Lerbinger O. Corporate Public Affairs. Interacting with Interest Groups, Media, and Government

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

business that action to combat climate change must be hastened.

The

basic emerging idea is to place mandatory reductions or taxes on carbon

emissions together with a worldwide emissions-trading program. An

other favorable sign that business attitudes are reflecting the environ

mental values is that the tide of collaborative efforts is rising and

environmental groups can be expected to play a large role. In sum, envi

ronmental groups continue to hold sway in the political arena and are

affecting business practices.

Labor Union Power Eroding But Still to Be Reckoned With

The power of big labor has been on the decline. Society’s power struc-

ture no longer shows labor unions rivaling the power of big business, as

it did in the 1950s when labor unions represented 40% of the work

force.

Only about 13% of the U.S. workforce were union members in

2004, marking a steady decline from 24% in 1973, 20% in 1983, and

16% in 1993.

If only private-sector employees are counted, the per-

centage is even lower. Only 8.2% of them belonged to a union in 2001, a

decline from about 13% a decade earlier and 9% in 2001.

Even in the

historical stronghold of manufacturing, union membership declined

from 21% in 1992 to less than 16% in 2001. Labor experts conclude that

the balance of power has continued to shift toward management’s fa-

vor. Some say that the very future of collective bargaining is in ques-

tion—which is reflected in the scant media coverage of collective

bargaining outcomes and events.

Nevertheless, labor unions are still exerting power in collective bar-

gaining in some sectors of industry. A prime example is the United Auto

Workers (UAW), one of the most powerful unions in the United States,

followed perhaps by the airline unions and the professional baseball and

football unions. However, the UAW’s power is not secure because it now

needs new members to keep its strength. Over half of the 80,000 mem

bers who have joined since 1998 aren’t in the auto industry; for exam

ple, it represented about 20% of all parts workers. Assembly plants run

by foreign car makers remain mainly nonunion.

Membership Decline. Union membership has been declining for a

number of reasons. One is the increasing use of antiunion strategies by

employers, as discussed in chapter 2, along with improved corporate

human resources management, following the assumption that satisfied

workers don’t join unions. Other reasons for declining union power are

increased competition from foreign labor because of globalization,

emerging technologies, the decline of the manufacturing sector, high job

turnover, disqualifying employees from the right to organize because

they have a managerial component in their job description, and the lack

of appeal of labor unions (e.g., for favoring seniority rights over merit).

Unions also have themselves to blame for their diminishing numbers

362 I CHAPTER 13

because of their shortcomings: internal union corruption and autoc

racy by top leaders, lack of a compelling social agenda, perception that

unions are a monopolistic special interest group, outmoded methods

and philosophies for today’s new workforce and economy, and pro

found image problems.

Some labor experts says that unless the labor movement is able to

transform itself, it will have to contend with a smaller role in society. As

stated by Thomas A. Kochan, codirector of the Institute for Work and

Employment Research at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, there is

a mismatch between today’s workforce and workplace and the institu

tions and policies that support and govern them.

This view is endorsed

by Peter Hoier, a labor counselor at the Royal Danish Embassy, Wash

ington, DC, who states, “the national trade unions have not yet adapted

to the new global economy.” He suggests that “with the globalization of

the economy and still bigger and more powerful corporations there is an

increasing demand for an international labor movement.” Further-

more, he believes that the way the unions are run today probably needs

re-examination; for example, fostering education, cooperating with co-

workers, providing access to computer facilities, and introducing insur-

ance schemes.

By providing a wider range of services, unions hope to

attract more members.

Efforts to Revitalize Unions. When the current president of the

AFL-CIO John J. Sweeney took office in 1995 he sought to revitalize a

fossilized bureaucracy with the aim of making the labor movement

more unified and focused. He filled key posts with reformers with a his-

tory of activism and he established several new offices: a department of

corporate affairs, a center for strategic research, and a center for worker

ownership and governance.

Henceforth, the national office would

play a greater role in setting an agenda for all its state and local affili

ates.

Sweeney also opened the Organizing Institute with the aim of

training some 1,000 fresh union organizers in 2 years.

However, his

reorganization and rejuvenation efforts over 9 years largely failed, with

union membership falling 2% under his tenure, the same rate of decline

that occurred under the previous president, Lane Kirkland.

New union leadership offers some hope and a few unions have been

able to increase membership. Sweeney is being challenged by Andrew L.

Stern, president of the 1.6-million-member Service Employees Interna

tional Union (SEIU). Stern charges that the AFL-CIO has become an an

tiquated structure that “divides workers’ strength.” He says that the

federation’s 60 unions are too many and proposes to replace them with

15 or 20 powerful mega-unions that would focus on building member

ship density, or share of the labor market, in specific industries. This

would give unions more clout to match heightened corporate power.

Stern, along with the heads of the carpenters, the laborers, the needle

trades, and the hotel workers’ union merged in the summer of 2004 to

form the New Unity Partnership (NUP).

Another merger was an

ASCENDANCY OF CORPORATE POWER I 363

nounced in January 2005: the United Steelworkers and the Paper, Allied

Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE).

These two of North America’s largest industrial unions will comprise an

850,000-member union. It will be the largest in the manufacturing sec

tor and the sixth largest within the AFL-CIO.

The SEIU and a few other labor unions are among the few that have

succeeded in increasing membership. During Sweeney’s tenure, SEIU

doubled its membership. Another union, the Union of Needletrades, In

dustrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE), which had lost more than

200,000 members through the late 1990s, largely because of offshore

competition, also increased its membership. J. Bruce Raynor, who be

came UNITE’s president in 2001, concentrated his efforts on low-wage

industries such as retail distribution. Workers there are mostly non

white immigrants who earn $8 an hour. Raynor launched a major drive

in commercial laundry, knowing that it couldn’t be moved offshore.

The UAW showed that even basic U.S. industries could be targets for

membership drives. It started to reunionize the U.S. auto parts industry

so that by mid-2004, 25% of the industry’s 570,000 workers were un-

ion members, up from 23% in 1999. It achieved this result by using new

“wholesale” organizing methods. Instead of trying to organize workers

from the bottom up, which was costly and achieved poor results, it or-

ganized from the top down by organizing employers, not employees.

The union leaned on their Detroit car makers to persuade their parts

suppliers to remain neutral when UAW recruiters arrived. When a ma-

jority of a plant’s workers signed union-recognition cards—a process

known as card check—the company voluntarily recognized the union.

The big three car makers—GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler—benefitted

from labor peace and the parts makers benefitted by getting more work

from the car makers.

Beyond the collective bargaining arena, unions are learning to exert

power over corporations through their huge $3-trillion-plus pension

assets. The key instrument is the right of stockholders meeting mini

mum ownership requirements to file shareholder proxies on a wide

range of issues, as long as they do not deal with ordinary business mat

ters. Although they exclude all collective bargaining issues, certain so

cial policy issues may be raised. These have included compliance with

CERES principles and other environmental initiatives, equal opportu

nity, human rights, and maquiladoras.

By getting together and saying

no to a particular company, unions have had a great impact on individ

ual stock prices.

In the 2002 proxy season, labor submitted 28% of all

shareholder resolutions versus 18% in 2001, which is more than any

other institutional investor.

Even before the Enron debacle, big labor

led the charge for corporate governance reforms, such as auditor

independence.

In the political arena, Sweeney plunged the labor movement into

politics as never before. He pledged to spend $35 million educating vot

364 I CHAPTER 13

ers and getting out the vote in the 2000 election. Changing its vocabu

lary and broadening its appeal, the AFL-CIO speaks about job safety

and raising wages for all working families, not just union members.

Steve Rosenthal became the union’s new political director and architect

of the federation’s return to politics, which at times was highly suc

cessful. One of his most effective efforts was to switch from leaflets en

dorsing candidates to voter guides that compare the candidates’

positions without endorsing anyone.

Together with Stern, Rosenthal

helped found the Democratic party’s most successful 527 political

committee (see chap. 11), America Coming Together. In 2004, Stern

was building separate political muscle by allocating $65 million to

elect John Kerry with the aim of making the political atmosphere more

receptive to a labor comeback.

The success of the labor movement depends heavily on which politi

cal party is in power. Democrats generally favor labor and Republicans

oppose labor. A watershed event was when President Ronald Reagan

fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who belonged to the Pro-

fessional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) and blacklisted

them from future federal employment. PATCO leadership had assumed

that no political authority could stand up to its power to call a strike.

Reagan’s bold move, although it slowed air traffic, heralded a new era

that seriously compromised labor’s main weapon of the strike.

Similarly, Bush’s election in 2000 has been bad news for labor un-

ions. A minor incident reflected the tenor of the new relationship.

When AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney left a message congratulat-

ing George W. Bush on winning the presidency, he didn’t get a return

call, because he was confused with another Sweeney of upstate New

York. In other words, the labor leader was barely recognized. Most of

the bad news, however, came during the first 2 months of the Bush ad-

ministration, through a “series of executive orders and legislative

blitzkriegs,” all of which were aimed at defanging unions. In seeking a

compromise on campaign finance reform, it sought to force unions to

get members’ permission before spending dues on political activities.

Among other actions, Bush signed legislation that repealed workplace

ergonomics standards aimed at preventing repetitive motion injury

and took a tough line against labor amid contentious contract negotia

tions between several major airlines and their unions.

In the summer

of 2004, the administration announced new rules for overtime pay

ment. The Republican dominated National Labor Relations Board is

also reviewing the legality of the card check system for union recogni

tion, which would severely hamper union organizing drives.

Although union membership has seriously eroded over several de

cades and unions are facing fierce resistance in organizing drives, busi

ness cannot dismiss the power of labor unions. New leadership and new

strategies may belatedly help unions to overcome their weaknesses and

convert themselves into a more viable force in society.

ASCENDANCY OF CORPORATE POWER I 365

GROWING CORPORATE MEDIA POWER

In his June 1999 PBS special, “Free Speech for Sale,” Bill Moyers pre

sented the view that never before have so few owners controlled so

much media and exercised such extensive control over news and infor

mation. He said “government can’t keep you from getting your two

cents worth into the public debate. But what the framers of our govern

ment didn’t reckon with is that two cents don’t buy much free speech

these days.… If you really want to be heard today, we’re talking big

money. The framers didn’t reckon with the mass media.”

A wide

spread contention among critics of corporate and media behavior is that

the mass media allow only a very narrow band of dissenting opinions to

enter political debates while allowing “the rich and powerful” to launch

propaganda campaigns in support of their objectives.

Dangers of Media Concentration

Media concentration translates into huge power of media corporations,

with attendant dangers. An extreme one is the media’s power to influ-

ence political elections, as illustrated by the ability of Italy’s media mo-

gul Berlusconi to win the election to become prime minister. In the U.S.,

Sinclair Broadcasting’s overt attempt to influence the 2004 election is a

sign that our media may become excessively politicized. A second dan-

ger is that the big media companies have the potential to influence the

course of political debate on specific issues, such as the debate over the

Telecommunications Act of 1996. A third, direct danger to society is the

loss of community-based journalism and diversity of views.

Italy’s Berlusconi. Italy provides a scenario of what can happen

whenamediamogulenterspoliticsandbecomesthecountry’sprime

minister. Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man, owns three major private

TV networks, two national newspapers, 50 magazines, the country’s

biggest advertising agency, the biggest publishing company, the biggest

film distributor, and is an Internet service provider.

As prime minister he

has indirect control over the country’s three state-run channels. As sum

marized by the Financial Times, Berlusconi family’s media group,

Mediaset, and Rai, the Italian state broadcaster, attract about 90% of the

national TV audience as well almost all TV advertising.

Since he came to power, several journalists and talk-show hosts have

been kicked off the airwaves, seen by critics as a strategy of intimida

tion. As another indication of his power, the Italian senate approved a

decree allowing one of Berlusconi’s TV channels to continue terrestrial

broadcasting, contrary to a ruling by the constitutional court. Italy’s

president, Carolo Azeglio Ciampi, refused to sign the bill, and Reporters

Without Borders has accused the prime minister of taking a step that

was “a flagrant and shocking example of conflict of interest in the me

366 I CHAPTER 13

dia.” The group relegated Italy to 53rd on world press freedom ranking

in 2003. The so-called “Gasparri law’s” purpose was also to lift a ban on

cross-ownership of media and would allow one person to own more

than two national broadcasting stations, thus enabling Berlusconi to re

tain ownership of his three national channels.

On nonmedia issues,

Berlusconi has pushed laws through Parliament that are specifically de

signed to shield the prime minister from charges of corruption and to

favor his business interests. He had been indicted numerous times for

fraud and corruption, but most charges were dropped due to the statue

of limitations.

The example of Italy raises the specter that excessive media concen

tration gives the media inordinate power, especially when used by pow

erful individuals or institutions. No media owner in the United States

has yet succeeded becoming president, but some have succeeded in run

ning for state offices, or, like William Randolph Hearst, becoming a

House representative. However, there is a potential danger that as the

media become more politicized, they may unfairly seek to influence the

outcome of elections.

Sinclair Broadcasting Episode. The danger of politicized media

was illustrated by partisan actions by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the

nation’s largest owner of television stations. It ordered its 62 television

stations nationwide to preempt regular programming days before the

November 2, 2004, election day to air “Stolen Honor: Wounds That

Never Heal,” a highly charged documentary critical of Senator John

Kerry, the democratic candidate. Six months previously, the right-wing

broadcaster took the extraordinary step of banning its ABC affiliates

from showing a special edition of Nightline in which anchor Ted Koppel

read the names of U.S. soldiers kill in Iraq. Its partisanship had already

been evidenced by its daily running of right-wing commentaries dubbed

“The Point” and delivered by Sinclair’s vice president of corporate rela

tions Mark Hyman.

Fortunately for the preservation of a free press, the backlash to the

proposed showing of the Kerry documentary was intense. Michael

Copps, a Democratic FCC commission, blasted Sinclair, saying, “This is

an abuse of the public trust, and it is proof positive of media consolida

tion run amok.”

Former Federal Communications Commission

chairman Reed Hundt called it “ordering stations to carry propaganda”

and said it was “absolutely off the charts.” He said, “Sinclair’s acting

more like a cable channel.… Broadcasters are given spectrum for free

with a quid pro quo to serve the public interest.” Bob Zelnick, chair

man of the Department of Journalism at Boston University, calls

Sinclair’s decision “an unfortunate precedent” that runs counter to

“good journalism” and “is not what network news ought to be about.”

He added, “Whether you’re liberal or conservative, if you have roots in

the journalism profession, there are core values that transcend and

need to survive election to election. You avoid airing, very close to elec

ASCENDANCY OF CORPORATE POWER I 367

tion, highly charged, partisan material that takes the guise of a docu

mentary.”

100

Angry democrats contacted Sinclair’s advertisers urging

them to pull their business or face consumer boycotts. And most im

portant for Sinclair’s commercial interests, its stock, already

underperforming (it had fallen 53% in 2004), declined even further.

101

Bowing to pressure, Sinclair later announced that it would not broad

cast the entire film and planned to use segments in a special news pro

gram, “A POW Story,”on 40 of its 62 stations.

102

Telecommunications Act of 1996

The ability of the media to control public debate was illustrated in the

television coverage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which de

regulated many parts of broadcasting. The stated purpose of this legis

lation was to enhance market competition among rival communication

firms which, in turn, would stimulate technological innovation and im-

prove services and public access. One aspect of the bill was the handing

out of new channels for digital television, which was worth an esti-

mated fair market auction price of $70 billion. Some observers consider

this act, which gave each existing broadcaster an additional six mega-

hertz of spectrum, “one of the greatest gifts of public property in his-

tory.”

103

Strenuous lobbying by the industry is credited for the act’s

provision that the new channels—a piece of the “digital spectrum”—be

given to existing broadcasters. The decision-making process involved no

input from consumers, labor, or community groups. According to Pa-

tricia Aufderheide’s Communications Policy and the Public Interest, “It

makes the American public, and public life itself, a derivative of the vigor

and appetites of large business.”

104

Particularly significant is that “the media did not want to discuss

what it was doing,” according to Charles Lewis, director of the Center

for Public Integrity, who appeared in the Moyers program. The major

networks devoted a combined 19 minutes of coverage to 9 months of

congressional debate, suggesting the media conglomerates do indeed

control TV news concerning their own conduct. Moyers warned that

the treatment of the Telecommunications Act by the networks is only

the beginning when six corporations control everything on U.S. net

work television.

105

The FCC’s attempt at further deregulation of media-ownership rules

was restricted by Congress in December 2003 and then halted entirely

by the courts in June 2004. Despite his media-rules upset, Powell main

tained that he was right but “too early.”

106

As new types of media, e.g.,

satellite radio and digital technology, proliferate, existing rules are

likely to be challenged in the future, increasing the prospects of further

media concentration.

Loss of News about Local Issues. A study released by the Project

of Excellence in Journalism in February 2003 concluded that larger TV

368 I CHAPTER 13

station-owning companies used their market power to reduce their

commitment to local journalism.

107

Local broadcasters complain that

raising the cap would give the networks too much power over what

news and programs are broadcast locally. These “absentee corpora

tions” don’t show much personal concern for the community. Affiliated

stations argue that independent stations are better able than network-

owned stations to preempt the network’s prime-time programs when a

major news story of local importance breaks. One example is that in

September 2002, CBS strong-armed a Florida affiliate into airing the

season premier of 48 Hours instead of an important gubernatorial de

bate (some affiliates refused).

108

“Local issues like school board and

road-building decisions won’t get covered,” warns Mark Cooper of the

Consumer Federation of America. “And if election coverage isn’t bal

anced, fewer people will vote. This is about citizens and civic discourse,

not consumers and profits.”

109

Communities can actually be harmed when they lack local media. An

example is when in the small North Dakota city of Minot a 1 a.m. train

derailment released a toxic cloud of anhydrous ammonia. The local po-

lice tried to broadcast an alert by contacting the six local commercial ra-

dio stations, but they couldn’t reach anyone fast enough. All the

stations were owned by radio giant Clear Channel Communications,

which was piping in music and newstalk from a remote location. Three

hundred people were hospitalized and some residents were left partially

blind.

110

“The concentration of power—political, corporate, media, cultural—

should be anathema to conservatives,” said William Safire in an edito-

rial, “The Great Media Gulp.” He argues that the diffusion of power

through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is

the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy.

111

BusinessWeek agrees, saying, “One of the central pillars of America’s de-

mocracy and market economy is an independent media with multiple

voices.

112

Media Concentration Grows

The six giant media conglomerates—Time Warner, News Corporation

(Fox), Viacom (CBS), Disney, Vivendi, and Bertelsmann—exert enor

mous influence over film production, cable, television, radio, book pub

lishing, and other forms of print journalism. For example, Rupert

Murdoch’s News Corporation owns, among other properties, Fox News,

the FX cable channel, Fox Sports, National Geographic, and the Speed

Channel, Sky News, 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins Publishers, and

several U.K., Australian, and Asian media. Some fear that “their capac

ity to maintain ideological hegemony in and through the public sphere

has reached qualitatively new heights” and results in a corporate stran

glehold over political dialogue.

113

This view, however, is held by only a

ASCENDANCY OF CORPORATE POWER I 369

few critics of corporations and is unlikely to take hold in the public mind

precisely because few programs like Moyers’s are publicly disseminated.

Media Ownership Rule Changes. Media concentration is likely to

grow in the future because Michael K. Powell, chairman of the FCC, is

seeking to remove restrictions on media ownership.

114

He has pro

posed to:

• Raise cap on market share of TV stations any one company can

own to 45% of U.S. households, from the current 35%.

• Ease rule to allow ownership of two stations in markets with five

or more, as long as only one is in top four in ratings.

• Make it easier for companies to own both a newspaper and a TV

station in large and midsize markets.

115

Chairman Powell argues that technological advances, such as the

Internet, cable TV, and direct broadcast satellites have made existing

limits on ownership less essential. It is often assumed by policymakers

that the Internet, radio and newspapers are substitutes for TV. Others,

like Philip Meyer, journalism professor at University of North Carolina,

disagree, arguing that the Internet is not an information solution. “It’s

just a vast distribution system, with too much information, much of

questionable quality.”

A BusinessWeek editorial agrees, saying, “Despite all the innovations

of recent years, the vast majority of Americans do not get their news

from l32 cable channels or news.bbc on the Web.”

116

Furthermore, the

major Internet sites that people use for news are owned by big media;

their editorial content is indistinguishable from what those broadcast-

ers and newspapers put out.

117

Some of the debate centers around the

question of whether the Internet is a mass medium. As computer own-

ership grows, the answer will increasingly be yes, but the Columbia

Journalism Review’s editor-at-large states “the Internet is not a mass

medium, no matter what you may have heard: little more than half of

U.S. households have Internet connections, and among the poor people

the figure is lot lower.”

118

Rule changes in media ownership are opposed by defenders of the

public interest, such as Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of

America, and the Center for Digital Democracy, who are concerned

about diversity of content and media consolidation.

119

This concern is

also shared by a few voices among newspaper proprietors and writers.

Frank Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times, whose family has con

trolled the paper for generations, fears that the citizens of Seattle would

not benefit from greater concentration of ownership. Henry Holcomb, a

business writer at Knight Ridder’s Philadelphia Inquirer worries about a

corporate mentality that may try to “squeeze as many dollars as possi

ble” out of a newspaper–TV combination and “blur all the distinctive

ways we try to stimulate and inform the public.”

120

370 I CHAPTER 13

Corporate Advertising and Public Relations. Corporate money

spent on advertising and public relations also indirectly helps maximize

corporate power because, over time, all the impressions made on the

public mind confirm the authority and legitimacy of a company and the

entire business system. As stated by Scott R. Bauman, “Corporations

also have access to the hearts and minds of Americans through mass

media, especially television commercials that aim to shape public opin

ion on issues of corporation social responsibility. A systematic public-

relations campaign waged by leading corporations since the early 1970s

has gone a long way toward transforming a negative public image of

the large corporation.”

121

Part of the public relations campaign, says Bauman, is that power is

institutionalized by “the ideological construct of the corporate citizen,”

which serves to legitimize, but also to disguise, the power wielded by

large corporations. This ideological view is “communicated daily to a

wider audience, through the artful use of mass media in various forms

and forums, including political advertising, commercial advertising,

and the incessant reproduction of popular culture.”

122

Another type of

advertising, advocacy (or issue) advertising, permits corporations to en-

gage in agenda setting—influencing what people talk about and what

issues politicians may consider.

123

The role played by public relations in the corporate quest to human-

ize the corporation and transform it into a venerable social institution is

reviewed by historian Roland Marchand in his recent book Creating the

Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in Amer-

ican Big Business.

124

When faced with a hostile New Deal government in

the 1930s, corporate executive after executive “confessed that he and his

peers had unwisely ignored the need to explain and defend the greater

mission of his own company and of the capitalist system.”

125

Business

leaders are portrayed as wanting their enterprises to be seen as “some-

thing higher than money profits,” even though GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan,

Jr., averred that the primary object of his company was “not to make

cars but to make money.”

126

Through a variety of public relations programs—institutional adver

tising, radio programs (e.g., Du Pont’s The Cavalcade of America), com

pany exhibits (including the World’s Fair of 1939), employee

magazines—corporations “trumpeted their contributions as patrons of

the arts, beneficent providers of welfare for their employees, builders of

progress through civic leadership and creators of the inspirational ‘cathe

drals of commerce.’”

127

Public relations became an accepted and essential

function of business, so much so that Paul Garrett, GM public relations

director, confidently said, “the time will come … when the big jobs in in

dustry will be bossed not by the technicians of production, engineering or

merchandising but by the generalissimo of public relations.”

128

Possible Backlash to Business Control and Influence Over the Media.

The danger facing business is that public fear of business control and in-

ASCENDANCY OF CORPORATE POWER I 371