Intel’s 35 billion dollar brand-squandered over pennies?
Dear Rick Reed,
Thanks for posting that link and for Intel’s apology for deleting public discussion on this vital piece of Intel business! I see from your Facebook profile, you “develop and implement strategic crisis management responses and extinguish product and corporate reputational ‘fires’, preventing issues from becoming public crises that could impact Intel’s $35 billion brand.” I understand why you got in touch! From your Facebook photo, you look like a lovely person. Delighted to connect with you. Perhaps you can help us out.
Intel said you would have the right person on your blog to answer our questions. No one has responded. Any plans to do so?
Why would Intel risk squandering a 35 billion dollar brand to save less than a penny a product, much less when it comes to a subject as serious as conflict minerals and the Congo, where 45,000 lives are lost every month? Human life is worth more than a penny. We’ve seen the transparently self-serving changes industry wants for the bill. Intel can’t win unless you abandon these back-door lobby efforts and fully embrace the bill as written.
You have issued several generic, opaque statements on this issue. Intel’s statement on conflict minerals is the exact statement you gave us on Monday- you support the “objective” of the bill, but not the bill, certainly not as written. Intel has been supporting measures to weaken the bill, including the addition of an escape clause called the “reasonable care defense”. Now you say you support “real” change.
In a leaked industry memo, your lobby group states, “Because industrial supply chains are complex, and metals may enter an importer’s supply chain several levels below the importer’s first-tier supplier, no importer can be a guarantor the conflict minerals have not entered the supply chain…” What is Intel’s public position on this statement? That is the point of the legislation. Accountability. Do you plan to take full responsibility for your supply chain? Guarantee it?
Republicans and Democrats alike, 23 in the Senate and 46 in the House believe in the bill enough to co-sponsor, that it is enforceable, doable, and you can be 100% guarantor of your supply chain. The bill itself states,”determining the sources of columbite-tantalite, cassiterite, wolframite, and their derivatives used by processing facilities has already been successfully done at low cost.” Does Intel agree with our leaders and endorse HR 4128, as written?
Hewlett Packard stated- in the room with Intel, Motorola, and ITIC- that the bill in it’s fully enforceable state will cost less than 1¢ per consumer electronics product, and termed the expense “negligible”. It is not a disputed number. Are you willing to pay- or charge consumers- that extra penny to save Congolese lives?
Your industry group is pushing for an escape clause called the “reasonable care defense”. It seems to me this clause serves no function but to let industry off the hook with “we tried”. Not good enough. Does Intel support this clause? Or reject it?
Your group crossed out language that would hold industry accountable for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence. Does Intel fully support tech companies being held accountable for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence when claiming your products are conflict free? Or not?
We have said we would be delighted to have a PUBLIC meeting with Intel. Too many of these conversations have happened behind closed doors. Will Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini meet with us- publicly- with our 45,000 penny offer on the table?
We understand peer pressure. Your industry groups have tight ties. That’s why we’re here. We need you to lead. We remain hopeful you will claim your place as the definitive industry leader- and enhance that 35 billion dollar brand of which you are so proud! When you let go of your upset over the one penny “burden” (a figure your industry does not dispute), we will celebrate you! Listening to your buyers will make you human rights heroes.
Best,
Lisa Shannon
Can’t wait to hear how this is answered! Keep it up!
I submitted the following entry to Intel’s CSR blog on Friday night, 5/21, but they have either disapproved or overlooked it, since they have posted a comment dated 5/22:
Dear Suzanne,
You stated in your last post here (on behalf of Intel): “we are genuinely working to find ways to move things forward and help improve supply chain responsibility around the sourcing of these minerals.”
I am tired of being argumentative with Intel…I really don’t like posing enemies. Fighting dragons is exhausting and, frankly, I am too old for it. I have other things I would rather be doing with my time. But the specific proposals that Intel has promoted in the ITIC behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts make your/Intel’s statement seem completely disingenuous and outright hypocritical. Every change it has sought to the legislation is obviously designed to circumvent any meaningful improvement in supply chain responsibility.
One case in point of the MANY ways Intel/HP/ITIC has sought to undermine an importer’s accountability for its supply chain:
1. Intel/HP/ITIC have sought to remove an importer’s responsibility to certify a Customs Declaration that the articles it is importing are “conflict mineral free” or “contain conflict minerals” as specified in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States as having been identified in the Potential Conflict Goods List.
2. It then replaces that requirement with the far more general requirement that an importer declare to THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE every 180 days that: a) it has implemented a system to determine whether its suppliers that produce such articles use metals produced from facilities designated to ‘contain conflict minerals’ or are ‘conflict mineral free’; and b) based on that system, which articles it has imported in the last 180 days contain conflict minerals; AND c) evidence that an importer has imported articles containing conflict minerals in the prior 180 days shall not prevent the importer from claiming the reasonable care defense. So basically, an importer has only to DECLARE it has implemented a system to determine whether articles it imported over the previous six months had conflict minerals.
But THERE ARE NO STANDARDS OR DEFINITIONS OF WHAT AN ADEQUATE SYSTEM WOULD ENTAIL, OR FOR THE IMPORTER’S ENFORCEMENT OF ITS OWN SYSTEM, NOR ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES OR PENALTIES FOR AN IMPORTER’S FAILURE TO ENFORCE ITS “SYSTEM”! There is ZERO enforceability or accountability involved.
FURTHER, reducing the importer’s obligation to making one declaration every 180 days to the Department of Commerce concerning all that it has imported in the prior 180 days, rather than certifying a Customs Declaration as articles enter the country is a ridiculously vague and general requirement that it appears to mock the objectives of the legislation. It is so transparent as to be laughable, but Intel/HP/ITIC seriously proposed it while there are 45,000 lives at stake every month.
How could you or any Intel executive expect anyone genuinely concerned about those lives to take your professed good intentions at face value? How could Intel brass not expect us to be choking on our rage at their hypocrisy? The evidence stands in clear and direct contradiction to Intel’s professed concerns about working toward “real change” on conflict minerals.
What kind of fools do they take us for? (I know you are just doing your job…and can only feel for you at how embarrassing that must be for you.) How much contempt does the CEO & Bd of Directors have for our intelligence and for the intelligence of the Senators and Representatives that are working toward meaningful legislation to stem the tide of the carnage in the DRC? I am speechless at the magnitude of your bosses’ arrogance, to think that they can continue spouting these platitudes while promoting such shameless amendments to this legislation.
There are too many other issues, serious and complicated issues, for me to go into at the moment. But believe me, I will get to them, and I will continue to plaster them all over the internet, and I will be sending them to others to send to our Representatives and Senators.
Intel cannot, and will not, get away with this.