In December 2019, Starbucks became the second U.S. company to disclose the full story of gender and racial pay equity. The retailer disclosed both its “equal pay” gap and its “median pay” gap for women and minority workers. The headline here is that there was no gap on either basis in the United States—a rarity among companies. In fact, Starbucks’ median pay results stand in sharp contrast to the 20 percent gender pay gap for the U.S. workforce and the 30 percent gap for the retail industry.
Read moreYou Can’t Break The Glass Ceiling Without A Promotion
In the finance industry, there is a mind-boggling 32 percent gap between women represented in entry level roles and women in the executive suite; women make up 56 percent of entry level positions and 24 percent of executives. Finance is not an anomaly. In transportation, logistics, and infrastructure, the gap is 43 percent, healthcare’s gap is 40 percent, and consumer packaged goods’ gap is 35 percent. There is no industry without a significant valley. We know that these valleys also exist around race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other immutable characteristics. We are still lacking sufficient public data to understand just how pervasive or extensive these gaps are.
Read moreMajority Shareholder Votes Put Spotlight On C-Suite Diversity
Evidence continues to mount that ethnic, racial, and gender diversity at the highest levels of leadership is enormously important to a well-functioning organization. The gains made by corporations to diversify both their boards and senior executive ranks are noteworthy and investor engagement has played a valuable role in these advances.
Read moreOpioid Crisis & Insulin Prices Prompt Shareholder Push For Big Pharma Board Accountability
In July 2019, Investors for Opioid Accountability, which has been at the forefront of the fight against the opioid crisis, broadened its focus to encompass companies with insulin and generic legal risks and those under scrutiny for anticompetitive practices. Now known as Investors for Opioid and Pharmaceutical Accountability (IOPA), this diverse global coalition of 60 public, faith-based, labor, and sustainability funds, as well as asset managers, represents investors with more than $4.4 trillion in assets under management.
Read moreThe Business Case For Reproductive Health
Reproductive health is a business issue—this is the message that a new campaign wants companies and investors to know and to act upon. The effort is led by Rhia Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture firm specializing in contraceptive and maternal health investments.
Read moreInvestors Want Auto Industry To Shift Gears On Human Rights
Accountability for corporate supply chain impacts is now before the courts as Tesla and five other companies face a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 14 children and parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for allegedly “aiding and abetting in the death and serious injury of children who claim they were working in cobalt mines in their supply chain.” This risk faces all companies in the automotive industry, which relies on complex, extended supply chains to source the wide range of raw materials that go into the 30,000 different parts in a vehicle. Despite the prevalence and severity of risks like forced labor and hazardous working conditions, many companies in the sector fail to conduct effective human rights due diligence, with gaps in policy implementation, impact assessments, and disclosure.
Read moreA Tale Of Two Prisons: Human Rights For Inmates And Detainees
At the turn of this century, the United States saw increased use of private prisons because of more incarceration, aging local prisons, and a belief that contracting private prisons was cheaper. Cities, counties, and states began to contract with the private sector to handle their inmates. At the same time, the industry began consolidating, and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO Group dominated the field. The faith community, with a long history of prison chaplaincy, was concerned with what they saw in these facilities. Reports included untrained and limited staff, problems with health care and food, inability to meet families, and an increase in violence. Faith-based organizations such as Wespath and the Presbyterian Church (USA) began to exclude private prisons from their investments.
Read moreFacebook At Center Of Storm Over Child Sexual Exploitation Online
There has been an explosion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online and it is likely going to get much worse–unless tech companies take more aggressive action. What was once the province of individual child predators taking photos for their own use has–through the proliferation of smart phones, social networks, and data storage–increased exponentially with the growth of the internet and children going online. (One third of Internet users are children and 800 million kids now are on social media.)
Read moreShareholders Expand Political Disclosure And Accountability Effort As 2020 Elections Heighten Company Risks
As the 2020 campaign heats up, public companies face much greater risk from political spending. The 2018 elections provided a foretaste of what companies can expect when contributions associate them with candidates who make questionable remarks or take positions that conflict with companies’ core values and positions.
Read moreCompanies Engaged In Immigration Detention And Family Separation Face Human Rights Risks
Since mid-2017, Investors for Opioid Accountability (IOA), a coalition founded by Mercy Investment Services and the UAW Retirees Medical Benefits Trust, has become the leading shareholder force in the fight against the opioid epidemic ravaging the United States. It now represents 54 investors with more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management. In 2017, more than 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, the most ever in a single year. Of the 700,000 American deaths from drug overdoses since 1999, more than two-thirds were from opioids and many involved prescription opioids.
Read moreCompanies Publicly Support Climate Policies But Lobby Against Them
In 2019, the investor campaign for lobbying disclosure is focusing on corporate political responsibility, with an increased concentration on climate change lobbying. More than 30 proposals have been filed asking companies to disclose their federal and state lobbying, trade association payments and support for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Read moreShareholder Majority Calls On Gun Makers To Help End Gun Violence
Gun-related deaths in the U.S. are at a 20-year high. In fact, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show the number of deaths from gunfire to be nearly 40,000 in 2017 – the equivalent of 12 deaths per 100,000, and the highest rate since 1996.
Read moreChild Sexual Exploitation Online—a Growing Risk For The Technology Sector
While Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies are now widely-held components of many investor portfolios, they are also at the center of an escalating trend in children being sexually exploited and abused online. The technology used in sex crimes against children is ubiquitous, from smartphones to gaming consoles, and through various apps, text messaging, social media sites, cloud storage, and more. And yet, ICT companies rarely disclose how they are combating these growing risks, from identifying and blocking child sex images, to investing in new solutions to stay ahead of the abusers.
Read moreDiversity In The C-Suite: Why It’s Time To Shine A Light On Executive Leadership
As a growing number of companies acknowledge the strengths of a truly diverse workforce, an area too often overlooked is executive team diversity.
Read moreGender Pay Gap Is More Than Just Salary – It Is Also About Opportunity
Numerous studies show women are paid less than their male counterparts. This is a key challenge for companies as they face reputational risk, consumer backlash, new legislation and governmental and employee lawsuits. Just the perception of a gender pay gap can make it hard to recruit or keep top talent.
Read moreMajority Support For Disclosure Of Opioid Financial Risk
Since mid-2017, Investors for Opioid Accountability (IOA), a coalition founded by Mercy Investment Services and the UAW Retirees Medical Benefits Trust, has become the leading shareholder force in the fight against the opioid epidemic ravaging the United States. It now represents 54 investors with more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management. In 2017, more than 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, the most ever in a single year. Of the 700,000 American deaths from drug overdoses since 1999, more than two-thirds were from opioids and many involved prescription opioids.
Read moreThe Growing Regulatory Risk Of Modern Slavery In Global Supply Chains
Globally, it is estimated that over 40 million people living in situations of modern slavery. Approximately 16 million people are in forced labor in the private economy, in mines, factories and fields harvesting raw materials and manufacturing products for global supply chains. Over the past few years, revelations of modern slavery conditions have been traced to the supply chains of major corporations, from smartphones produced with forced child labor in the DRC, to seafood caught by trafficked migrant workers in Thailand.
Read more“Keep It Secret” Policies Enable Cultures Of Harassment And Discrimination
Thanks to Tarana Burke’s Me Too movement, TIME’S UP and others, it’s no longer possible to ignore the devastating impacts of discrimination, harassment and sexual assault in the workplace. In the business world, we’ve seen many alleged harassers removed from positions of power. But while Les Moonves and his ilk may be gone, it’s not always clear whether companies are taking steps to eliminate not just the alleged harassers, but the policies and practices that helped shield them from accountability in the first place.
Read moreFacebook Investors Press For Content Governance
News of Cambridge Analytica’s misappropriation of millions of Facebook users’ data preceded a decline in Facebook’s stock market capitalization of over $100 billion in March 2018. Another 100 billion plus decline in market value—a record-setting drop—came in July 2018 after Facebook’s quarterly earnings report reflected increasing costs and decreasing revenue growth.
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