The Tampaco Foils factory burned down in Bangladesh last month, killing upwards of 34 workers; so which multinational corporations housed wage slaves here? The answer: Nestlé and British American Tobacco. You recall the Rana Plaza fire in Bangladesh in 2013, which killed over one thousand workers -- and you recall the subsequent world outcry that ultimately prompted over 80 corporations to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a legally-binding agreement mandating better factory safety standards. Well, Nestlé and British American Tobacco were not two of those 80-plus signatories, so now they get to feel the Big Stick of Bad PR, as Sum of Us helps you tell Nestlé and British American Tobacco to compensate the Tampaco Foils victims and their families, and make their factories safe, so this doesn't happen again. Personal to those who still value "low prices" over human lives: everyone everywhere deserves to work, to make something of themselves, and contribute to their communities. No corporate bottom line is more important than that.
Meanwhile, the deadline for public comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new payday lending rules is tomorrow, so Stop Payday Predators still helps you tell the CFPB to enact the most vigorous payday lending rules possible. The CFPB's proposals sure are better than nothing, which is what we had before, and you may recall Saul Alinsky's maxim that if you start out with nothing and end up with something, you win. But -- and this is the part that supposed Alinskyite Barack Obama has never seemed to get -- you get more if you demand more, and you should never worry about "alienating" the other side when the other side only seems bent on fighting any good work anyone else tries to do. Banksters have done nothing but complain about the CFPB's new rules, and their hacks in Congress have spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to kill them. But think about this: they're defending payday lenders and car title lenders who have concocted a product that does little other than push people further and further into debt. They have no leg to stand on -- so we have every right, and every reason, to press our advantage.
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