What Works: Fall 2002

Encouraged by the response to the first issue of Citizens Working, we are at it again, bringing you another edition of updates on what nonprofits and citizen activists are doing to make the world a better place.

The emerging theme here is corporate reform. Many groups are starting to take advantage of the historic opportunity provided by the recent cascade of corporate scandals. Some are pushing for small-scale legislative fixes. Others are pressing for bigger picture reforms like changing corporate codes and changing the constitution to eliminate corporate personhood.

Citizen Works has been helping to build this growing movement. We’ve held or participated in a dozen workshops, conferences, and press conferences on corporate reform, from D.C. to Duluth and New York to San Francisco. We’ve gathered a comprehensive list of necessary reforms designed to spur others onto campaigns. We continue to put out the Corporate Reform Weekly, an e-mail digest on the breaking developments in corporate reform. Both the reform list and the weekly are available on our website at www.citizenworks.org.

Citizen Works has also assembled a Commission on Corporate Reform, a coalition of esteemed experts and practitioners who provide ideas, advice, and speak out for corporate reform. They address everything from labor rights to pensions to new approaches for curbing corporate power.

If your group is looking for a speaker on corporate reform, please contact Ali Arace, our newest staff member, at aarace@citizenworks.org. Additionally, we are starting to incubate a new group designed to organize shareholders and investors called U.S. Investors Organization. For more information, please contact 1-800-297-5610.

Right now, we’re up against a campaign to bomb Iraq that diverts attention from the ongoing economic woes and corporate crimes. Many activists are saying that they wake up on most days wondering whether they should focus on anti-war/peace protests or the ongoing work of battling corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. They are finding that they must do both. Battling an elected consensus that favors invading Iraq on a possible threat but refuses to deal with the established threat of corporate crime will be tough, but working together, we can do it.

Finally, we at Citizen Works will miss Sen. Paul Wellstone and Labor Party leader Tony Mazzochi, two champions of the people and fighters against corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. They both had the courage of speaking their convictions. Our condolences to their families and constituents.

Check out more columns in "What Works" archive