Strengthening Citizen Participation in Power

Making The Fine Print Fair!

Citizen Works has launched the Fair Contracts Project, built with a team of law students and lawyer volunteers around the country currently looking at the fine print and harmful consumer provisions in standard form contracts across several industries. Visit this project at the Fair Contracts website.

People-Powered Democracy, Not Corporate Rule, Will Create A Sustainable And Just Society

Citizen Works is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization founded by Ralph Nader in April 2001 to advance justice by strengthening citizen participation in power.

Citizen Works gives people the tools and opportunities to build democracy. We develop innovative and systemic means to advance the progressive citizen movement. We do this in three ways:

First, we educate about and enhance the work of existing organizations by helping to share information, build and work in coalitions, and institute improved mechanisms for activists;
Second, we bring new energy and support to the progressive movement by activating citizens and recruiting and training the next generation of public interest advocates; and
Third, we start new groups and act as a catalyst where there are too few public interest voices.

Please sign up for our email list and twitter feed to receive updates and information about upcoming events and news, and help donate to the cause.We depend on individual donors as we take no government or corporate dollars.

Latest News

April 29, 2013, Elliot Blair Smith & Phil Kuntz at Bloomberg.com report CEO Pay 1,795 to 1 Multiple of Wages Skirts U.S. Law.

Citizen Works's Summer Legal Internship is NALP's Public Service Job Directory's "Job of the Day," April 2. See Careers.

Richard Eskrow on Senators grilling the regulators on the lack of
prosecution of big felonious banks, at Campaign for America's Future,
March 11, 2013.

Swiss voters move to crackdown on executive pay after corporate governance scandals; the BBC reports how institutional shareholders exercise more influence. March 4, 2013.

The Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Banks, see the Real News
Network's January 29, 2013 report.

January 22, 2013, EU approves Eurozone members to impose speculation stock transaction tax, BBC reports.

January 17, 2013, Washington, DC: The GAO can't audit the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security because of serious financial management problems.

The Corporate Reform Coalition applauds the Securities and Exchange
Commission’s (SEC) commitment to seek disclosure of all corporate
political spending in response to a historical demonstration of investor
demand for such a rule-making (more than 300,000 people ask SEC to require disclosure of political spending). See press release here.

Corporate Welfare in the Fiscal Cliff Bill, Read Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism, January 1, 2013, here.

"Ralph Nader on a simple way to avoid the fiscal cliff: Tax stock trades," here at the Washington Post, November 30, 2012

Fabien Tepper on Strike Debt/Rolling Jubilee's new bailout for the 99%, here at Yes!, November 12, 2012.

John Wasik on Why Sheila Bair should be the next Treasury Secretary, here, November 8, 2012.

European Union experts Issue Liikanen report recommending variety of regulations on large banks, including compensation reform and segregating retail banking from speculation activities, October 2, 2012.

Why the SEC should require companies to disclose their political spending: A paper by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Robert J. Jackson Jr., September 2012.

Part of the Problem: Corporate Fraud Cases Often Spare Individuals NYT, August 7, 2012

Alexander Cockburn 1941-2012, Rage On.

Congratulations to Jacob Harold, former Citizen Works organizing director, who was named President and CEO of Guidestar on July 19, 2012.

Robert Shapiro explains The LIBOR Mess in the Globalist, July 13, 2012.

June 12, 2012, the day before CEO Jamie Dimon is "invited" to testify before Congress on JP Morgan Chase's $2 billion dollar trading loss, Senator Bernie Sanders releases the names of the 18 Federal Reserve Directors whose banks received $4 trillion in low interest post-2008 bailout loans. Common Dreams has the press release here with links.

Post Citizens United, some states are responding with transparency initiatives, see Corporate Reform Coalition Press release and Report, here.

How the mainstream press mostly ignores Occupy, here at NeimanWatchdog, April 15, 2012.

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