The event to announce the winner of the 2012 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand was held in Wellington on May 1, as part of Unions Wellington’s annual May Day celebration (it was won by Taejin Fisheries; Rio Tinto and King Salmon were equal runners up; the Government and United Fisheries shared the Accomplice Award. The Judges’ Report can be read online at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/Roger/Roger2012.pdf). The winner of the first ever (online) People’s Choice Poll was British American Tobacco (BAT).

This was the first time it had been held in Wellington since 2010 and combining it with the May Day celebration was an excellent idea, which worked very well, and meant that the approximately 100 people attending got two events rolled into one. I won’t report on the May Day celebration programme, which took place first, but just on the Roger Award event. CAFCA is very thankful to our Wellington organisers – Sam Huggard, John Maynard and Rebecca Matthews, among others. It needs to be noted that Sam, who has organised previous Roger Award events in Wellington, is the only person to have organised the event in two separate cities (the other one having been in Dunedin in 2004, the only time it has been held there).

Multitasking: Judge, Event Organiser, Singing MC

Particular thanks are due to John Maynard who took on several roles in the 2012 Roger Award – he was one of the judges (and remains so for the 2013 Roger). He was one of the organisers for the Wellington event and he was MC on the night, including singing a song in Indonesian, accompanying himself on guitar. MC was a role that he took so seriously that he visited, at his own expense, the people who had nominated Taejin and King Salmon, in Christchurch and Marlborough, respectively. While in Christchurch in early 2013 he also met some of Taejin Fisheries’ Indonesian crew members. He did this so that he could better understand the reasons why those companies had been nominated and so that he could better represent at the event both the nominators and those who suffered from the activities of the companies. This is the only time that one of the judges has done this (and the Roger Award has been running annually since 1997).

On the night I spoke, as I do each year, on behalf of the organisers of the actual Roger Award. John had enlisted the aid of two young unionists who he quite correctly described as “brilliant actors” - Marama Mayrick, a member of the First Union and an employee of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and Steve Booth, a postie and member of the Postal Workers Union of Aotearoa. Each represented four of the eight finalists and gave a two minute presentation on behalf of each transnational corporation, spelling out the reasons why it should be the winner. John explained: “As an advocate/representative of the company, trying boldly and brazenly to convince the audience that their company has behaved so badly that they should be the winner of the Roger Award, giving examples of what their company has done.  The material used is drawn from the nominators’ statements and the evidence the nominators had provided to support their nominations…We intend to use some props. For example an electric cigarette for BAT, a hard hat for Newmont Mining, wet weather gear for King Salmon, some extra phones around the neck for Vodafone and a captain’s hat for Taejin Fisheries”. This “beauty pageant to decide who is the most evil” worked brilliantly and had the crowd in stitches. In fact, it worked too well for one person who, somewhat the worse for wear, began loudly shouting insults at the “pageant contestants”, rather like the crowd hissing the villain at a pantomime (or a Canterbury crowd booing Quade Cooper at the rugby).

John announced the winner, equal runners up, Accomplice Award co-winners, and People’s Choice winner; then finished it off with a song. “The song I sang was a well known Malay/Indonesian ditty, ‘Geylang Si Paku Geylang’.  It sings of doing things together. In the case of the original, marilah pulang, going home together, which I thought was appropriate for the Indonesian fishing crews spending up to two years away from their families working on what have been called the slave ships of the South Korean company Taejin Fisheries. However the song has been adapted to also sing of the importance of being together in struggle - berjuang bersamasama - struggle together.  I had the experience of singing this song with some of the Taejin Fisheries Indonesian crew members I had met in Christchurch”. The whole night was a great success (and as it was held in a central city high rise, I must say I’m glad that Wellington’s earthquakes didn’t happen until several months later).

New: Venue, Chief Judge & Judge

So, on to the next event, for the 2013 Roger Award. For the first time it will be held in a provincial city, namely Nelson, in April 2014. The main organiser is Mary Ellen O’Connor, herself a former Roger Award judge. On the subject of judges – Paul Maunder has stepped down as both Chief Judge and a judge. Many thanks, Paul. He has been replaced as Chief Judge by Wayne Hope, who has been a judge for several years. And the new judge to be added to the panel is David Small. This is very fitting, as the Roger Award was originally David’s idea, at a Christchurch brainstorm meeting way back in 1996 (I take credit for the name). It is even more appropriate when you consider the current reality of NZ’s spy agencies being used to work for the interests of transnational corporations and against the likes of those of us who oppose things such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. See Jane Kelsey’s article on the subject elsewhere in this issue – in that Jane refers to the infamous failed 1996 attempt by agents of the SIS (NZ Security Intelligence Service) to break into the Christchurch home of anti-corporate globalisation campaigner Aziz Choudry. It was fellow Christchurch activist David Small who caught the spooks in the act and that kicked off a series of events that led to Police raids on the homes of both Aziz and David (looking for “bombs”), and a fightback by the progressive movement that ended with both Aziz and David taking separate successful court cases against the covert State (for the details of David’s victory, see Watchdog 94, August 2000, “David Defeats Goliath: David Small Wins $20,000 From Police In Second Court Case To Result From 1996 SIS Break-In”,  by Murray Horton, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/94/7david.htm). Welcome aboard David, you’re a valuable addition to the judging panel.