The world-changing potential of people power

Dear friend,

Through a strange twist of fate, I’ve been Corporate Accountability’s executive director for just about as long as we’ve been under the current Trump regime. And in these harrowing times, I have been inspired every day by you—the vibrant community of people who make up this organization.

In particular, I’ve been inspired by how this community—and the progressive movement more broadly—is resisting this reckless regime run by and for billionaires. Through countless small acts and larger, coordinated actions, we’re refusing to be beaten down by the cruelty of those in power. We’re fighting for freedom, safety, and dignity of all people—no matter our race, where we were born, or how we choose to express our genders. Together, we’re building the power and movement infrastructure we need to create change.

I know it’s not easy. Some days, it feels hard to get out of bed and face yet another attack on my communities and loved ones, on our shared values, on my very being.

But what spurs me forward is the knowledge that people before me have faced similar battles and tasted victory.

I look to my own history. I grew up in Mexico where corporations were embedded in the government, dictating the political fate of the country. In the early 2000s, former executive of Coca-Cola and extreme right-wing politician Vicente Fox ran the country like a corporation, causing incredible damage to the people and the environment. But we, the people of Mexico, resisted his policies and his cruelties. We got him and his party out of the government.

That’s just one example. Across the Global South and throughout history, people have successfully resisted the imperialist reaches of corporations and kings, the moneyed businessmen behind them, and the politicians in their pockets.

Direct corporate campaigning is critical in this moment

We have much to learn from centuries of Indigenous and Black resistance; from decades of movements led by immigrants, queer folks, and disabled people; and from strategies developed by those on the front lines of today’s compounding crises. There are many lessons we can draw from on how to work together in collaboration, with courage, and through strategic campaigns.

Here at Corporate Accountability, we have also much to offer in this moment of peak corporate power. We have a long legacy and deep knowledge of challenging abusive corporations.

This institutional experience is critical right now. The end goal of the Trump regime is an economic order where only a few corporations and people hold all the power. An economy where corporate power rules completely and only a fraction of the one percent benefits at the expense and disproportionate suffering of the rest of us.

And because this regime is defanging and hollowing out the institutions that previously provided some minimal amount of protection, we can’t count on government agencies or the courts to deliver justice consistently.

That’s why direct corporate campaigning is critical. It provides a structure and pathway to organize toward the collective good and care. Direct organizing that is people-centered and people-powered, and that leverages the vulnerabilities of the entities that are trying to control us—this is how we can win.

For almost fifty years, alongside partners like you, we have challenged corporate power with courage and determination. In this moment, we’re not backing down. We’re rising up, harnessing our tenacity and creativity to face these challenges. And we’re staying focused on what we know works.

Protecting public water: democracy in action

In the last five months, the Trump regime has implemented a massive austerity and privatization effort. The scale, pace, ambition are unprecedented, yes. But at its heart, it’s what Corporate Accountability has been challenging for decades: Corporations dismantling public services and institutions to make them less effective so they can then sell off the parts or services at rock bottom prices to private entities.

Corporate Accountability’s water campaign was born in the mid-2000s to challenge corporate control of water. In collaboration with a wide range of allies, we’ve successfully organized in U.S. cities like St. Louis and Pittsburgh to protect their public water systems from the threat of privatization.

Last year, we helped prevent the privatization of a water plant in Houston that serves nearly a million people. Now, we’re working with our Houston allies to not just protect one public plant at a time, but also to ensure the entire city’s water system remains under public control. In addition to supporting on-the-ground organizing of Houston residents and decision-makers, we’re also spotlighting the dangerous track record of the private water industry, in the media and beyond. Our joint organizing aims to ensure Houston residents have a say in what their city’s water system looks like. This is true democracy in action.

Outside the U.S., in partnership with Nigeria-based Corporate Accountability and Public Participation, Africa (CAPPA), we’ve held off privatization of Lagos’s system for more than a decade. This campaign is now a model for continent-wide organizing, including in Senegal, which is saddled with one of the biggest water contracts in the world. Dakar’s drinking water is controlled by Sen’Eau, a local corporation run by transnational water giant, Suez. The situation is rife with abuse, according to community and worker reports. But there’s a strong local movement seeking to take back public control of Dakar’s water, and we’re supporting that organizing. In so doing, we’re also significantly hampering Suez’s ability to expand its reach across the continent.

Our water campaign isn’t our only campaign organizing simultaneously in the U.S. and internationally. Collaborating with campaigners in the Global South is part of our DNA. The founders of this organization launched the Nestlé boycott with the clear understanding that because transnational corporations’ abuses reach far beyond U.S. borders, our organizing must as well.

Organizing across national borders is how we will win

As a Global South campaigner myself, I am committed to building on this legacy. Not just because I understand the power and potential of organizers in the Global South. I also know that we won’t achieve the change we need unless we organize across borders.

While governments around the world are moving to close borders, vilify immigrants, and put nationalist policies in place, corporations are becoming even less beholden to or regulated by democratic governments. Just two examples: In special economic zones, of which there are more than 5,000 worldwide, corporations pay little to no taxes, are able to influence laws, and are often able to commit abuses without accountability. Additionally, corporations and the mega wealthy have quietly revamped U.S. trust laws to create “super-properties” that have little transparency, regulation, or tax obligations. Corporations around the world are exploiting these trusts to their advantage.

In this context, deeper international solidarity is necessary to win victories across all issue areas.

Corporate Accountability is well-suited to meet this moment. In recent years, we’ve structured our campaigns to build even more power behind Global South organizing. Our climate and tobacco campaigns are staffed and run by campaigners in the Global South. And we’ve created the Movement Solidarity Fund, which provides resources to some of the most effective and courageous corporate campaigners around the globe who are winning powerful victories on water, climate, and racial justice issues.

With all that in place and more, we are able to challenge the transnational operations and abuses of corporations in ways that few other U.S. organizations can.

The people hold the power

I know that these times are testing all of our hearts and spirits. I know what it is to feel exhausted, afraid, and demoralized in the face of all the harm raining down on us.

But we have to keep this truth close to our hearts: The people hold the ultimate power.

The Trump regime is working hard to project a sense of supremacy and omnipotence. But it’s a lie. We’ve already seen the vulnerabilities and cracks in his fragile coalition.

Corporate Accountability’s successful history of corporate campaigning makes us experts at understanding how to identify and leverage corporate vulnerabilities in order to fight back effectively. And in this moment, this kind of strategic organizing can prevent further consolidation of power and end the harms we’re seeing. A Harvard study of countries that have defeated dictators showed that when just three and a half percent of a population has engaged in continuous, visible resistance, they have always brought about change.

That’s the world-changing potential of people power. That’s you and me and our friends and neighbors and networks. We must keep building our organizing muscles to show up again and again, day after day, to work collectively and strategically toward our shared vision.

At Corporate Accountability, we’re implementing the strategies developed through our victories—from the GE boycott to organizing for public water systems—and the lessons learned from the campaigns that didn’t succeed. We’re engaging in this organizing as part of a nationwide movement that’s building up people-power to ultimately triumph over corporate power.

When I started down the road that landed me in the role of executive director of Corporate Accountability, I couldn’t have imagined just how vital this work would turn out to be. But I am grateful to be doing this work now, in community with dedicated people like you. I know that we can win, together in solidarity and with love.

Onward,

Ari Belathar, Executive Director