|
Nonprofit Watch's Counter-Response to LCHR's
Response to Critical Report
Nonprofit Watch noted in its report that,"Admittedly the
Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights(LCHR) has voiced criticism
of its donor corporations as it has done in the case of Nike and
the Gap regarding specific egregious cases. However, the question
remains whether the group is structurally hamstrung in the extent
to which it would challenge corporate interests such as in demanding
that these companies pay their workers 'living wages' -- the issue
that caused the The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility(ICCR)
to withdraw from the FLA." Nonprofit Watch stands by this
statement.
LCHR certainly can say the right things -- for example it has
a page on its website critical of the current billion dollar plus
aid package to Columbia that has been criticized by human rights
and environmental activists. Yet in LCHR's criticism, does it
bring serious pressure to bear upon these powerful interests?
Nonprofit Watch has no reason to think it does.
Consider that United Technologies, manufacturer of Black Hawk
helicopters, has been heavily lobbying for the aid package with
all its military funding. If we look at the law
firms representing United Technologies, we see that several
also support LCHR. Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton; Covington
& Burling; Crowell & Moring; Kirkpatrick & Lockhart;
and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz all provide pro bono support
to LCHR. Of these, Cleary Gottlieb as well as Wachtell Lipton
are major donors to the group as revealed by the group's 1998
annual report. Covington and Burling is represented on LCHR's
board of directors. Now one could interpret this as a sign of
the group's independence. LCHR is taking a stance in opposition
to the interest of a client of these firms, United Technologies.
Yet Nonprofit Watch views LCHR's role as pathetically weak, especially
in light of the legal powerhouses that are affiliated with the
group. If these firms truly care about human rights, why are they
not applying their enormous resources to oppose the aid package.
Well, it would lose them their client United Technologies and
no doubt others as well. Moreover, the aid package appears to
be rolling through Congress. Yet LCHR seems to barely be doing
anything to bring attention to its concerns -- certainly no hunger
strike from LCHR executive director Michael Posner; no sit-in
at the White House or Congress; no activism that might embarass
the administration or Congress; not even a measly lawsuit from
this bunch of lawyers. In fact, Nonprofit Watch can find no news
articles within the last 90 days where LCHR has been quoted raising
the issue. Looks like the issue of the Columbian aid package is
well on its way to being another successful loss for the human
rights community (notable past ones being Rwanda and Nigeria.and
multiple others). Students would be smart not to entrust their
cause to such a squish -- weak and ineffective -- group as LCHR.
Based upon examination of LCHR's 1996 and 1998 annual reports,
Nonprofit Watch strongly disagrees with some of LCHR's comments
regarding its corporate funding. Because the original scans on
our website were a bit fuzzy, better ones have been posted showing
the financial statements of LCHR that are available to Nonprofit
Watch. 1996
Financial Statement ; 1998
Financial Statement
LCHR says "a few" apparel companies support it. We
counted six in the 1998 donor's
list . Is six "a few?"
LCHR states that "corporate contributions have declined
since 1996, both in actual amount received and as a percentage
of its annual budget." Here exact figures are not available
to to the public, so LCHR has to be trusted on this statement.
Nonetheless, the statement is not clear to us and appears false
based on the records of LCHR that we reviewed. According to the
1996 Financial
Statement, corporate donations were $188,000 in 1996; in 1998 they
were reported as $433,496 -- seemingly a major increase. Perhaps
LCHR is referring to more recent figures? The 1996 corporate support
is 5.4% based on the "total support and revenue" figure
of $3,477,647. LCHR lists its annual revenue for fiscal year 1998 as
$12.8 million, a major increase from 1996
because LCHR has decided to include a value of $8.2 million of
"contributed services" from "lawyers and others"
to LCHR. When this latter amount is subtracted, LCHR's monetary
revenue drops to $4.6 million. Of this, $433 thousand comes from
corporations. It is interesting to note that in the 1996 annual
report, the figure for pro bono support was not included in the
LCHR total revenue figure. While LCHR lists its 1998
corporate donations as 3.4%, when one removes the contributed
services amount from total revenue, corporate donations actually
represent about 9.5% of revenue. Was LCHR trying to hide the
increasing corporate support by this accounting trick of conflating
donated time and money? (Perhaps some math whizzes on this
list could double check my calculations?)
LCHR's response claims that "FLA members contribute less
than 1% to the Lawyers Committee's annual operating budget."
This does not seem to have been the case in 1996. According to
Corporate Giving Directory published by the Taft Group,
in 1996 Reebok gave $315,OOO to the LCHR -- this would mean 9%
of the budget that year came from just one apparel company. (Figure
arrived at from calculation of 315,000 divided by 3,477,647.)
Now if the group were a political party, one would presume that
this was a hefty soft money donation made to buy influence. This
seems to be at odds with LCHR's figure of $188,000 for 1996 --
perhaps it was spread out over several years in LCHR's accounting
or occurred within a different part of the fiscal cycle than the
one described in the 1996 annual report. This is unclear. In recent
years a cursory examination suggests that Reebok's donations have
been lower. Nonetheless, LCHR owes the public a full accounting
of the contributions from Reebok and other apparel companies.
However, one can probably bet that in the next annual report of
LCHR, there will be a very evident decrease in corporate support.
What will not be clear is whether this represents an actual decrease
or in light of the Nonprofit Watch report, merely a facade since
by law they are not required to disclose these donations. Regardless,
it will not change the fact that LCHR is extremely cozy with the
corporate sector, both directly (witness the International
Rule of Law Council) and indirectly via corporate law firms.
This matter of finances raises a question regarding the "contributed
services" of the corporate lawyers. Is this $8.2 million
that LCHR assigns to "contributed services" based upon
standard fees that these lawyers charge of $100 to 300 per hour?
While acknowledging the importance of the pro bono effort, nonetheless
these corporate lawyers are emblematic of the gross discrepancy
in legal representation that exists in our society. To the wealthy
and powerful there is unlimited legal representation while for
many of the impoverished there is limited access to legal aid
and patronizing pro bono contributions.
Finally, Nonprofit Watch reiterates the charge that these very
law firms that provide funding, pro bono service, and oversight(through
the board of directors) to LCHR at the same time represent a rogue's
gallery of corporate scoundrels which profit by damaging the environment
and ignoring human rights abuses. As a case in point consider
the corporate law firm Davis, Polk
and Wardwell. As Nonprofit Watch has shown
in an in depth analysis, the firm has represented companies
such as Freeport McMoran, Exxon, Mobil, and General Electric as
well as apparel companies The Limited and VF Corp. (Read an article about a report from the National
Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice which accused a VF Corp.
contractor of abusing its workers.) Interestingly, this previous
analysis was part of a critique of the Environmental Defense Fund,
an environmental group that supported NAFTA and was silent in
regards to Fast Track trade authority when the matter came to
a major showdown a few years ago. LCHR took no stance on either
of these trade debates, even though Pharis Harvey of ILRF had
urged LCHR to consider involvement in the NAFTA agreement, a matter
discussed in Nonprofit Watch's report. Interesting how Davis Polk
Wardwell and its attorneys gravitate to groups that just happened
to have not stood in the way of these controversial trade agreements.
LCHR may claim that regardless of the source, contributions
to the group do not affect its independence. However, what does
it say about LCHR's work if these companies are supporting it.
Nonprofit Watch's interpretation is that elite and corporate interests
prefer the incremental and moderate approach of LCHR based on
the liberal paper tiger model of addressing human rights cases
one at a time as opposed to systemic critiques and support for
systemic action. There is no doubt a preference from the viewpoint
of corporate interests for LCHR's approach which does not strongly
challenge the political and corporate establishment. ("Oh
please, LCHR -- Tongue-lash me! Tongue-lash me! Oh you brute LCHR.
Please don't post a slap on your website.You're just so rough
on us corporations. What can we do to please you?") Consider
the struggle that students have carried out to force the apparel
companies to disclose and begin seriously considering allowing
a program to monitor their activities -- students have given up
much of their time in pushing their cause -- sacrificed social
life, adversely affected their academic performance, gone sleepless,
fasted, been arrested, and much more. Could one say anything of
that sort of LCHR. The apparel industry wasn't brought to the
table of the Fair Labor Association because LCHR Executive Director
Michael Posner and LCHR pushed them, but because of burgeoning
grassroots activism around the country.
Emblematic of the coziness of LCHR to established interests,
consider that at its 1996 annual Human Rights Award Dinner, Madeline
Albright, then Ambassador to the United Nations, was a special
guest at the dinner. You can find her smiling mug at the bottom
of the page of LCHR's 1996
donors. Certainly it is desirable to dialogue with important
government officials; however do you think she would want to join
the dinner party if LCHR were pushing hard on issues of importance
to the human rights community -- the drug war, the U.S. leadership
in selling military arms around the world, constructive engagement
policies as with Nigeria and China, the death penalty, etc. Nonprofit
Watch believes not.
==============================================================
The Response from LCHR as posted to United Students
Against Sweatshop's Listserv:
Subject:
[USAS] REPLY TO ALL: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Response
to the Report of Nonprofit Watch
Date:
Thu, 6 Apr 2000 14:52:08 -0400
From:
Jobina Jones <JonesJ@LCHR.ORG>
To:
"'usas@listbot.com'" <usas@listbot.com>
U.S.A.S. - http://www.umich.edu/~sole/usas
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jobina Jones
> Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 2:34 PM
> To: 'usas@listbot.com'
> Subject: Please Distribute to your listserv: Lawyers Committee
for
> Human Rights Response to the Report of Nonprofit Watch
> Importance: High
>
>
>
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Response to the Report of
Nonprofit Watch
* LCHR's Role in Addressing violations of Workers Rights
In its 22 years of operations, the Lawyers Committee has
built a reputation of independence and integrity. Consistent with
a
commitment to promote labor rights as human rights, the Lawyers
Committee
has criticized corporations, including several members of the
FLA, for
practices that violate workers rights. We will continue to do
so in the
future.
* LCHR involvement in the Fair Labor Association and Apparel
Industry
Partnership
For the last three and a half years, the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights has been actively involved in creating the Fair
Labor
Association (FLA), a new non-profit organization aimed at protecting
the
rights of apparel and footwear workers worldwide. The FLA Charter
Agreement
creates a first of a kind industry-wide code of conduct and monitoring
system to reduce the scourge of sweatshop labor both in the US
and abroad.
Our continuing participation in the FLA is based on our own
commitment to hold companies accountable to internationally recognized
labor
rights standards. We, along with five other NGO's, will assume
a seat on
the FLA Board and continue our role as an advocate for workers'
rights. We
have also played a significant role in establishing an FLA NGO
Advisory
council which currently has the support of 18 human rights, labor,
consumer,
religious representatives from both the US and abroad. We believe
the FLA
is an innovative model for empowering workers and NGO's to work
together
with labor and corporations to improve factory conditions. For
more
information see: www.fairlabor.org.
* LCHR's Funding Sources
Nonprofit Watch asserts that the LCHR has experienced "a
specific increase in apparel industry companies donating to the
group since
the formation of the Apparel Industry Partnership." It goes
on to charge
that "This coincides with a doubling of the general corporate
contributions
to LCHR, quite likely in part from the sweatshop sector."
While the Lawyers Committee receives financial support from
a few apparel companies, FLA members contribute less than 1% to
the Lawyers
Committee's annual operating budget. Contrary to the assertion
of a
"doubling of general corporate contributions to the LCHR",
corporate
contributions have declined since 1996, both in actual amount
received and
as a percentage of its annual budget.
|
