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THE 10 WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2008ers, most of them Chinese." CNPC is the largest oilinvestor in Sudan; the other key Chinese company is theSinopec Group (also known as the China PetrochemicalCorporation).Oil money has heled violence in Darhr. "The prof-itability of Sudan's oil sector has developed in closechronological~stepwith the violence in Darhr," notesHuman Rights First. "In 2000, before the crisis, Sudan'soil revenue was $1.2 billion. By 2006, with the crisis wellunderway, that total had shot up by 291 percent, to $4.7billion. How does Sudan use that windfall? Its financeminister has said that at least 70 percent of the oil profitsgo to the Sudanese armed forces, linked with its militiaallies to the crimes inDarhr."There are other nefarious components of the CNPCrelationship with the Sudanese government. China shipssubstantial amounts of small arms to Sudan and has helpedSudan build its own small arms factories. China has alsoworked at the United Nations to undermine more effec-tive multilateral action to protect Darhr. Human rightsorganizations charge a key Chinese motivation is to lubri-cate its relationship with the Khartoum government so theoil continues to flow.CNPC did not respond to repeated requests for com-ment.
DOLE: THE SOUR TASTEOF PINEAPPLE
S
arting in 1988, the Philippines undertook what was tobe a bold initiative to redress the his-
,
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report, "The Sour Taste of Pineapple," the workersreceived only nominal title. They were required to formlabor cooperatives. Intended to give workers
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ow thenew land owners
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means to collectively manage theirland, the cooperatives were instead controlled by wealthylandlords."Through its dealings with these cooperatives," ILRFfound, Dole and Del Monte, (the world's other leadingpineapple grower) "have been able to take advantage of anumber of worker abuses. Dole has outsourced its laborforce to contract labor and replaced its full-time regularemployment system that existed before CARP." Doleemploys 12,000 contract workers. Meanwhile, from 1989to 1998, Dole reduced its regular workforce by 3,500.Under current arrangements, Dole now leases its landfrom its workers, on extremely cheap terms
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n oneexample cited by ILRF, Dole pays in rent one-fifteenth ofits net profits from a plantation. Most workers continue towork the land they purportedly own, but
as
contract work-ers for Dole.The Philippine Supreme Court has ordered Dole toconvert its contract workers into regular employees, butthe company has not done so. In 2006, the Court uphelda Department of Labor and Employment decision requir-ing Dole to stop using illegal contract labor. Under Philip-pine law, contract workers should be regularized after sixmonths.Dole emphasizes that it pays its workers $10 a day,more than the country's $5.60 minimum wage. It also saysthat its workers are organized into unions. The companyresponded angrily to a 2007 nomination for most irre-sponsible corporations from a Swiss organization, theBerne Declaration. "We must also say that those fallaciousattacks created incredulity and some anger among ourDolefil workers, their representatives, our growers, theirtorically high concentration of landownership that has impoverished mil-lions of rural Filipinos and underminedthe country's development. The Com-prehensive Agricultural Reform Pro-gram (CARP) promised to deliver landto the landless.It didn't work out that way.Plantation owners helped draft thelaw and invented ways to circumvent itspurported purpose.Dole pineapple workers are amongthose paying the price.Under CARP, Dole's land was divid-ed among its workers and others whohad claims on the land prior to thepineapple giant. However, under theterms of the law, as the Washington,D.C.-based International Labor RightsForum (ILRF) explains in an October
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