015. Group lobbying

In the early 2000s Citigroup was the world's largest project finance bank, with customers in over 100 countries and territories. Citigroup provided the finances for thousands of projects; some of these projects were deeply damaging to the environment. Citigroup was indirectly related to the Camisea pipeline in Peru as a financial advisor, as well as the Chad-Cameroon pipeline under construction by Exxon, Chevron and numerous central African oil companies. 

In the early 1970s, the state of Pennsylvania proposed a plan for building a nuclear power plant in Limerick, PA, to provide power to residents in Montgomery County, PA. Around that time, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) must conduct a study to determine the impact a nuclear power plant would have in the town of Limerick, and the surrounding county.

Indonesia's people, orangutans, and rainforest are threatened by the widespread planting of trees that produce palm oil for making processed food by giant corporations such as General Foods. 

On 1 June 1961, Isaac Coggs, the only African American Member of the Wisconsin legislature, introduced a Humans Rights bill with two civil rights provisions: a fair housing law and a plan to reorganize the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Though Governor Gaylord Nelson supported the bill, it was met with resistance in committee, facing amendments to kill or cripple it. Opponents of the bill argued that real estate
brokers and home sellers should have the right to decide to whom they should sell homes.

Reforms to the Canadian Criminal Code legalized abortion in 1969. Under the direction of Pierre Trudeau’s government, a constitutional amendment was made to Section 251 of the Code. The alteration limited legal abortions to be performed only when the mother’s health was at risk. In addition, abortions could only be performed in credible hospitals with licensed physicians and needed to be approved by a panel of doctors called Therapeutic Abortion Committees, which often consisted of all males.

In the face of a stagnating post-war economy, Polish Communist leader Władysław Gomułka, the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), decided to end government subsidies for food and other everyday items in late 1970. Although the system of fixed, artificially low food prices kept urban discontent in check, it was unsustainable, absorbing approximately one third of the budget. 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is best known for the unique fashion blouse they produced and the horrific fire that killed 146 workers, women who might have lived if the owners had been forced to ensure safety standards in the factory. Historically, the 1911 tragedy defined the Triangle workers as the victims of disaster. 

By spring 1967 some of the legal barriers to racial equality in the U.S. had been struck down. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities and women, in workplaces and in facilities that serve the general public.  The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discrimination in voting.  

Starting in the late 1950’s commercial fishing fleets began catching tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETPO) using circular purse seine nets. These nets prohibit fish from swimming downwards to escape capture.

Following an industrial boom during World War II, Chester, Pennsylvania began an economic decline.  In 1990, the census reported that about 60% of residents were African American, 25% were living below the poverty line, and 20% were unemployed.  

In 1974, workers at seven textile plants in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina owned by the J. P. Stevens company voted to be represented by the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA). However, the company refused to sign a contract with the new union. In 1976, the TWUA merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) to form the American Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (ACTWU). The new union immediately launched a campaign to pressure J. P. Stevens to sign a union contract.

The land on the Big Mountain reservation has been disputed by the U.S. Government and the Navajo and Hopi tribes since 1882. This area in Black Mesa, Arizona, which was extremely rich in sulfur coal deposit, attracted mining companies and the government due to the potential profit. Mining began on the Navajo and Hopi land and started to increase greatly by the 1970s. Congress signed a relocation act in 1974, which would allow one company, Peabody Coal, to mine this area uninhibited. The reservation lands of Black Mesa were then to be used as strip mining sites for private U.S.

In 2010, Italy faced high levels of public debt due to a financial crisis. The Italian economy was near 2 trillion euros in outstanding debt and by 2011 the debt was projected to continue to rise. Thus, the Italian Parliament enacted austerity policies, which are utilized to decrease debt during unfavorable economic circumstances.

The Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is an environmental freshwater research facility designed to monitor an isolated and contained ecosystem that encompasses an area containing 58 small lakes in Northwestern Ontario. The facility’s purpose is to study and correct problems concerning the food chain and ecosystem on which life on the planet relies.

Researchers from around the world have accessed this facility and 745 peer-reviewed scientific articles from independent scientists and universities have been produced from the research conducted on site.

Mennonites are a division of Christianity that has experienced significant persecution and segregation over the years due to their strongly held values of adult baptism and nonviolence. Menno Simons drastically diverged from the Catholic faith in the 1500s, and quickly rose to become highly influential.

In 2006, Arizona State University was one of the larger schools in the United States of America, and employed over 12,000 people.  However, many employees at Arizona State University, including the food service workers, made the federal minimum wage of $5.15/hour, well below the “Living Wage” of Tempe calculated to be $10.46.  

Since the late 1990’s, students at many different colleges across American had held campaigns to raise the wages of low-income workers. (See this database for other campaigns.)

In the summer of 2013, massive protests against the World Cup and public service cuts erupted across Brazil. Following this wave of protest, the State Union of Education Professional of Rio de Janeiro (SEPE-RJ), which represents both state teachers in Rio de Janeiro and municipal teachers in the city of Rio, launched a strike on 8 August 2013.

In 2010, the companies Ambre Energy and Kinder Morgan began trying to establish coal export plants in the Northwest United States of America to ship coal to Asian markets where it was increasingly in demand. At the time, the only coal export plants in that region were in Canada.  To reach the west coast the coal would have to travel in open train cars past river ecosystems sensitive to pollution.  

Beginning in 1999 and lasting into 2001, students at William and Mary and members of the Tidewater Labor Support Committee (TSLC) carried out what they called a "Living Wage Campaign," during which they protested and petitioned the school’s administration to raise the salary for housekeepers employed by the college. The campaigners declared victory after the administration conceded to raising wages of the housekeepers to $8.29 per hour, which was far from their original goal, and ceased their campaign in 2001.

In March 2012, the parliament of the province of Ontario in Canada notified public schoolteachers that they would have a two-year salary freeze.   Premier Dalton McGuinty, the head of the provincial government, announced this initiative as a step toward reducing the government’s $14.8 billion deficit. On 11 September, the Ontario Parliament passed Bill 115, called the “Putting Students First Act,” which locked all public school teachers into a two-year contract with frozen wages, decreased teachers’ sick days, and prohibited teachers from going on strike.

Students, faculty, and staff at the University of Virginia began the first of a series of campaigns to improve the wages and working conditions of the University’s lowest paid employees in 1997. In 2006, students and faculty who identified themselves as members of the Living Wage Campaign conducted a year-long nonviolent struggle to raise the wages of the lowest paid University workers, which culminated with 17 students staging a sit-in in the President of the University’s office for four days before being arrested.

In 2001, in a southern Turkish village near Siirt, the water lines connecting to the public water supply broke down. This was not the first time that the 27-year-old system had malfunctioned and left the 600-person village without running water for a period of months. Women in the village were obligated to walk to a small public fountain in order to collect water to carry home—a distance of several miles, in some cases—in order to have water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. 


Beginning in 2008, the Obama Administration of the United States government accelerated the deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States, deporting roughly twice as many immigrants as the most recent previous presidential administrations.