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Economic Justice

Op-Ed: My Father’s America

Wednesday, July 31, 2002
by Jeff Gillenkirk

People judging our country today by the likes of Enron’s Ken Lay, Adelphia’s Rigas family, Global Crossing’s Gary Winnick or Halliburton’s Dick Cheney might cast their gaze further down the corporate food chain — to Marvin Gillenkirk, my father.

This American never cashed in millions of dollars in stock options just days before the collapse of his enterprise.  He never built a $7 million seaside mansion with severance pay from a corporation that couldn’t honor its workers’ pensions.  While America’s Crookedest CEOs were stuffing their lifeboats, my father was quietly going through the last of his savings at a nursing home in Rochester, N.Y. 

Op-Ed: Generous to a Fault

Tuesday, March 21, 2000
 By Amy Domini and Thomas Van Dyck

After a 20-year economic boom during which the assets of American private foundations grew by more than 1,100 percent, a battle is roiling over the amount of money foundations should be paying out. The big winners or losers will be the taxpayers, who subsidize the formation and operation of these organizations. 

Bill Gates may be one of the greatest philanthropists of our time, but remember that when he put $17 billion into the Gates Foundation last year, his gift was not entirely free. It cost taxpayers $3.4 billion in lost capital gains taxes, because foundations are virtually tax-exempt. 

Op-Ed: Manufacturing Christmas: Their Labor, Our Gifts, Your Choices

December 20, 1998
By Heather Hiam-White

Shoppers have reason to be confused this holiday season.  Sure, most of us are interested in finding a good deal, but the growing awareness of sweatshops and child labor has heightened concerns about how the good we buy are manufactured.  What we lack now are clear guideposts to help us make informed decisions about our purchases.

It’s because of such concerns that I became involved in investigating manufacturing practices overseas — in the hope of bringing up to standards that are acceptable to concerned shareholders and company employees.  Polls, such as the one conducted in 1996 by Marymount College in Virginia, show that Americans are willing to pay more to be sure that the goods they buy are not produced at the expense of basic human rights.