September, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
New Corporate Accountability Campaign Puts Six Major Companies On Notice For Anti-Choice Political Giving
The #ReproReceipts Campaign by UltraViolet Highlights Hypocrisy in Corporate America and Calls for Accountability at AT&T, Coca Cola, Disney, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Uber
WASHINGTON
Today, UltraViolet announced a new campaign to hold six corporations accountable for their political giving to anti-choice, anti-women candidates and calls on them to end their support for such politicians entirely and to commit to investing in reproductive health and justice. AT&T, Coca Cola, Disney, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Uber all target female consumers and promote women-friendly work environments, yet they bankroll candidates who actively work against women's rights.
The #ReproReceipts campaign highlights the discrepancy between corporate America's public statements in support of gender equity and their political giving to extreme anti-choice candidates. These contributions not only work against equality for women, but also racial equity and justice. In a year marked by a global pandemic, uprising against racial injustice and a historic election underway, during which each of these companies are showboating their stands on racial and gender equality, we must highlight the hypocrisy of corporate social responsibility posturing and demand companies walk their talk. Companies need to know that they can't have it both ways.
More than 80 percent of millennial consumers believe it is important to buy from companies that align with their values, according to a recent report on consumer behavior. Yet, outside of public statements, buyers often don't know where their frequented brands' values actually lie. #ReproReceipts shines a spotlight that exposes which anti-choice politicians are receiving large sums of money from some of the largest consumer-facing retailers and brands.
"These six companies embody the disconnect between corporate social responsibility efforts that are just PR posturing and actually doing right by their employees and customers. Corporate America is eager to show their support for women and diversity, but they actively work against their statements by supporting and funding anti-women candidates," said Sonja Spoo, Director of Reproductive Rights Campaigns at UltraViolet. "The receipts are clear: these companies continue to give politically in ways that don't align with their value statements. We invite these companies to be leaders by ending their anti-women and anti-equality political contributions."
Supporting anti-choice politicians often is tantamount to endorsing an ideological framework that leans anti-racial justice, anti-science and anti-immigrant. These views have plunged our nation into a political crisis, hampered our response to the pandemic and endangered the lives and well-being of women, especially women of color, Indigenous women and other communities.
UltraViolet's campaign will include ongoing actions to call on these companies to make change, such as:
- Petitions calling for change to UltraViolet's more than 1 million members
- Digital and print ads targeted at each company noting the misalignment of their values and political giving
- Public actions to inform consumers these companies are anti-women
- Polling of consumers to demonstrate political giving matters
- Coordinated social action among UltraViolet's members calling out corporate targets across digital platforms
The correlation between private political giving and the impact it has on gender equity and racial justice is impossible to ignore. Topline findings include:
AT&T
AT&T was named to the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and came out at the top of DiversityInc.'s 2020 list of top 50 companies for diversity. While it pledges to support the growth of its employees who are people of color and women, including reproductive benefits...
- $1,956,953 (56 percent) of AT&T's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs including Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), David Perdue (R-OH), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Representatives Liz Cheney (R-WY), Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Steve Scalise (R-LA). Vice President Mike Pence's Great America Committee PAC also received support.
- Women only make up 33.2 percent of AT&T's U.S. employees and only two of nine executives at the company.
- People of color are 39.4 percent of AT&T's U.S. management and 44.8 percent of its total U.S. workforce. But as recently as July 2020, AT&T workers in Memphis were protesting the company's commitment to racial equality and treatment of workers.
Coca Cola
As the fifth best company on the Forbes Best Employers for Women 2020, Coca-Cola also placed at the top of Comparably's Best Company for Diversity in 2018 and 96 on the Forbes' Global 2000 in 2020...
- $1,028,838 (59 percent) of Coca Cola's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs such as Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Representatives Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Steve Scalise (R-LA).
- Only three of the top ten company executives are women and people of color make up only four of ten executives.
- Recently retired Executive Vice President Carl Ware warns that Coca-Cola is behind in shepherding women and people of color to top leadership positions.
Disney
Seventy-two percent of Disney's workforce is women and/or people of color and yet...
- $203,350 (51 percent) of Disney's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs including Senators Deb Fischer (R-NE), Marco Rubio (R-TX) and David Perdue (R-GA); Representatives Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Kevin Brady (R-TX). Both former or then (he is in the US Senate now) Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) Vice President Mike Pence's PACs received financial support.
- Only 25 percent of the C-Suite is made up of women.
- Disney was sued in April 2019 for the unequal pay of its female employees.
- On diversity and inclusion, former CEO Bob Iger failed to make good on his promise to make changes in Disney's C-suite before his tenure ended earlier this year.
Nike
Nike may be noted as a 2020 Forbes Best Employees for Women, has promised pay equity, and 49 percent of global employees are women, but...
- $99,000 (27 percent) of Nike's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs including Senators John Thune (R-SD), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rob Portman (R-OH) and Representatives Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Greg Walden (R-OR).
- Nike has been called out for its lack of representation in leadership and discrimination against pregnant female athletes.
- The company faced a class-action lawsuit in 2018 on systemic gender pay discrimination and rampant sexual harassment.
Procter & Gamble
P&G is recognized in the Working Mother 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and Working Mother Best Companies for Multicultural Women, but...
- $144,000 (55 percent) of Procter & Gamble's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs including Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and the Ohio Republican Party.
- These contributions counter the very initiatives and partnerships P&G pushes publicly for gender equality. They also work against the best interests of the six of 13 board members and eight of 14 executive officers who are women.
Uber
The number of female employees at Uber grew 42.3 percent in 2019 and four out of ten board members are now women, however...
- $148,000 (36 percent) of Uber's total political giving in 2020 was to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs including Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) as well as the Republican Governors Association and Republican State Leadership Committee.
- It is involved in a host of lawsuits for sexual harassment and settled with the EEOC at the end of 2019 for $4.4M and requires monitoring for the next 3 years.
- Uber hired its first-ever diversity and inclusion officer only recently in response to the 2017 "Holder Report" documenting rampant harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and toxic workplace culture for women and racially diverse employees.
UltraViolet is a powerful and rapidly growing community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture.
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Right-wing allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump are reportedly crafting a plan to give the executive branch control over Federal Reserve policy decisions, an effort that comes as the presumptive GOP nominee continues to signal his authoritarian intentions for a potential second term.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that former Trump administration officials and other supporters of the ex-president "have in recent months discussed a range of proposals, from incremental policy changes to a long-shot assertion that the president himself should play a role in setting interest rates."
"A small group of the president's allies—whose work is so secretive that even some prominent former Trump economic aides weren't aware of it—has produced a roughly 10-page document outlining a policy vision for the central bank," the Journal reported. "The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026."
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The Fed, still under Powell's leadership, has since jacked up interest rates to their highest level in decades in an attempt to combat inflation—an approach that progressive lawmakers and economists have criticized as misguided, arguing that prices were elevated primarily by pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and corporate profiteering and that hiking rates would harm workers.
Late last year, Trump said interest rates were "too high" but did not say he would pressure the central bank to lower them, saying: "Depends where inflation is. But I would get inflation down."
More recently, Trump suggested the Fed's indication that rate cuts are coming in the near future as inflation cools is a political ploy to "help the Democrats."
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The Journal reported Thursday that "several people who have spoken with Trump about the Fed said he appears to want someone in charge of the institution who will, in effect, treat the president as an ex officio member of the central bank's rate-setting committee."
"Under such an approach, the chair would regularly seek Trump's views on interest-rate policy and then negotiate with the committee to steer policy on the president's behalf," the newspaper continued. "Some of the former president's advisers have discussed requiring that candidates for Fed chair privately agree to consult informally with Trump on the central bank's decisions... Others have made the case that Trump himself could sit on the Fed's board of governors on an acting basis, an option that several people close to the former president described as far-fetched."
According to earlier Journal reporting, Trump's team has discussed several possible replacements for Powell, including former White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and Arthur Laffer, a former Reagan adviser and notorious tax-cut enthusiast.
Trump allies' plot to help the former president exert control over Fed policy if he's reelected in November is further evidence of the presumptive GOP nominee's increasingly authoritarian ambitions.
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Trump—the presumptive Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his 88 felony charges in four ongoing criminal cases—is arguing that presidential immunity should protect him from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
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After warning that a president could also order the occupation or closure of the Capitol or high court to prevent actions against him, CREW concluded that "the Supreme Court never should have taken this appeal up in the first place. They should rule quickly and shut these ludicrous claims down for good."
The organization was far from alone in demanding a quick decision from the nation's highest court.
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Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.\n\nIt'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.\n\nJustice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.\u2b07\ufe0f— (@)
According to NBC:
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer and a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School who filed a brief backing prosecutors, said Sauer's concessions highlight that Trump is "not immune for the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the indictment."
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At the same time, Sauer's backtracking might have little consequence from an electoral perspective. Further delay in a trial, which Sauer is close to achieving, is a form of victory in itself.
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Stern and other experts signaled that the decision likely comes down to Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals seemingly supporting the prosecution of Trump and the other four conservatives suggesting it is unconstitutional.
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Jonathan Westin, executive director of Climate Defenders, asserted that "Citigroup's racist funding of oil, coal, and gas is creating climate chaos that's devastating communities of color across the country."
"We're taking action to tell Citi that we won't put up with their environmental racism for one more day," Westin continued. "Our communities have reached the boiling point. Our children have asthma, our city's sky was orange, and our air polluted because of the climate crisis caused by Citi and Wall Street."
"We're going to keep organizing and taking direct action until Citi listens to us," he vowed.
Stop the Money Pipeline co-director Alec Connon said: "To have any chance of reigning in the climate crisis, we must stop investing in fossil fuel expansion. Yet, Citibank is pumping billions of dollars into new coal, oil, and gas projects."
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Activists have repeatedly targeted Citigroup in recent years as the megabank has pumped more than $300 billion into fossil fuel investments around the world since the Paris climate agreement.
According to the protest organizers:
Citi has provided $668 million in funding to Formosa Plastics between 2001-2021, which is trying to build a $9.4 billion plastics facility in a majority Black community in the heart of Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
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