty earn, it to mention their alcopops specifically aimed at youth. ANM for contracting out its sub-editing work and making its own staff redundant in the process and their deliberate blurring of news and editorial opinion in criticising the Electoral Finance Act.

GlaxoSmithKline because it was fined more than $200,000 after being caught out by two high school girls who proved that, for decades it, had made false claims about there being Vitamin C in Ribena. Perhaps the public humiliation and brand damage was punishment enough.

Runner-up, Spotless was nominated because of its attempt to drive down wages of low paid hospital workers by locking them out on "health and safety grounds". Yeah Right! Fortunately the Employment Court did not buy into their lies and the Wanganui DBH won an accomplice award from the Roger judges for their services to transnational greed.

Joint runner-up BAT was nominated because it sells and promotes a product which kills up to 5,000 New Zealanders a year. Despite their rhetoric, “our marketing is aimed at adults who are aware of the risk of smoking" clever shop displays and stealth marketing on the internet suggests it is the youth they are really targeting.

That brings us to the winner Telecom otherwise known as Telecon. lf you thought Telecons' sordid past of obscene billion$ monopoly profits, regulatory intransigence, outsourcing its workforce, increasing home line rentals, commerce commission investigations and admissions of not being honest could not be added to cast your thoughts back over 2007.

An OECD report showed that although New Zealand had the highest spend on telecommunications as a percentage of GDP in the OECD, reinvestment in the Telecommunications sector was only half the OECD average. Half the $2.2 billion Telecon reaped from the sale of the Yellow (and white) Pages to overseas interests was simply given to shareholders. No doubt price hikes for entries in these directories are just around the corner given the new owners live half a world away. In a true display of corporate decency and generosity Telecon dumped on the education and not-for-profit sectors. The school connection fundraising scheme was scrapped, while discounted line rentals and free local calls for not-for-profit groups were removed. And too really save money Telecon announced that phones powered off the network will no longer work. After all, why should the phone be the only thing that works next time there is a power cut?

Perhaps the $0.1million saved here was needed to help fund Theresa Gattungs' $5.4million pay out in her final year with Telecon or was it needed for new CEO Paul Reynold’s $5 25million annual salary plus10 return airfares for him and his family to the UK each year? Gee, he must miss home. And last but not least, how could we forget Telecons' Xtraordinary, Go Large and YahooXtraSevice? Certainly not Gay whose emails to Telecon’s helpdesk kept getting bounced because her name was a trigger word for a spam detector! Now that does take corporate sexual discrimination to new lows.

lf you would like to learn more about the Roger Awards and the Campaign against foreign control of Aotearoa visit their website at www.cafca.co.nz. Donations to this admirable cause are always welcome or better still join up for only $20 per year.

James Ayers

Published in Presto, May 2008, pg 24, by James Ayers.

Ayers, J. (2008). Telecom 'wins' 2OO7 Roger Award. Presto, 5, 24.