Financial Fools, Climate Camp and Criticising Capitalism - Pressures for Peaceful Protest

Most businesses are horribly aware of the dangers of the economic external influences that they face at present – but in case they missed the point, pressure group action will make the point loud and clear to them next week. Pressure groups are promising action in the City of London to coincide with the G20 summit next week. Protest expert Professor George McKay, of the University of Salford says that we are at a pivotal point which “will add to a new level of angry energy.” The ‘G20 Meltdown’ group insist that they are peaceful protesters, but Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of policing the G20, has said a £7.2m police operation is being launched to deal with the level of threat which is said to be at the “severe end of severe”. Following the damage to the home of Sir Fred Goodwin (former RBS Chairman) in Edinburgh the threats have to be taken seriously.

Not all of the protestors are such a threat. The police do not expect the first scheduled protest on Saturday to be “anything other than lawful”. More than 100 charities and unions will call for democratic governance of the world economy, measures to tackle climate change and an end to global poverty and inequality. This alliance brings together household names, such as development charities ActionAid, Oxfam and Plan, green campaigners Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos, and jobs and homelessness groups like the TUC, the Salvation Army and Shelter. They see the downturn as offering governments an opportunity for change not seen for decades and want to raise the profile of that opportunity amidst the financial threats and gloom.
However Climate Camp - the group behind direct action at Heathrow airport and power stations in North Yorkshire and Kent - has been using text messages, emails and social networking sites to plan what it calls a day of “spectacular action” on Wednesday, which will see supporters “set up camp” in the City. One of their main aims is to protest against the policy of carbon trading. G20 Meltdown are also using technology to communicate and coordinate plans for action, and the police are advising workers in the City of London to dress down and postpone non-essential meetings. There are fears they will be forced to run the gauntlet of protesters. “Burn a banker,” says one anarchist poster, and a university professor who warned that bankers could be “hanging from lampposts” during G20 protests next week has been suspended from his job.

So businesses in the City are set to deal with threat and disruption and to bear the cost of policing, on top of the chaos they have faced in the last few months. Similar summits have attracted anti-globalisation protests for some years now, often with very violent results as in Seattle in 1999 and Genoa in 2001, and damage to properties particularly those associated with ‘cultural globalisation’. The right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy. Businesses will be disrupted though, and several are bound to lose out on yet more revenue and can only hope that their contingency planning and risk management strategies will be sufficient to protect them against whatever action is being planned by the anarchists.

Shareholders join the Pressure Groups as Banks Feel the Heat from Stakeholders [27 Apr 2012]
Revision Presentation - Managing Risk [7 Apr 2012]
Starter activity - Contingency Planning (Japanese Style) [9 Feb 2012]
Business size and the innovation debate [11 Jan 2012]
International operations decisions - Adidas trainers for $1? [26 Nov 2011]
Car Wars - VW v Greenpeace [17 Oct 2011]
CSR - 40 Years of Upsetting Big Business [15 Sep 2011]
An end to outsourcing? [18 May 2011]
Triumph - A Classic Case of Niche Export Success [18 Apr 2011]
JIT - How lean production suffers from a terrible shock [22 Mar 2011]
CSR at the Movies - Manufactured Landscapes [20 Feb 2011]
CSR at the Movies - Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price [20 Feb 2011]
Globalisation Video - The perfect plenary [26 Jan 2011]
Q&A - Evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of international expansion options [29 Dec 2010]
Globalisation and Indian Coffee Houses [27 Nov 2010]
The Marketing Mix Challenge in reaching the Muslim Market [13 Jul 2010]
Rising industrial unrest in China [29 Jun 2010]
Contingencies - more on the effect of the volcano [20 Apr 2010]
Cool looking map to highlight globalisation [1 Mar 2010]
Strategy in the UK Recession - What 69 UK CEOs Did About It [22 Feb 2010]
Contingency planning failure leads to customer service disaster [12 Feb 2010]
Teaching strategy - Starbucks revisited [24 Jan 2010]
Halloween - packed full of business studies lesson ideas [3 Nov 2009]
Q&A - Does globalisation benefit UK businesses and the UK economy? [27 Oct 2009]
Q&A - What are the main factors driving globalisation? [27 Oct 2009]
Q&A - What is globalisation? [27 Oct 2009]
Revision Presentation - Globalisation & Business [27 Oct 2009]
Q&A - What are the main causes of unemployment? [27 Oct 2009]
McCurry beats McDonalds in a spicy Trademark Battle [8 Sep 2009]
A Mars A Day The Original Recipe Way [28 Jun 2009]
Porter’s Five Forces hits the fish counter [10 Jun 2009]
Shareholder strategy at M&S [7 May 2009]
Times ‘Business Ideas’ Podcasts [3 Feb 2008]

BUSINESS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER
Get first news of business teaching resources, ideas and other materials from tutor2u. Over 9,400 business teachers from the UK and around the world receive our regular teacher email newsletters. Sign up for free here!