Serious Corporate Pressure on States for Progressive Stances

[Chou Toshio]

So people who watched the development of so-called "religious freedom" state laws are probably aware that corporate America really threw its weight behind the LGBT community. Companies like Disney, Coca-Cola, IBM, Apple, Twitter, etc. stopped or threatened to stop operations, closed down development plans, and sent out tweets and letters demanding that policy makers desist or fix laws that would "demean [our] company's values and severely impact [LGBT employees and potential hires]."

The potential loss of jobs and economic development presented to state policy makers with tremendous pressure that played a big role in fixing or hard-stopping these laws. I'm sure I'm not the only one who applauded these actions.

That said, I think there is something to be said about the arguments presented here: http://fortune.com/2016/04/02/corporate-america-lgbt-community/

How much of a political voice should companies have? Perhaps it's easy to cheer when you agree with the stance taken by corporations-- and there are many with aggressive voices for diversity and even drives for environmental protection. It's easy to cheer when you think corporations are doing the right thing.

But there are also so many other issues on which corporate dollars are spent towards issues and policies that negatively impact society. There are "good" companies, "bad" companies, and every large organization has a lot of people--a lot of apples--and inherently will have a continued struggle to always do the right thing in a complex world with complex issues.

How do people feel about corporate America's backing of the LGBT community? Does it affect the way you perceive those companies? Do you agree or disagree with company's giving voice to these types of issues?

 

[billymills]

Companies do it because its good publicity. They only have as much power as you give to them.

I have no issue with companies making statements by refusing service in certain states. I do have an issue with companies affecting government decisions directly, via lobbying, writing legislation, and enforcing international agreements.

With regard to backing the LGBT community, it should affect how you perceive those companies. They wouldn't do it if it didn't.

 

[Bughouse]

It's a combo of "liberal issues frequently need to be communicated to Republicans in terms of 'it's good for business'" and growing emphasis of corporate social responsibility in company culture.

Some cynics would say this is "rainbow-washing." Apple chooses to support LGBT rights because it masks their complicity in human rights violations in the factories that produce (parts for) their products. I'm not that cynical personally.

If there's anything cynical going on it's just that endorsing LGBT rights, with the threat of withdrawing business from a state, is not necessarily what the company actually cares about. Maybe they just care about the free good press that the majority of consumers do have positive reactions to. And they rarely actually need to carry through with the threat anyway.

 

[Chou Toshio]

On bathroom bills: http://fortune.com/2016/04/13/north-carolina-bathroom-bill-businesses/

 

[Minwu]

I view corporate (and celebrity) LGBT activism much the same as I do that of the Democratic Party's: it's quite a serious 180 in purported beliefs, and I'm not sure corporate support can ever actually be well-intentioned towards poor and homeless LGBT in the states or LGBT people in other countries, especially in those countries who are victims of imperialism (anti LGBT sentiment in former British colonies in Africa, for example), which is a major roadblock for me to consider an entity a "queer ally". Still, for the LGBT Americans that do benefit from the support, I'm glad, especially if it can get the bathroom bill repealed.

 

[UncleSam]

Companies do it because its good publicity. They only have as much power as you give to them.

I have no issue with companies making statements by refusing service in certain states. I do have an issue with companies affecting government decisions directly, via lobbying, writing legislation, and enforcing international agreements.

With regard to backing the LGBT community, it should affect how you perceive those companies. They wouldn't do it if it didn't.

I'm not sure I agree with you in that I do actually have an issue with a company refusing service in certain states. Consider the following example: let's suppose that net neutrality rights were determined by the Supreme Court to lie 'with the states', and that most of the liberal states in the union adopted net neutrality prerogatives which protected servers based there from additional fees from cable companies.

Would you really want cable companies to be able to unilaterally deny service to entire states for this? Perhaps it would be bad for business and this is a bit extreme, but what if they said they were going to only provide the slowest possible connection to everyone in those states because no site is allowed by law to pay premiums for faster connections in that state? I'd dislike the cable companies dictating service to the people in a state based on what their legislation does, and so I'm very apprehensive about companies saying they will discontinue business in North Carolina because of what one state legislature does.

Obviously companies ought to be able to make statements and choose not to expand their businesses to certain states or what have you. But if a company is already providing a service to a state I would certainly be against their discontinuing that service to make a political statement. Frankly, companies coming out in unilateral opposition or suggesting they won't expand there (completely different from refusing service) is a lot of pressure in and of itself, and I am very apprehensive to give corporations any more political power than that.

 

[billymills]

Sure I'd be completely ok with that.

I'd hope it would mean other cable companies would provide adequate service because people would be fed up. If it became a monopolistic issue, then I think that's where the government draws the line.

I'm not going to oppose companies making political statements on the basis that monopolies suck.

 

[Venerable Swede]

So people who watched the development of so-called "religious freedom" state laws are probably aware that corporate America really threw its weight behind the LGBT community. Companies like Disney, Coca-Cola, IBM, Apple, Twitter, etc. stopped or threatened to stop operations, closed down development plans, and sent out tweets and letters demanding that policy makers desist or fix laws that would "demean [our] company's values and severely impact [LGBT employees and potential hires]."

The potential loss of jobs and economic development presented to state policy makers with tremendous pressure that played a big role in fixing or hard-stopping these laws. I'm sure I'm not the only one who applauded these actions.

That said, I think there is something to be said about the arguments presented here: http://fortune.com/2016/04/02/corporate-america-lgbt-community/

How much of a political voice should companies have? Perhaps it's easy to cheer when you agree with the stance taken by corporations-- and there are many with aggressive voices for diversity and even drives for environmental protection. It's easy to cheer when you think corporations are doing the right thing.

But there are also so many other issues on which corporate dollars are spent towards issues and policies that negatively impact society. There are "good" companies, "bad" companies, and every large organization has a lot of people--a lot of apples--and inherently will have a continued struggle to always do the right thing in a complex world with complex issues.

How do people feel about corporate America's backing of the LGBT community? Does it affect the way you perceive those companies? Do you agree or disagree with company's giving voice to these types of issues?

Corporate statism is the inescapable status quo so we might as well make the most of it. The communist revolution isn't coming any time soon, nor is judicial reform as long as the GOP is in a position to block scotus nominees. In the same way that most of the great civil rights battles of the past generation have been fought on the pro bono dime and time of giant wealthy law firms, I'm all for applying corporate social pressure to its maximum positive effect.

Meanwhile, there's nothing to keep us from doing everything we can to scale back corporate power in this country - legislatively, judicially, socially - even as we try to make sure that power is used for good in the interim, whether that has to be under the guise of the profit motive or not. Think global, act locally, and all that jazz, but applied on a temporal scale and not just a geographic one. Progressive pragmatism in a nutshell.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Everything is dollar driven. With the amount of information visible today for companies, it's easy to see instantly whether a decision or stance of yours has been well received. Valve shut down paid mods in skyrim within 48 hours because they realized it would be a horrendous business decision.

Obviously, corporations have found out that support of progressive stances brings them dollars or approval. The general opinion of the actual public is fairly pro-lgbt, especially with young people that pay attention to ads anyway. If Coke runs an ad with two dads and sees a spike in viewership (as well as a ton of free publicity from news sites, "This New Commercial Just Had A Same-Sex Couple And It's Amazing"), then other companies will take notice. Do companies care? Outside of "family owned" corporations that are in control of a specific person (Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-a), I would say no. The CEO of Company Inc doesn't care what the ads say as long as there's a monetary result behind it.

So then logically, putting "pressure" on conservative states and affirming a company's progressive stance would also increase clicks / sales / buzz.


Companies ARE required to hire blindly without discrimination of LGBT, race, etc, so even if the entire country loathes gay people they still have to obey the law. Think they'll be attracting a lot of new employees that way? Much safer to have your "corporate beliefs" in line with what you're legally required to hire. I would just guess on a hunch that a boycott from conservative consumers hurts less than a boycott from liberal ones...otherwise companies wouldn't be saying stuff like this. They've already run the "risk analysis".


Do I have a problem with companies doing this, for any issues they please? I'm not sure. Companies are doing this because people "want" them to, subconsciously through dollars or directly through social media and feedback. So even if I had a problem with it, would it matter? I'd just hope that consumers weren't stupid enough to have "bad opinions" for companies to push.

 

[Bughouse]

Companies ARE required to hire blindly without discrimination of LGBT, race, etc, so even if the entire country loathes gay people they still have to obey the law.

Um... no. The civil rights act does not cover LGBT people. /technically/ they are covered by rulings from the EEOC in 2012 for gender identity and 2015 for sexuality, but this could easily be undone by any other presidential administration in the future. The president appoints commissioners, and the Senate confirms.

 

[elcheeso]

It's also worth pointing out that the legal requirements don't actually have any effect on hiring practices, it just means they can't be obvious about the reason why the person wasn't hired. This shit is pretty well documented with regards to race, so I have no doubt that it LGBT people would also face the same bullshit.

Edit: Correction: It has some effect, just not a whole lot.

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

Obviously, corporations have found out that support of progressive stances brings them dollars or approval. The general opinion of the actual public is fairly pro-lgbt, especially with young people that pay attention to ads anyway. If Coke runs an ad with two dads and sees a spike in viewership (as well as a ton of free publicity from news sites, "This New Commercial Just Had A Same-Sex Couple And It's Amazing"), then other companies will take notice. Do companies care? Outside of "family owned" corporations that are in control of a specific person (Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-a), I would say no. The CEO of Company Inc doesn't care what the ads say as long as there's a monetary result behind it.

I see it all the time that people portray corporate big shots as soul-less greedy people. They may have a lot of money and power but how can you say that there only motivation for supporting LGBT rights is money based. I work for a Global investment bank, the CEO has a gay bother who used to work on wall st and turned AIDs activist after being diagnosed with it. Obviously the CEO decision to have the company openly support LGBT is not based on money but on his life experiences and true feelings. I'm sure many more corporate board members, C-level executives, and top level management feel strongly that their company should do the right thing and not just because they see money out of it

 

[sunny004]

Would like to point out that the only reason why Georgia vetoed their bill was because Gov. Deal learned that the NFL wouldn't give Atlanta a Super Bowl if he signed it :P

 

[GatoDelFuego]

I see it all the time that people portray corporate big shots as soul-less greedy people. They may have a lot of money and power but how can you say that there only motivation for supporting LGBT rights is money based. I work for a Global investment bank, the CEO has a gay bother who used to work on wall st and turned AIDs activist after being diagnosed with it. Obviously the CEO decision to have the company openly support LGBT is not based on money but on his life experiences and true feelings. I'm sure many more corporate board members, C-level executives, and top level management feel strongly that their company should do the right thing and not just because they see money out of it

I don't mean to say that the ONLY motivation is based on money. But I believe it's a big factor. People can certainly believe they are doing the right thing, and the thing that they are doing can certainly be the right thing. However, it's not going to go over well with your shareholders if you're a publicly traded company and the general public doesn't like your opinions.

We've only recently seen corporate support of LGBT rights in particular in the last few years. Whether or not top level executives believed it, for a vast majority of companies the time was "not right" for support. If a majority of people had conservative opinions about a topic, then companies would (in general) stay silent. We know this because...that's how history has been. There's always exceptions to the rule, though, maybe your company is one of them? I'm not the expert of your companies policies, of course.

My point is that money might not always be the primary reason for a company value, but if something is going to make a company lose a lot of money then you can count on it not being a company value for long.

 

[Lavos]

"company values" do not exist. the only thing a company values is money and it will say anything to get your business. companies are trending towards commercials and mission statements that plug diversity in race, sexual orientation, etc. because there are more non-white consumers and sexually nontraditional consumers than there are racists and homophobes. it's a marketing ploy. just remember that any entity out to make a profit will always prioritize said profit.

I sometimes joke that the Latin translation of "pro bono" is "free advertising"

 

[Trax]

Corporations do these things for probably two reasons.

1. Publicity, as others have said the dollar bill has the same value no matter who holds it.

2. Internal Policies, as an example: if one state mandates that trans people can use the bathroom of their choice and another mandates they use the one of their birth, then the internal policies get muddied and something that might be legally acceptable in one state might be a harassment suit waiting to happen in another which HR (aka the cover our arses department) would view as a risk.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Not seen in this thread, surprisingly-- I think it's fair to also admit there are less cynical reasons that are nevertheless based in business.

For instance, saying things like:
-minority groups make up significant portions of talent in the market
-stances and policies that protect these groups means attracting a bigger pool of talent
-a work place where everyone feels safe and inclusive is necessary for productivity and innovation, especially when working in teams
-when you can create a culture of inclusivity, it genuinely becomes possible to take advantage of diversity and ideas/knowledge that come from people with different backgrounds/experiences.

I'm not going to do so, but I'm sure if you researched you could find emperical evidence proving things like those in these examples.

I think it's fine to recognize that there are significant, real operational advantages to a business for protecting diversity and not hiring only white majority workers.


Imagine you are in the most privileged of rock-n-roll corrupt investment banking on Wallstreet-- you are trying to make the big bucks, and you find some super genius of numbers who happens to be a black gay guy. There's a whole system working against him, but you know getting that guy in your trading team is going to do a lot more for your bottom line. You can appease him with your HR and corporate culture structure, or you can see him helping somebody else's bottom line. Depending on your business model, diversity can be a lot more profitable.

Because it's not this one guys-- it's every other guy down the road you need who just happens to not be a straight white guy.

While there may be significant short term costs to building a more inclusive environment, and efficiencies to be realized by only hiring white, able-bodied guys who won't take child leave-- looking long term, considering the overall market of talent, looking global both in recruiting and operation, and how innovation is created-- there are big advantages to be gained by a business that can do diversity, and do it well.

 

[Deck Knight]

Engaging in collectivist politics at a corporate level is a good way to earn a boycott from me. Btw. you don't need to put scare quotes around religious liberty. Religious Liberty is enshrined in the Constitution. Double the Locker Room Selection Because Identity Struggles is not.

And let me perfectly clear here, the solution to this issue is easy: Don't pass a law making it a hate crime for a woman to defend herself in a restroom or locker room. People who sincerely believe they are a different gender from their biological sex were already using the bathroom of their choice and nobody even looked twice, because serious societies don't need beat cops in the restroom. No law was necessary, but because we MUST virtue signal for corporate PR and faux-moral grandstanding, now every woman looks twice in these areas because you become a criminal if you don't. Why is it in order to make some people comfortable, everyone else must be made criminally liable if they are uncomfortable?

Since I have a business background, I'll briefly touch on that: Structurally speaking, "only hiring white, able-bodied guys who won't take child leave" is illegal. Every single structural incentive through college scholarships and employment law makes selecting such a person even over less qualified applicants a liability. Deal with society as it is, now as how it was. I can prove modern structural discouragement of so-called majorities. Disparate Impact on minorities is literally illegal and philosophically a bogeyman. (I missed you at The Patriarchy meeting the other day though, Chou. You're slipping :( )

Now before I continue I'm going to provide a trigger warning here. I'll be pointing out the actual legal effects of proposed and enacted legislation without regard to how right and just their supporters believe their cause to be. If you think making entire classes of people criminals is acceptable as long as they can be pigeonholed as bigots by the government, what I'm about to say will trigger you.

I dropped Firefox immediately after Brendan Eich got terminated because he contributed to a ballot initiative favoring an existing law. "Inclusion" these days only seems to mean including men in women's bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities - and making it a hate crime if you're a woman who acts in your self-defense, a law Massachusetts just passed. Connecticut now has guidelines that say doctors assign genders at birth (because forget chromosomes and medical training, progressive politics uber alles). And you can't appease these cultural aggressors either - use the wrong pronoun at the office and you could be fined a quarter of a million dollars for "misgendering," at least in Bill DeBlasio's world.

I'd also note on these bills, ALL traditional media coverage fails to mention how they affect the criminal statutes. Supporters never mention the many documented cases of men entering these facilities under false pretenses (and often claim, falsely, that they don't exist), which under these laws gives them a 50/50 chance of not just walking away, but putting someone they vicitimized in jail for "misgendering" them. The Connecticut guidelines I mentioned go further by expressly defining "Bathroom Bill" as an ungood term (George Orwell, please pick up the courtesy phone).

It is the ultimate irony that in order to cover themselves against lawsuits, these corporations enable politicians who work tirelessly to make the list of hate crimes and thought crimes infinitely long. Good luck with that. These corporations have chosen whose money they want and whose they don't.

They don't want mine. I will act accordingly.

NO law deserves the imprimatur of being unassailable, regardless of its supporters intentions.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Corporate pressure on states? Jesus Motherfucking H. Christ

There's this concept you may have heard of called freedom of association. I'll explain it like you're five: If a person who owns a company disagrees with a policy in the state, that person is completely free to move their operations elsewhere. It's not a difficult concept.

Okay, now that we've cleared that up, this alleged "pressure" on states is clearly a result of corporations attempting to maintain a positive image of themselves. See, if a state passes an anti-LGBT bill and a corporation in that state keeps their operations in that state, how do people see it? They see it as an endorsement of that policy. So, really, we shouldn't be talking about corporations pressuring states, we should be talking about citizens pressuring corporations to pressure states, and at this point, we can just cut out the middle man because citizens have been pressuring states for a long time - it's this thing called democracy, sound familiar?

 

[Bughouse]

The wonderful thing about letting the free market sort these things out, as true conservative Deck Knight would want, is that it results in a world where Deck Knight can scarcely patronize any business without funding bigotry against cis straight white men.

By all means, stand up for your values and don't spend money at these companies. It can't be hard to avoid (among many other companies I'm sure I don't even know about)

• Wal-Mart
• Target
• CostCo
• IKEA
• Best Buy
• CVS
• GE
• 3M
• Johnson and Johnson
• pretty much every car company
• pretty much every insurance company (both health and general car/home/etc)
• pretty much every gas station
• pretty much every hotel company
• pretty much every financial institution
• all major cell service providers
• all major broadband and landline providers
• all major beverage companies
• all major fast food companies
• all major athletic wear companies
• all major credit card companies
• all major airlines
• all major social networks
• all major computer manufacturers
• all major pharmacies...

Clearly there are more dollars coming in from people who appreciate taking a stand against bigotry than are lost from bigots shopping elsewhere.

 

[Deck Knight]

The wonderful thing about letting the free market sort these things out, as true conservative Deck Knight would want, is that it results in a world where Deck Knight can scarcely patronize any business without funding bigotry against cis straight white men.

Nice mischaracterization there, Bughouse. By the way the topic we're discussing mostly inflicts negative legal consequences on women - including lesbians because predators don't care about the preferences of their victims - so please try to stay on topic for once. Your strange obsession with bringing up the cis straight white man when he's irrelevant is fascinating, but not relevant.

Clearly there are more dollars coming in from people who appreciate taking a stand against bigotry than are lost from bigots shopping elsewhere.

Most people aren't aware of major corporate stances because they don't advertise them, and indeed most of their "support" comes down to loading the policy manual with "inclusive environment" corporate-speak. By that standard of support I don't get why liberals say corporations are soulless and indifferent money mills when all their policy manuals go through the motions of happy PC talk.

Though to point to one of your examples, Target went out on a limb on this issue and it took a pretty big hit. Adhering to state laws also is not an endorsement of those laws, just like paying taxes isn't an endorsement of the specific tax rate. Mozilla lost my support because they decided to place punishing Eich's political donations (which were leaked specifically to damage him, by the way) over his technical prowess and his actual record of human behavior in the company. Google (Chrome) is hardly better, but as of yet they haven't made a public scene of neutralizing someone's career over their politics.

Incidentally you're not wrong that I support the free market. If Target wants to advertise its bathrooms are a safe space - including for people with ill intentions - they're free to do so. Target can't imprison people who don't adhere to their corporate policies. Governments can imprison people who inadvertantly violate their laws, no matter how dumb those laws are. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, as they say.

 

[Bughouse]

1) By all means, please point out actual data that shows that fake (or, even less likely, real) trans predators are more likely to prey on women in bathrooms than other women, or alternatively, other men who aren't in drag. Until then, I'll say that that the only thing harmed by trans people's use of a bathroom are your poor, poor sensitivities. This is scare tactics.

2) The companies I listed don't merely follow the law. I'm pretty sure all of them have a rating of 100 from the HRC for LGBT inclusion policies. This by and large exceeds whatever federal state and local laws exist. By a lot.

3) Meanwhile, Target's not taking a hit as far as I'm aware. Nor are any of these companies. They're all doing quite well.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/18/target-q1-earnings-report.html

 

[Rollout Shuckle]

I personally think companies have way too much political influence. They can use their power to influence politicians and get what they want to make profits, and this negatively influences us in turn. A perfect example of this is 90% of Americans wanting GMOs to be labeled, but huge corporations like Colacola and Kraft and Campbell's don't want GMOs being labeled as it'll dissuade customers, and as a result GMOs haven't been labeled. Actually that's not entirely true, because Monsanto is the main reason - they've got former and current employees in the USDA and other government positions making it almost impossible to get GMOs meaningfully labeled. This is an example of a huge company having even huger power over laws and over us. Other examples would include oil companies suppressing global warming evidence and such, but yeah this whole LGBTQ thing makes me wonder how power companies really have over us.

 

[JES]

I think the bottom line is that it is great if corporations want to advertise a certain law or cause, but they shouldn't have the undue influence that they do, because if you get in their way, they can run you over like a bug. We should have the final say, but too many times, it's them who has the final say.

And don't get me started with Monsanto and GMOs. Anyone who has been formerly assigned to an influential business should be regarded with utmost suspicion before being allowed anywhere near any parts of the government to avoid the conflict of interests we have.

 

[Yoshi King]

I personally think companies have way too much political influence. They can use their power to influence politicians and get what they want to make profits, and this negatively influences us in turn. A perfect example of this is 90% of Americans wanting GMOs to be labeled, but huge corporations like Colacola and Kraft and Campbell's don't want GMOs being labeled as it'll dissuade customers, and as a result GMOs haven't been labeled. Actually that's not entirely true, because Monsanto is the main reason - they've got former and current employees in the USDA and other government positions making it almost impossible to get GMOs meaningfully labeled. This is an example of a huge company having even huger power over laws and over us. Other examples would include oil companies suppressing global warming evidence and such, but yeah this whole LGBTQ thing makes me wonder how power companies really have over us.

What's actually scary about this is that this is the collective health of the population and it is a negative pressure being put on governments to mislabel (or not label at all) to deceive people. Some GMOs are fine-- I think it's disingenuous to state that they're ALL BAD-- but especially when it comes to pesticide use, we are not getting the info we should be. A very far cry indeed from progressive pushes which only affect the socio-cultural aspects of our world, and do not affect everyone's life.

There again, I suppose we can't have our cake and eat it too. :/