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Magazine Issue 2 - Winter 1996
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 What's Wrong with: Burson-Marsteller?Burson Marsteller (BM) is a large and powerful public relations company which is adept at creating a positive image for corporations involved in unethical business practices including human rights violations, environmental destruction and animal-testing. Many of these companies have faced public scrutiny and even convictions for their various activities. 'Crisis Management' "When is a disaster not a disaster? When it turns into a business opportunity... With good crisis management, a company can even ride the bad publicity of multiple deaths and come out smelling of roses." - Pat Anderson, writing in the professional journal Marketing Week, 22/4/94.  Disasters do happen. The best we can hope for is to learn from experience. This necessitates a serious debate afterwards, and to be effective such a debate needs to be balanced. Corporations that spend vast amounts on post-disaster PR are disrupting that crucial debate and evading responsibility. BM prides itself on being the leading 'crisis management' PR company. It has done the PR for the following disasters:In India in 1984, for US company Union Carbide when its pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked more than 40 tonnes toxic gas. 2000 people were killed instantly; up to 15,000 have died since as a result of the disaster, and hundreds of thousands are suffering lung, eye and gastric complaints. Tuberculosis incidence in Bhopal is 3 times the Indian average. Following BMs work, the Indian Supreme Court dropped all charges of manslaughter against Union Carbide, although safety mechanisms at the plant were appallingly inadequate. The company has now left India, leaving most of the responsibility with the Indian government. In 1979, when Babcock and Wilcox's nuclear reactor failed at Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear accident ever in the US. There are still over 2,000 lawsuits pending.4 For the Exxon Corporation, following the Exxon-Valdez disaster in Alaska, one of the most devastating oil spillages the world has ever seen. In 1995, for Occidental Petroleum, Dow Chemicals and Shell in a legislation battle in California. These chemical corporations are trying to avoid new legislation that would force them to clean the local water supplies of DBCP, a soil fumigant pesticide that causes testicular cancer. 5 Working with Disreputable Companies. Burson-Marsteller's corporate clients include : BP Chemicals - In 1992, it was found that BP's Hull facility discharges twice the level of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) - a chemical which can cause genetic damage, foetal damage or birth defects at unsafe levels of exposure - into the water than the total amount of MEK released in the United States. Kerr McGee - owners of a uranium mine in the Navajo Nation, New Mexico. Accused of paying low wages and not informing the workers about the hazardous effects of uranium. Deaths are being recorded every month. Malaysian Timber Industry Development Council - has felled vast areas of tropical rainforest, particularly in the states of Sarawak and Sabah, threatening the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples who lived there. BM has been hired to "repel falsehood and lies spread by evil-minded environmentalists." 7However, even the pro-business Malaysian Government has reported that 5 states have over-logged8; and although the International Tropical Timber Organisation warned the loggers in 1990 to cut their output to 9m m3/yr it has remained at 16-19m; and at the present rate the primary forest will be finished in 7-8 years9. Monsanto and Eli Lilly - both companies produce the growth hormone BST to increase milk yields in cattle. It has been criticised for risk of infection in the cows, the fact that there is already a milk surplus, and unknown effects of this hormone on human beings. Acting on this concern, state legislators in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California and Vermont attempted to enforce labelling of milk produced with, and containing, this hormone. Their efforts were thwarted by Burson-Marsteller acting on behalf of these companies.10 Pfizer - a pharmaceutical company accused in 1990 by the US Generic Pharmaceutical Industry of fraudulent and deceptive practices for its failure to report severe side effects of its Feldene drug before it obtained US approval. Listed by the Multinational Monitor as one of the ten worst companies in 1988 for supplying faulty heart-valves. At least 394 of these valves ruptured killing 252 people by 1990. The company has also conducted extensive tests on animals, was listed by a US group as one of the top fifteen corporate contributors to global pollution based on 1987 figures and had one of its plants listed by Greenpeace as one of the ten worst polluters in the South East of England. SmithKline Beecham - A pharmaceutical and research company which, in the year to March 1991, exceeded its toxic waste discharge quota into the rivers and sea more than 30 times. The company also owns its own animal testing facilities and has been accused of unnecessary cruelty in housing its animals. Unilever - food, chemical and household goods manufacturer. Implicated in pollution of rivers in the UK and convicted for water pollution offences between 1/9/89 and 31/8/91. Owner of Birds Eye Walls - a food manufacturer which admitted in 1991 to annually importing 30,000 tonnes of beef from Brazil (where much grazing land is felled rainforest). In June 1989, 87 workers at the plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil were fired for occupying the plant in an attempt to achieve better pay and conditions. Other controversial companies which have recently retained BM include: Boots, Nestle, British Nuclear Fuels, Philip Morris, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, Ford Motor Co.,Rhone-Poulenc, General Electric, Rorer, Glaxo-Wellcome, Scott Paper, Grand Metropolitan, Scottish Nuclear, J Sainsbury, Shell. Also, BM was hired by the Argentinian military junta led by Gen. Jorge Videla, which seized power in a coup d'_tat in 1976, to improve the country's "international image, especially for fostering foreign investment ... through projecting an aura of stability for the nation, its government and its economy". During Videla's reign, 35,000 people 'disappeared' and thousands of political prisoners were tortured. Videla is now serving a life sentence for murder.- In 1996, BM was hired by the Indonesian government, which has one of the worst human rights records in the world and has been widely condemned for committing genocide in East Timor.13 Forming Industry 'Front Groups' Increasingly the companies in an industry are uniting to form front groups to influence public opinion and legislation. These groups often give themselves 'green' sounding names: while pretending to show their concern and thus make a serious contribution to the environmental debate, they are in fact simply furthering the interests of the companies funding them. Indeed the aim is usually to relax environmental standards in order to cut their costs. In the early '90s, Burson-Marsteller was instrumental in setting up the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD), whose members include Chevron, Volkswagen, Ciba-Geigy, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemicals, Du Pont and Shell.14 Their press release said: "In a major new initiative on the future development and use of the world's natural resources, over 40 top world business leaders have joined forces in the form of an international organisation to propose new policies and actions on the sustainable development of the earth's environment."15 The BCSD was headed by Stephen Schmidheiny, a Swiss billionaire industrialist; and also a close friend of the secretary-general of the UN council on environment and development (UNCED). Substantial representations were made by the BCSD to UNCED's 1992 Earth Summit in Rio; with the result that proposals drawn up by the UN's own centre for trans-national corporations - concerning the environmental impact of these large companies, and issues of corporate responsibility and accountability - were not discussed or even circulated to delegates.16 In Europe, BM set up the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment, in 'defence of the beverage carton against environmental and regulatory pressures'. Its purpose is to make disposable cartons look environmentally friendly, and is sponsored by packaging interests such as Tetra Pak, Elopak, Bowater (now called REXAM) and Weyerhauser.17 In the US, BM represents the Fur Information Council in its multi-million campaign to combat 'animal extremists'.18 In Canada, the timber industry paid BM $1million to set up the British Columbia Forest Alliance, which poses as a forest protection movement. Burson-Marsteller's Methods MEDIA: As a PR firm, Burson-Marsteller obviously has a lot of friends in the media. Anyone with enough money (eg. large corporations) thus gets easy access through BM to public opinion, while those who have concerns other than the pursuit of money (eg. victims of industrial disasters) find it much harder to get their view across. BM is a joint partner with Independent Television News (ITN) in the ownership of Corporate Television Network, which produces video press releases for corporate clients. As ITN is actually a media news service, its venture with BM makes a mockery of the notion of independent media.21 LOBBYING: Described by the Observer as 'compromising the independence of all-party groups', BM has had a great deal of involvement in putting commercial interests inside the Palace of Westminster. When a group of businessmen recently decided to throw their weight behind a campaign to abolish British Summer Time, they naturally hired BM. Within weeks, BM had become the administrative secretariat of the supposedly 'independent' Daylight Extra All-Party Group, and were using its name to drum up support among MPs for a Private Member's Bill. They eventually failed.22 SUMMONING 'GRASSROOTS' SUPPORT: Through use of strategic contacts, BM creates the appearance of popular support for its campaigns. In blocking the BST legislation (Eli Lilly and Monsanto, above), BM formed a coalition of businessmen, lobbyists, farmers, vets, executives of biotechnology companies, and so on. Faced with a constant barrage of letters, petitions and media actions, the legislators had no choice but to back down. Burson-Marsteller's control of both the media and key decision-makers is worrying, particularly because it is not surprising. HIRING THIRD PARTIES: BM has also been accused of paying academics to write articles supporting its campaigns, without of course declaring their interests. Specialisation in Environmental Issues  To quote BM's own literature: "When you need help on environmental issues, you need environmental professionals... Burson-Marsteller offers a worldwide environmental team. Issue experts. Lobbyists. Community relations counsellors. Technical advisors and media specialists." At $18m per year, BM has a larger income from dealing with environmental issues than any other PR firm.2References |
