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HANOVER, NJ - April 22 - At Kraft Foods annual shareholders’
meeting, Infact activists representing a Kraft shareholder were
refused timely entry into the meeting, preventing the corporate
accountability group from addressing shareholders and executives.
Last year Infact representatives were the only people to speak
directly to Kraft’s tobacco connection at the annual meeting.
This year, Infact representatives were held at the door with questionable
claims of concerns about their paperwork until the meeting was
nearly over. The corporate accountability organization Infact
has involved millions of consumers in challenging Philip Morris/Altria
to stop addicting new young customers with promotional campaigns
like the Marlboro Man, and to stop interfering in public health
policy around the world. A major strategy in this campaign is
Infact’s growing Boycott of Kraft, the tobacco giant’s
food business.
“Kraft’s
decision to effectively bar Infact from its annual meeting today
was clearly meant to silence criticism about the food corporation’s
role in Philip Morris/Altria’s deadly business. With mounting
concerns from investors and shareholders about the liability
of tobacco, Kraft executives are obviously feeling enormous
pressure. Attempts to censor criticism, however, will only backfire.
This behavior is completely inconsistent with the ‘commitment
to responsibility’ and efforts to ‘meet or exceed
evolving societal expectations’ touted in Philip Morris/Altria’s
corporate PR touting its recent name change,” says Infact
Executive Director Kathryn Mulvey who will be attending the
Philip Morris/Altria annual meeting on Thursday of this week.
The recent
$10.1 billion verdict in an Illinois class action, followed
by legal wrangling over whether Philip Morris USA would be required
to post a $12 billion court-ordered bond drove Kraft stock down.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal last week,
“Wall Street was worried that Altria would need to tap
Kraft to pay the money.” Kraft stock has fallen 25% so
far this year while the Dow Jones food-products index is down
only 7%.
The full
statement that Infact would have delivered at the Kraft annual
meeting today is as follows: “Good morning. My name is
Mark Longhurst and I’m an organizer with the corporate
accountability organization Infact. During my time with Infact,
I have attended a few annual meetings, and I have been struck
by the pageantry of these events. However, Kraft Foods gives
new meaning to the term ‘corporate performance.’
"Everyone
in this auditorium is behaving as if Kraft is an independent
food company. Yet this corporation is 84% owned by another corporation,
known until January 2003 as Philip Morris. Your corporate parent
has changed its name to Altria, but remains the world’s
largest and most profitable tobacco corporation.
"A
recent series of Altria ads poses and answers the question,
“What is the role of a parent company? To provide strength
and guidance for its family.” Philip Morris/Altria has
much guidance to offer-in dubious areas of expertise. A study
in this month’s American Journal of Public Health titled
‘Altria Means Tobacco: Philip Morris’s Identity Crisis,’
finds that the name change is the height of a long-term effort
to manipulate consumers and policymakers. By making Philip Morris
refer only to the tobacco operating companies, the parent is
attempting to mask the negatives associated with tobacco-especially
for Kraft Foods.
“Those
negatives are serious, and growing:
- Promotional
campaigns like the Marlboro Man have inspired millions of
consumers to join with Infact in pressuring Philip Morris/Altria
to stop addicting new customers and stop interfering in public
policy. A major strategy in this campaign is a Boycott targeting
Kraft.
- Tobacco’s
legacy of addiction, disease and death is creating massive
legal troubles for the parent corporation-including a $10.1
billion verdict in an Illinois class action and a federal
lawsuit seeking $289 billion in damages. As investors worry
about liability, Kraft’s stock has fallen 25% so far
this year while the Dow Jones food-products index is down
only 7%.
- “Next
month, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)
will be adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva. This
groundbreaking global treaty, the first to deal solely with
a public health issue, will change the way Philip Morris/Altria
can operate globally. The final text includes a ban on tobacco
advertising, promotion and sponsorship (allowing exceptions
only for constitutional reasons) and measures to protect public
health policy from interference by tobacco corporations, their
subsidiaries and allies.
"According
to an article last week in The Wall Street Journal, ‘Kraft
isn’t likely to get out from Altria’s shadow anytime
soon.’ Mr. Camilleri, what parental guidance are you providing
to Kraft on how to support Philip Morris/Altria’s image
makeover? Specifically, how is Philip Morris/Altria guiding
Kraft to influence policymakers around the world on public health
issues such as the FCTC?”
Since
1977, Infact has been exposing life-threatening abuses by transnational
corporations and organizing successful grassroots campaigns
to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at
large. From the Nestlé Boycott of the 1970s and ‘80s
to the GE Boycott of the 1980s and ‘90s to today’s
Boycott of Philip Morris’s Kraft Foods-Infact organizes
to win!
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