The American Chamber of Commerce and its allies are not real interest groups. They are "mercenaries" and "guns for hire" on behalf of large corporations.
They are:
Defenders of global lawbreaking;
Destroyers of the environment;
Corrupters of the political process worldwide;
Behind-the-scenes influence peddlers;
Covert and dishonest;
A cover organization for defending unpopular and morally repellent corporate actions; and,
Steadily increasing in power.
The Chamber’s campaign and lobbying war chest has grown to nearly $100 million a year, and possibly more. It operates in considerable secrecy and spends large sums of money to ensure that many of its activities remain secret.
Under CEO Tom Donohue, it is aggressively pursuing agendas that are too unpopular for corporations to run under their own brand names. These agendas include despoiling the environment, denying people access to health care, blocking corporate accountability, and mounting attacks on trade union rights.
They use:
Litigation, with a large team of lawyers, both internal and contracted;
Lobbying, with nearly 200 lobbyists; and,
Massive public relations and advertising campaigns.
The Chamber has been transformed from being a mildly conservative business group to one that is willing to advocate for any position, no matter how extreme, as long as it gets paid for it.
It promotes extreme pro-corporate positions in lobbying activities, support for corporations in important litigation, and influence-peddling with prominent politicians across the world. It campaigns aggressively against workers’ rights, civil rights, democracy, and climate change action. It is expanding its global footprint by exporting its ’hired gun’ organizational model to local chapters around the world.
The Chamber serves as a ’front group’ in the courts, in the media, and in the halls of government. The Chamber is now actively involved in promoting immoral and unpopular causes, both in the US and abroad, that include:
Actively fighting against basic workers’ rights with advertising, legal proceedings and backroom lobbying;
Working to close off avenues for legal redress of corporate wrongs, such as class action suits;
Helping US corporations evade the reach of foreign courts;
Working to suppress voter rights; and
Defending corporate efforts to influence the political process in secret, to avoid fines and penalties for breaking the law, recklessly causing injury, and harming the environment.
The Chamber openly supports business interests which benefit from child labour and from the murder of union organizers.
Some of its more extreme activities:
Promoting International Bribery:
The Chamber is lobbying to weaken or overturn the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, making it easier for US corporations to bribe foreign officials. If it is successful, the United States will no longer be complying with an OECD anti-bribery agreement adopted by all member nations.
Defending Child Labour:
The Chamber is actively promoting the sale of Uzbekistan cotton that is produced through the use of forced child labour. It is actively working to promote US/Uzbek trade through the US/Uzbekistan Chamber. The head of that group, Donald Nicholson, said at a press conference: "I’m not going to refuse the Uzbek cotton just because of child labour used during its production ... if it’s profitable for my business, I will proceed with doing it.”
Fighting Against Rights in China:
Through the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the US-China Business Council, it is fighting to prevent Chinese workers from obtaining organising and bargaining rights, and rights to negotiate over workplace policies and procedures, to obtain severance pay, and to receive enforceable labour contracts. The Chamber is using local subsidiaries to fight this liberalisation of the Chinese regime. It also campaigned against increases to minimum wages.
Obstructing International Lawsuits Over Environmental Destruction:
The Chamber has providing legal and other resources to prevent Ecuadorian courts collecting $20 million in environmental penalties against Chevron Oil. It also is working to obstruct or prevent foreign courts from collecting damages altogether against US companies.
Promoting Free Trade Agreements Without Worker Protections:
The Chamber has vigourously promoted free trade agreements between the US and other countries and regions, most recently with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. It has claimed that these agreements create large numbers of jobs without any basis in fact, and against clear evidence that they actually cost decent jobs. It fought to remove or weaken worker protection provisions in those agreements and actively pushed for the Colombian agreement during a period when hundreds of unionists were murdered in that country.
