Firms give to causes, grant staff time off to protest in shift
toward embracing activism
By Kathryn Dill
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (June 3, 2020).
Business leaders across industries waded into the upheaval
gripping the nation following the death of George Floyd, reflecting
how executives increasingly view their mandates as broader than
delivering sales and profits.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. asked bank employees to have
conversations outside their comfort zones about race and
discrimination. Peloton Interactive Inc. committed to donating
$500,000 to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. Washington, D.C.-based
restaurant chain &pizza said it would give workers extra paid
time off so they can participate in protests.
In part, the flood of messages reflects how quickly the world
has changed for chief executives and big businesses, who up until a
few years ago tended to steer away from hot-button issues. Now,
many leaders of industry say more consumers and employees expect
brands and businesses to have a point of view that reflects what
they consider to be their corporate and brand values, even as doing
so can also alienate some constituents.
"For those in pain. For those in this fight. We stand with the
black community against racial hate and injustice," said Michael
Lastoria, CEO of &pizza, which has locations from Massachusetts
to Virginia. Starting this week, the chain's employees can take
three days off for activism, on top of their regular paid vacation
time.
In a blog post titled " I can't breathe," Mark Mason, Citigroup
Inc.'s chief financial officer, wrote that he debated whether to
speak out. Mr. Mason, who is black, wrote that he realized he had
to address the situation.
"Even though I'm the CFO of a global bank, the killings of
George Floyd in Minnesota, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna
Taylor in Kentucky are reminders of the dangers Black Americans
like me face in living our daily lives."
Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc., the world's
largest asset manager, sent staff an email -- also published online
-- over the weekend questioning BlackRock's own internal dynamics.
"As a firm committed to racial equality, we must also consider
where racial disparity exists in our own organizations and not
tolerate our shortcomings," he wrote.
Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon urged employees to
" check in with each other, and be willing to have conversations
that may take us outside of our comfort zone."
Tim Ryan, the U.S. chairman of accounting and consulting giant
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said it was essential for managers to
talk specifically about the deaths of George Floyd and other people
of color with their employees. Mr. Ryan had already been convening
staff-wide conversations about race when Botham Jean, a 26-year-old
PricewaterhouseCoopers senior associate, was shot to death in
September 2018 by an off-duty police officer while watching
football in his Dallas apartment.
In a series of messages sent over the past several days, Mr.
Ryan encouraged PwC employees who find the news difficult to take
time off, if needed. "I think it's important to talk about," he
said. "Not to simply say, oh, it's in Minnesota. This affects
everybody."
Peloton founder and Chief Executive John Foley said in a message
to customers sent Saturday, "What's become clear to me is we must
ensure this is an anti-racist organization." He defined that as
"proactively changing our ways of thinking on a daily basis. We
should not be satisfied with ourselves unless we are consistently
tearing down the prejudices that facilitate such acts of
hatred."
"We may never be perfect, but we're going to do better every
day," Mr. Foley wrote.
In an appearance on CNBC Monday, Merck & Co. Chief Executive
Kenneth Frazier said business has the means to eliminate some of
the inequities in society. In 2017, Mr. Frazier, who is black, quit
a manufacturing-advisory council to the Trump administration in
protest of the president's failure to quickly condemn the white
supremacists who marched and engaged in violence in
Charlottesville, Va.
Speaking Monday, he said that what the African-American
community saw in the video of Mr. Floyd's arrest, in which an
officer kneeled on his neck, ignoring his pleas that he couldn't
breathe, is that he was treated as less than human.
George Floyd, Mr. Frazier said, "could be me."
"Fundamentally what business can do, whether you want to call it
reparations or not, I think we can step up to address in today's
world the continuing results of years and years of racial prejudice
in this country," he said. "We're not asking people to give
everybody handouts, but we need to acknowledge that there are huge
opportunity gaps that are still existing in this country."
Mr. Frazier also emphasized the role of unemployment in
exacerbating the current unrest. "Joblessness leads to
hopelessness," he said. "Hopelessness leads to what we see in the
streets."
Chip Cutter and David Benoit contributed to this article.
Write to Kathryn Dill at Kathryn.Dill@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 03, 2020 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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