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You might think Starbucks is a ‘progressive’ company. You’d be wrongHamilton NolanRarely in modern history have we seen a company that so exquisitely cultivates an image as a caring, progressive employer while actually acting like a bullying, union-busting gangster Corporate hypocrisy is as old as corporations themselves. But there are levels. It is important to recognize astounding achievements in business insincerity. So let us send a note of congratulations today to Starbucks: rarely in modern history have we witnessed a company that so exquisitely combines a cultivated image as a caring, progressive employer with the well-documented, large-scale behavior of a gangster who expects to rule employees through bullying and fear.The $100bn coffee-and-flavored-syrup chain meticulously refers to its employees as “partners”. What does it mean to be a partner to someone? Reasonable people might say that a partnership is a relationship in which you treat the other person as an equal, zealously uphold their basic rights, and deal with them in all cases as fully formed human beings deserving of respect. Luckily for Starbucks, they’ve had a great chance to exhibit these values over the past year, as thousands of employees at more than 230 of their stores across the country have voted to unionize. The historic union wave has offered the company an unprecedented opportunity to respect their “partners’” right to organize; to listen to their concerns and requests for change; and to bargain contracts with them in good faith, as partners, of course, should.To say that Starbucks has failed to live up to their progressive reputation would be far too polite. It’s more like the union is Scooby-Doo, and they have yanked off the company’s pleasant mask to reveal Tony Soprano lurking underneath.This week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said that Starbucks had illegally withheld raises and other benefits from its unionized workers. This is one of the oldest pseudo-friendly union busting tactics in the book – a company in the midst of a union campaign will hand out goodies to its non-union employees and then shrug theatrically and say: “Gee, we’re not allowed to give these things to the union people!” (which, as the NLRB has affirmed, is a lie).And that giant, illegal ripoff is not even the worst part. The union, Starbucks Workers United, says that the company has fired more than 85 workers for organizing. The company has begun permanently closing stores that recently unionized or were in the process of doing so. The NLRB still has hundreds of charges of illegal labor practices against Starbucks that it has yet to rule on. There were so many GoFundMe campaigns floating around for fired Starbucks workers that the union finally had to set up a national Solidarity Fund to try to help them all. In the midst of all of this brash intimidation, Starbucks has complained that the NLRB has unfairly favored the union, which is akin to a bank robber complaining that the police are unfairly favoring the bank.What accounts for the hubris of a company that so boldly risks its own reputation to flout labor law and treat its “partners” like so many automatons who must be whipped back into submission? I’m no psychoanalyst, but I imagine that it flows from the same source as the hubris that made the billionaire Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz imagine that he could get elected president as an independent. It seems that none of Schultz’s sycophants were brave enough to tell him up front that he is, perhaps, the single worst presidential candidate you could ever imagine: Conservatives hate him because he pretends to be progressive; progressives hate him because he is, in fact, a cutthroat billionaire businessman who slathers himself in symbolic liberalism to ward off accurate criticism; and his own employees hate him because he treats their request for labor rights like an act of war.Schultz, who returned to Starbucks as CEO this year for the express purpose of fumbling the company’s response to unionization, seems to imagine himself as some sort of kindly Stewart Brand figure who will redeem capitalism, but acts in practice like just another irate union-buster – Andrew Carnegie with an espresso machine. (A monstrous bit of Democratic party trivia: Hillary Clinton reportedly considered Schultz as labor secretary in her presidential administration, something that the next reporter to interview Clinton should absolutely ask her about.)It may be that the very idea of a “progressive corporation” is, given the realities of American capitalism, an oxymoron. But anyone who has ever held a job understands what a good employer is. It is someone who treats workers as humans. When you get right down to it, the demands of the many Starbucks workers who have unionized are downright modest. They have asked the company to sign a pledge to simply allow workers to choose to organize “without fear of reprisal”. The company has not only refused to sign, but has dedicated itself to instilling fear of reprisal in the hearts of every single employee. That is not how a good boss treats his workers. That is not how a genuine progressive treats anyone. And it is certainly not how you would treat a “partner”.In Boston, recently, I stopped by a unionized Starbucks store where workers have been on strike for more than a month. Through scorching days and lonely nights, these young workers, who could have spent the time doing anything more fun, have maintained a 24/7 picket line. That is not something people do if they do not care – about their co-workers, about their rights, and about the company itself. Schultz, who sits in his $30m mansion and sends out messages exhorting his employees to show “collective courage”, has not been there. He should pay it a visit. I bet they could teach him a lot about what real progressive values look like.
Hamilton Nolan is a writer based in New York
TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS unionsStarbucksCorporate governanceFood & drink industrycommentReuse this content More
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Business leaders have called on the new prime minister to urgently tackle the economic crisis as new estimates suggest the looming recession will last longer than forecast. “Action […] More
Walmart expands abortion coverage for employees after Roe overturnedMemo to staff says that new healthcare policy will also offer ‘travel support’ for workers seeking abortions The US’s largest private employer, Walmart, is expanding its abortion coverage for employees after staying largely mum on the issue following the supreme court ruling that in June scrapped a nationwide right to abortion.In a memo sent to employees Friday, the retail giant said its healthcare plans will cover abortion for employees “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability”. The plans will be “effective immediately”, the memo added.The company’s benefits plan had previously covered abortion only in cases “when the health of the mother would be in danger if the fetus were carried to term, the fetus could not survive the birthing process, or death would be imminent after birth”, according to a copy of the policy viewed by the Associated Press but not confirmed by Walmart.Walmart’s chief people officer, Donna Morris, said in the memo to staff that the new policy will also offer “travel support” for workers seeking abortions covered under its healthcare plans – as well as their dependents – so they can access services that are not available within 100 miles of their locations.“Given how recent events are resulting in state-by-state healthcare environments, we will expand our travel coverage,” the memo said.Walmart employs nearly 1.6 million people in the US. The company is headquartered in Arkansas, where abortion is banned under all circumstances unless the procedure is needed to protect the life of the mother in a medical emergency. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.That means under the revised policy, Walmart employees can travel out of the state – or any other state that bans abortion for rape and incest – to obtain the procedure through the retailer’s health plans.According to the memo, which CNN also reviewed, Morris said that Walmart decided to make the changes after “listening to our associates about what’s important to them”, adding that “we strive to provide quality, competitive and accessible health coverage that supports you and your families”.The company said it will also launch a center that provides employees fertility services, including in vitro fertilization. Additionally, it vowed to add surrogacy support and increase its financial aid for adoptions from $5,000 to $20,000. In June, Walmart said it would expand its offering of doulas – or people who assist women during pregnancies – to address racial disparities in maternal care.Some other large companies – including Meta, American Express and Bank of America – have said they will cover travel costs for their employees in the aftermath of the high court ruling that tossed out the federal abortion rights established by the landmark decision in the 1973 case titled Roe v Wade, including elective abortions. But a Walmart spokesperson did not immediately reply for a request for comment on whether any of the company’s revised policy will cover elective abortions as well.“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s simply not far enough for a company that employs that many women,” said Bianca Agustin, director of the corporate accountability program for United for Respect, a group that advocates for Walmart workers. She said the organization will be incorporating “safe abortions” for employees in their list of demands pressing the company for better pay and benefits.TopicsWalmartAbortionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
How a top US business lobby promised climate action – but worked to block efforts Business Roundtable aims to weaken efforts that would enable investors to hold companies accountable for their climate promisesThree years ago today, in a statement that would be described as “historic”, “monumental” and “revolutionary”, America’s most powerful and politically connected corporations promised to “protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses”.The “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” came from the Business Roundtable, an influential Washington DC lobbying group whose 200-plus members include the chief executives of some of the world’s biggest companies, including Apple, Pepsi, Walmart and Google.Today, on the statement’s third anniversary, the Business Roundtable and its member CEOs continue to issue earnest statements about the climate crisis. But the organization is also working diligently – and spending liberally – to weaken efforts that would enable investors to hold companies accountable for their climate promises.An analysis by the Guardian found the lobby group has worked hard to protect a status quo in which corporations:
Generate goodwill and positive PR by publishing bold climate goals, with little fear of being held accountable or legally liable for achieving those goals.
Can choose to selectively disclose certain parts of their carbon footprint, or none at all.
Are not required to reveal the greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout their supply chains – which, for most companies, make up the majority of their emissions.
Make high-profile pledges to fight climate change, while paying to maintain memberships in the Business Roundtable and other trade associations that spend millions of dollars to lobby governments against meaningful climate action.
In public the Business Roundtable’s leaders are still committed to change. Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart and previous chair of the Business Roundtable, has called the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges facing the planet today”. In a statement on the group’s website, Mary Barra, the CEO of GM and the Roundtable’s current chair, declared that “we must act” to tackle climate change. “Meeting the scope of this challenge will require collective global action – business and government,” Barra said.The challenge “isn’t the lack of business commitment” said Johnson Controls CEO George Oliver in a video published by the Business Roundtable in January. “What we need is to be aligned with the public sector to make sure that we’ve got the proper policies in place that will enable us to do what we do so well.”Yet when the US government has tried to put the “proper policies” in place, the Business Roundtable has worked to undermine those efforts.In 2021, the organization spent millions of dollars to stop the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda, which included significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy.And this year, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a long-anticipated rule that would require publicly held companies to disclose their carbon emissions and the risks that climate change poses to their business models, the Business Roundtable declared its opposition to central aspects of the SEC proposal, including provisions that experts say are vital for the rule to give investors comparable and consistent information about corporations’ climate risks.Before releasing the proposed rules in March, the SEC had asked the public what such rules might look like. In its response, the Business Roundtable acknowledged that “climate challenges are creating growing risks in many parts of the economy” and deemed it “appropriate” for the SEC to regulate climate disclosures.The group noted that the present system of corporate climate reporting, in which some companies issue voluntary climate-related disclosures, has proven inadequate. “There are many conflicting demands on companies to provide disclosures under different frameworks, which is unnecessarily costly and time-consuming for companies,” the Business Roundtable’s comments read.But when the SEC shifted from requesting voluntary input to proposing mandatory requirements for climate disclosures, the organization appeared to change its tune. In a 17-page letter, the CEO lobby announced its opposition to the proposal and asked the commission to “revise and repropose the rule.”In an email to the Guardian, the Business Roundtable denied that its perspective had changed. “[Business Roundtable] members are committed to combating climate change and are supportive of a rulemaking. Our goal is for a pragmatic, attainable, and successful rule,” the group said. “Our members believe it is worth the extra time on the front end to repropose the rule.”Since April 2021, according to meeting memoranda published by the SEC, the Business Roundtable has met at least three times with the SEC about climate disclosures. (GM’s Barra, the chair of the Business Roundtable, also met separately with SEC chair Gary Gensler.)In the first half of this year, the group spent more than $9.1m lobbying the federal government directly, according to reports compiled by Open Secrets. In its public disclosures, the Roundtable reported lobbying Congress, the White House and the SEC about the climate disclosure proposal. (In an email, the Business Roundtable said it “met with the SEC to directly communicate our concerns” and “shared our point of view with members of Congress and administration officials.”)Despite asking for a new, and thus delayed, proposal, the organization’s own members continue to assure the public that they see the climate crisis as an urgent challenge. “We’re out of time,” Cummins CEO and Business Roundtable member Tom Linebarger said in the organization’s January climate video. “We’re getting ready, to get ready, to get ready to do things. And the problem is that we have to move now.”But “now”, it seems, does not mean now.One provision the Business Roundtable has rejected as “unworkable” is a requirement for companies to measure and report the greenhouse gas emissions generated by suppliers and customers throughout their supply chains, or what are known as “Scope 3” emissions. The provision would apply only to companies that have published emissions targets that include Scope 3, or for which supply-chain emissions are considered “material”.Scope 3 includes all greenhouse gas emissions that companies neither generate directly (Scope 1) nor purchase for their own energy needs (Scope 2), which means everything from the raw materials that go into creating a product to the transportation that delivers that product to a consumer.For most companies, Scope 3 emissions represent the majority of their carbon output. As Addisu Lashitew, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, has pointed out, more than three-quarters of Amazon’s 2021 emissions were considered Scope 3.Diagram showing Scope 3 emissions are everything indirectly related to productionThe Business Roundtable supports mandating Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions disclosures, and many companies already report them, in part because these direct emissions are easier to calculate and easier to reduce (sometimes through the purchase of dubious carbon “offsets”).Perhaps more importantly, however, because most firms’ emissions are primarily Scope 3, limiting their reporting to Scopes 1 and 2 makes them appear greener.In its comments to the SEC, the Business Roundtable called the proposal to require companies to measure and report Scope 3 emissions “overly burdensome” because “many companies still have limited systems in place to identify and disclose Scope 3 emissions” and some aspects of reporting value-chain emissions “remain[] challenging”.But “if you don’t have Scope 3 as a requirement, then what you have effectively done is cut out most of the emissions from the top-emitting industries,” Allison Herren Lee, the former acting chair and commissioner of the SEC, told the Guardian. “With emissions arguably being the most important item of disclosure for investors, how is a rule without Scope 3 going to achieve what investors need?”“There is an inherent degree of uncertainty in some of the data the proposal would require companies to disclose, and much of it is largely outside their control,” the Business Roundtable said in an email.A number of experts familiar with the SEC’s climate disclosure rulemaking acknowledged that tracking and reporting Scope 3 emissions could indeed be difficult for some companies, or at least more difficult than not doing so.But they suggested that the more fundamental question was not whether complying with the SEC’s rules would be more difficult than doing nothing, but rather if doing so would provide investors with information that they have requested and that would help them make more informed investment decisions.This argument would appear to align with the stated position of the Business Roundtable, which has repeatedly expressed its support for “market-based” efforts to address climate change, a view it reiterated in its comments to the SEC.“Information is the lifeblood of the capital markets, and capital markets are a central institution of a capitalist market economy,” George S Georgiev, a professor at Emory University and an expert on securities law, told the Guardian. “Climate-related financial information is demanded by investors, not by environmentalists.”Moreover, “there is no unanimity that Scope 3 reporting is problematic”, Georgiev said, noting that Apple, whose CEO, Tim Cook, sits on the Business Roundtable’s board of directors, is among the companies that have endorsed the SEC’s Scope 3 requirement. Apple’s existing reporting “attest[s] to the feasibility of reasonably modeling, measuring, and reporting on all three scopes of emissions, including scope 3 emissions,” the company told the Commission.In its comments, the Business Roundtable said that its member companies had already set a “high bar…for voluntary ESG [environmental, social and governance] disclosures,” and that a voluntary approach to climate reporting was already “providing more valuable information for investors”.But many investors, analysts, academics, voters and experts – even companies themselves – disagree. “There is near-universal agreement among scholars that voluntary disclosure rules alone are not sufficient,” Emory’s Georgiev said. “The same logic applies to climate rules.”“Climate is one of the most significant risks facing companies and investors,” said Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit. “For companies to say that it is too costly to gather Scope 1 through 3 data, we simply think that it shows signs of weak management.”In a March letter, a group of investors managing nearly $5tn of assets warned that failing to require companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions would render the SEC rules doubly ineffective: insufficient for addressing the climate emergency, and inadequate for providing investors with useful information, because voluntary figures allow companies to publish only the information that paints them in the best light.“There is a great amount of confusion,” Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in a speech last year. “If we are really going to tackle this, if we want to have 100% participation, the easiest way you could do that is having unified standards.” Fink is also a member of the Business Roundtable.In an email, the Roundtable said it was “unlikely” that the proposed Scope 3 disclosure provisions “would result in comparable, investor-useful information”. The group “believes it’s important to have reliable climate risk and emissions data, and our companies are leaders when it comes to transparency.”The group’s objections to the SEC’s Scope 3 requirements are only one aspect of its multi-tiered opposition to the proposed climate disclosure rules. And its opposition to the proposed rules is, similarly, only one example of many in which it has rejected efforts to hold its member companies accountable for their social and environmental pledges.In the three years since the organization released the “purpose of a corporation” statement, a number of studies have shown that Business Roundtable companies have failed to follow through on their “fundamental commitment to all of [their] stakeholders”.One analysis from London Business School and Columbia Business School found that companies whose CEOs signed the 2019 statement subsequently received more federal environmental infractions and had higher carbon emissions than similar firms that did not sign the statement.In another study, two Harvard Law School professors reviewed more than 600 public documents filed by Business Roundtable companies since the statement’s publication. Time and time again, the researchers found that when firms were presented with an opportunity to formalize the pledge in their corporate governance, they declined.In addition, by advocating and lobbying against government action on issues like climate change, the Business Roundtable gives its members space to publicly endorse (and claim credit for endorsing) legislative and regulatory action – such as Apple’s support for mandatory Scope 3 reporting, or Cummins and GM’s support for Build Back Better –all while knowing that the Roundtable will work behind the scenes in opposition.“Some individual companies aren’t going to write in and rage against the proposal because they know that will raise concerns with their investors, so they let some of the trade groups do that work for them,” said Allison Herren Lee, the SEC’s former acting chair and commissioner.In its comments to the SEC, the Business Roundtable urged lawmakers to take the lead on tackling the climate crisis, arguing that “although important, disclosures simply will not solve the problem”.“These are complex issues that need to be solved through the legislative process,” the group wrote.But the Business Roundtable continues to oppose efforts to address the climate emergency through the legislative process. The latest effort to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, includes billions of dollars in clean energy tax incentives, paid for in part by making sure corporations pay at least a 15% tax rate on profits. The bill could cut America’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.Yet on 6 August, just shy of the third anniversary of the statement in which Business Roundtable CEOs committed to “protect[ing] the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses”, the group declared its opposition to the bill, citing “tax provisions that would undermine American economic growth and competitiveness”.“I’m just so worried that our planet can no longer suffer from us debating and debating and debating,” said Cummins CEO Tom Linebarger, who, like all the CEOs named in this article, signed the 2019 statement. “It’s the existential crisis of our time.”TopicsClimate crisisApplePepsicoGoogleUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Real wages fell at a record rate between April and June as Britain’s cost of living crisis took hold and inflation slashed the value of workers’ pay, official […] More
Republicans vote against insulin bill as price soars, dismaying diabeticsCost of the life-saving drug will remain many times higher than in other affluent countries after Republicans defeated the measure During the Covid-19 pandemic, Erin Connelly had to ration insulin while transitioning to a different health insurance plan. When Connelly heard the Biden administration was planning to cap the price of the life-saving drug, she was delighted. She was soon to be disappointed.The prices of insulin has soared in the US in recent decades and is more than eight times higher in the US than in 32 comparable, high-income nations, according to a Rand Corporation study.With an average list price of $98.70 per unit in the US, compared with $7.52 in the UK, US insulin sales account for nearly half the pharmaceutical industry’s insulin revenue, though the US makes up only about 15% of the global market.Many diabetics require several vials of insulin a month, in addition to the costs of medical supplies and monitoring equipment. A 2022 study by CharityRx found 79% of Americans with diabetes or who care for someone with diabetes reported taking on credit card debt to pay for insulin, with an average debt of $9,000. One in four Americans have reported rationing insulin due to the high costs, which can be fatal.As part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in the Senate this week, the Biden administration proposed a $35 monthly cap on the cost of insulin in the private market. But the proposal was blocked by Republicans. Connelly, a type 1 diabetic from Illinois who was diagnosed at the age of 33, said she was “devastated”.“I believe the profit margin on my life must be really good, otherwise, we would be a bigger focus and a bigger part of these healthcare negotiations,” she said. “People are actually dying from this and it’s beyond price gouging. They’re holding us for ransom.“As we see things like Covid and different viruses come in and attack bodies in ways that we don’t understand, we’re seeing higher rates of people with type 1 diabetes later in life like I was, so this should be a primary concern for public health officials,” she said.Thanks to budgetary rules the proposal needed 60 votes to pass in the Senate. It received 57, with all Democrats and seven Republicans voting in favor of the proposal, though the Senate parliamentarian did allow the cap on co-pays for Medicare, the government health insurance program for those 65 and older.The vote incited criticism against Republicans from diabetes advocates who have been pushing for legislation to cap the cost of insulin in the US.But even a cap on private insurance co-pays wouldn’t have affected the real price of insulin in the US. The proposal would merely have limited the co-pay for the price of insulin to $35 for those with private insurance, with insurance expected to cover the difference. It would also probably have resulted in increases for insurance premiums. Those without insurance would still have been expected to pay exorbitant prices for insulin.“The co-pay caps aren’t price caps. All they effectively do is if you have insurance or Medicare, the $35 is your maximum co-pay,” said Laura Marston, co-founder of the advocacy group the Insulin Initiative and a type one diabetic. “That doesn’t change the underlying price of what someone without insurance pays for insulin, which in and of itself is concerning and scary from a patient’s point of view because I know first-hand how hard it can be as a type 1 diabetic in this country to get and keep health insurance.”Marston pointed out that pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly have supported the insurance co-pay caps. While she was disappointed by the failure of the co-pay cap proposal, even if she feels it fell short of a real solution to the problem, she is also concerned about the lack of political will to take on the pharmaceutical industry and cap the actual prices of insulin.More than 100,000 Americans died in 2021 from diabetes. More than 30 million Americans are diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes and over 7 million require daily insulin – all type 1 diabetics and many type 2 diabetics.For now diabetics and their families who were hoping for some relief are back where they started – paying exorbitant fees for a life-saving medicine.“We’ve been trying to no avail to get an actual insulin price cap introduced that would say to insulin makers, you cannot charge more than say, we’ll just say $20 a vial, or basically you cannot charge more than what you charge in other countries for insulin. And it felt like it fell on deaf ears as soon as this co-pay cap was introduced,” said Marston. “I don’t know why they introduced something seemingly half hearted, not really designed to be a solution to the problem.”TopicsDiabetesPharmaceuticals industryBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
