Telecom has put daylight between it and its rivals to win the annual Roger Award for worst transnational corporation operating in New Zealand during 2007.
The award, organised by Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and Gatt Watchdog has been running since 1997 and judges noted that Telecom had featured as a finalist every year including winning in 2004.
Judges said Telecom ‘‘crossed the finish line with room to spare, but in declining form, as regulators finally took control and imposed the telecommunication equivalent of a tough anti-doping regime''.
Judges lambasted Telecom for using ‘‘delaying tactics'' to try to avert regulation, and for the technical debacle that crippled many Xtra email account holders last year.
An ‘‘obscene'' $5.4 million final-year payment to outgoing chief executive Teresa Gattung did not sit well, and nor did the company's scrapping of concessions for non-government organisations and the School Connection scheme.
The list of sins identified by the judges, including Geoff Bertram, Paul Corliss, Cee Payne-Harker, Laila Harre, Anton Oliver and Brian Turner, went on for pages and pages.
Telecom needs only one more win to enter the Roger Award Hall of Shame, an honour held only by Tranz Rail, whose triple gong rendered it ineligible for any further nominations.
Roger Award finalists included -
- Spotless Services, for its hard-line tactics agains minimum wage workers and the resulting impact on the workers' families and New Zealand's health system.
- British American Tobacco, for ongoing profiteering at the cost of individual and public health.
- GlaxoSmithKline, for false vitamin C claims on Riben drinks.
- Pike River Coal, for teaming with the Government to talk down the environmental impact of its West Coast operations.
- ANZ, for a litany of questionable business dealing and actions that continue to ‘‘suck New Zealand dry''.
- APN News and Media, for compromising news quality by contracting out newspaper sub-editing roles and cutting wage costs.
- Independent Liquor, for its treatment of workers and impact on society resulting from pre-mixed spirits and alcopop drinks aimed at youth.
