The Influence and Impact of Multinational Corporations in the Lives of All Sectors of Society

Since our founding in 1998, global corporations have grown dramatically in power and industrial diversity to the point where they now control the labor standards in the industries where most low wage workers are employed in both the United States and Mexico.  Additionally, institutional infrastructures that play a role in the extent to which we have control over our own lives, such as banks, transportation systems, and prisons are also rapidly coming under the control of global corporations.

Since our founding in 1998, global corporations have grown dramatically in power and industrial diversity to the point where they now control the labor standards in the industries where most low wage workers are employed in both the United States and Mexico.  Additionally, institutional infrastructures that play a role in the extent to which we have control over our own lives, such as banks, transportation systems, and prisons are also rapidly coming under the control of global corporations.

The food processing and property service (security, cleaning, gardening, etc.) industries, for example, are now dominated by global corporations operating in the U.S. and Mexico.  Both of these industries employ huge numbers of low wage African American workers as well as many Latino/as and immigrants from Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and Africa.  Ownership in these two sectors overlaps with ownership in the textile and apparel industry and in the financial services industry.

In 1997, fewer than a quarter of the banks in Mexico were foreign owned. Today, most of the major banks in Mexico are owned by a few global corporations that are based on Wall Street. The others are owned by corporations based in the United Kingdom or Europe – none are owned by Mexicans.  Today over 70% of the workers in the United States are in debt to these same corporations because they have credit card balances they can’t afford to pay off every month.  And, since the beginning of this year, these same global corporations are profiting from new government contracts to build large private prisons to handle increased incarceration of undocumented migrants in the U.S..

Our focus on powerful global corporations presumes the inclusion of African American workers as well as the inclusion of Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, African, East European, Native American and White workers at the low end of the pay scale.

As NAFTA and other trade agreements took effect, transnational corporations grew in size, complexity, scope and greed. Their reach extended not only to the workers they employed, but also to working people in local communities that they controlled through relationships with elected officials, or through their influence on communities as major tax contributors. Transnational corporations now control the working lives of vulnerable people in many communities across the United States. They are often a force behind the scenes and it takes research capability to discover their influence.  One such example is Securitas, the giant Swedish-based corporation which operates in 20 countries.  Securitas recently acquired both Burns International and Pinkerton in the U.S., making it one of the largest employers of low wage African American workers in North America.  Securitas and other transnationals are positioning themselves to dictate to contractors what they will be paid and as a result, create a low ceiling for worker wages and benefits as well.

We have found that, most worker struggles that begin as local fights have to become global if the workers are to succeed.

Today we are focused on seafood processing workers’ struggle to organize in Baja California Sur and on achieving majority popular support for immigrant workers on Long Island, New York.  In both cases we find that global corporations have to be impacted effectively if we are to achieve justice for the workers - Hanjin and global food distributors in the case of the workers in Baja California Sur, and Wall Street financial corporations in the case of the workers on Long Island.

We aim to create strong alliances that cross ethnic, geographic, and national boundaries in both of these campaigns to help succeed and to contribute to building a broader and more potent movement for everyone.