Business Reform

President Obama's plan to crack down on what he called abuse of overseas tax loopholes was met Monday with quick and unusually sharp opposition from big business, threatening to produce the administration's first major confrontation with a broad segment of corporate America. The fiercely negative reaction to the plan, much of which requires congressional approval, contrasted strongly with the business community's muted criticism, at most, of the president's sweeping government intervention in the banking and automobile industries.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System on Thursday took its annual potshot at companies it has identified as corporate underachievers. The $230-billion government pension fund -- the biggest and most influential in the nation -- released a so-called Focus List of 11 companies in its portfolio that staff rated as having subpar earnings and undemocratic corporate governance policies.

The ouster Wednesday of one of the nation's strongest voices for corporate reform may signal a turning point in the post-Enron era, as business groups push more aggressively to thwart activist shareholders.

For nearly a decade, Kwei Fong Lin tolerated numbness in her forearms. Like a great many Chinese immigrants who work in this city's cramped and poorly equipped garment factories, her neck and back ached from long days spent hunched over a sewing machine while perched on rickety folding chairs, stools or even crates.

FORTUNA, Calif.--Corky Cornwell is the picture of small-town prosperity, with his ample belly, ruddy cheeks and the service-club pin neatly fixed to the lapel of his tweed sport jacket.

For 20 years, Eustacio Aguilera's family owned the Hotel Residencia Guaiqueri in this tourist destination and free-trade zone. He hired the cooks, the maintenance men and the cleaning women.