Because, on May 2, the Politico media leaked that the Supreme Court was preparing to revoke Roe v. Wade’s judgment that, since 1973, has guaranteed the right to abortion in the United States, large companies have decided to mobilize. Apple, Amazon, Citigroup, Levi Strauss have announced that they will include in the health coverage of their employees the payment of travel and medical care expenses for their employees living in States that restrict or prohibit abortion . Steps accompanied by strong statements. “A scary day for women,” Sheryl Sandberg, then Facebook COO, wrote on May 3rd.
Seen from Europe, these positions raise questions. What interest can push big brands in their role in developing their business to take sides in social debates? In the United States, unlike France, companies can supply political parties and campaigns without limit, and feel free to do so. But their motivation goes beyond this framework. “It can be summed up in two words: the pressure from their customers and their employees”, summed up Jean-Louis Gassée, the founder of Apple France, a keen observer of Silicon Valley customs, where he lived for thirty years. A mandate favored by the emergence of social networks, which became the realm of politics.
Reaction against Trump
It was the 2016 presidential campaign led by the very divisive Donald Trump that triggered the movement. Wind standing against the American “muslim register” project he proposed, 1,400 tech employees, Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, signed the Never Again Pledge, which pledged to refuse to cooperate in collecting data based on race or religion. In March 2018, the announcement of Google’s partnership with the American army to provide a mass surveillance tool sparked an uprising in the California group: 4,000 employees called for the termination of this secret contract, which will no longer be renewed.
In the summer of 2020, the deadly arrest of George Floyd, who became a symbol of police violence against African-Americans, who re-launched the anti-racist protests of Black Lives Matter, marked the point of innovation, with image issues for businesses. According to a poll by analysis firm Clutch, in July 2020, nearly half of American workers indicated that their employer “reacted to a press release, a donation, an internal forum”, the journalist reports. Anne de Guigné in her book. Capitalism has awakened. Uber, JP Morgan and Nike decided to give their employees a new holiday, June 19, celebrating the abolition of slavery in Texas in 1865. Large tech groups raised billions for the benefit of associations working to reduce racial inequality.
Mute Disney and Airbnb
After the Covid pandemic, in the context of severe labor shortages, companies sought to distinguish themselves in the war for talent, by nurturing their “employer brand”, especially in technology, which employees are usually ranked on the left. However, consumer groups – such as Disney, Airbnb or Patagonia – have chosen to remain silent.
“Companies must always find the greatest common denominator between their customers and their employees, knowing who will be happy or unhappy,” studies Jacques-Aurélien Marcireau, of Edmond de Rothschild bank, a great connoisseur of American business. Taking a stand on topics as isolated as abortion, the carrying of weapons or the death penalty is really risk-free. Fast Company magazine approached 200 major American groups on the question of abortion: only 15 responded (Adobe, Box, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Patagonia, Uber, etc.). In an email obtained by Fast Company, communications agency Zeno advised its clients to remain silent: “abortion” is a topic on which companies have everything to lose by expressing themselves, because , whatever they do, they will separate between 15 and 30% of their interlocutors. “
The greenwashing masks are falling off
Invited to a conference on “moral money” on May 19, Stuart Kirk, who manages responsible investment at HSBC, threw a stone into the lake: “What matters if Miami is 6 meters underwater for a hundred years?
Amsterdam is under water and it is a very beautiful place.
We will fit in, “he said, judging that cryptocurrencies, China, the housing crisis, rising inflation, sluggish growth should be more of a concern to central bankers than the risk posed by climate change” which will only happen in twenty -thirty years “.
The gentleman was suspended by the British bank but his intervention describes a counter-offensive led by some financial and industry leaders as climate law becomes in effect and they can no longer get away with it in big greenwashing statements. So the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, after announcing in 2020 that it would put climate change at the center of its investment policy, has since stepped back, telling fossil fuel companies they want to see they will “thrive” and stop all support for resolutions carried by pro-climate shareholders.
On May 11, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence – who could be the Republican candidate in 2024 – even called for a “restraint” on the enthusiasm of activist funds pushing for the adoption of the ESG standard and “weaken the companies internally”.