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Local campaigners tell Jowell to right corporate wrongs
 A group of campaigners from Dulwich and Herne Hill urged Tessa Jowell to back tougher laws to safeguard poor people in the developing world from abuse by British corporations.
Daniel Mazliah, Julian Oram, and Karen Aycinena - who work for the charity ActionAid - met their local MP in Dulwich on Friday April 28, just days before the local elections.
A bill, which looks set to be the biggest shake-up of corporate law for 150 years, is now before Parliament.
The activists were joined by more local ActionAid supporters, and pressed Ms Jowell to push for amendments to the bill to make company directors legally responsible for the impact of their businesses on people and the environment.
ActionAid has previously published research showing how South African women who pick fruit for British supermarkets have faced poverty wages, health risks from pesticides and appalling housing conditions.
The charity has warned that multinational companies will continue to exploit people in poor countries unless the Government's company law reform bill is toughened to curb abuses.
Julian Oram, 33, of Darrell Road, said: "Last year millions of people supported Make Poverty History with its demand that the UK Government make laws that stop big business profiting at the expense of people and the environment. This year, the company law reform bill is a great opportunity for the Government to take concrete action and deliver on its promises to make poverty history and help deliver trade justice."
The team was lobbying on behalf of the Right Corporate Wrongs campaign being undertaken by the CORE Coalition and the Trade Justice Movement (TJM). More than 100,000 CORE and TJM supporters have already written to their MPs on the bill. Over the next few weeks, activists will take the campaign to their MPs with local face-to-face lobbying for changes to company law.
Photo: ActionAid
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