Leroy N. Soetoro
2024-05-10 22:17:48 UTC
Conservative groups are filing more proposals implying that companies
working with LGBTQ organizations could become the next Bud Light
Conservative groups are increasingly asking company shareholders to
scrutinize LGBTQ-themed marketing and public relations campaigns, hoping
to open another avenue of pressure on businesses social positions.
Target, Mondelez and Dell are among companies expected to hold votes on
such shareholder proposals soon, while others have already done so this
year.
Still, getting a vote isnt the same as winning it. Levi Strauss
shareholders, for example, last month overwhelmingly voted no on a
proposal that the clothing company create a committee to determine whether
public and politically divisive positions, including its work with LGBTQ
organization Human Rights Campaign, had affected its financial
sustainability.
And companies including Walmart and Verizon have argued successfully to
the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks that they dont
need to hold votes on the proposals at all.
However, the propositions are becoming both more numerous and better
constructed. And they are drawing energy from the recent backlash to
corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often invoking the
damaging boycott of Bud Light last year over a collaboration with a
transgender social-media personality. Best Buy recently wound up making
assurances to the authors of one shareholder proposal to head it off.
The argument isnt new, but the tactics are new and theyre amping them
up, said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of LGBTQ rights
group Glaad. Many brands have recently approached Glaad seeking advice on
how to respond to these proposals, Ellis said.
National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank that
owns shares in a range of companies, has nearly doubled the number of
proposals it files each year to around 60 in 2022 and 2023 from about 30
in 2021, according to Scott Shepard, the groups general counsel and
director of its Free Enterprise Project, which writes the proposals.
Our goal is to get companies to return to their fiduciary duties, which
is to say, not to put the partisan policy preferences of executives or of
the executives of the giant investment houses first, Shepard said.
New twist on a long history
Shareholders have long proposed measures advocating a range of social
causes, including liberal priorities on climate emissions, plastic waste
and racial justice. The results are rarely binding, but just holding a
vote can spotlight company practices and create pressure to change.
Many of the conservative activist groups recent proposals have critiqued
corporate diversity and sustainability efforts. These groups are driven,
in part, by a belief that liberal interests have historically dominated
shareholder activism, they said.
The proposals that target companies work with LGBTQ groups, and related
messaging efforts, call those activities partisan and divisive,
particularly when they touch on transgender issues.
National Center for Public Policy Research, or NCPPR, late last year
submitted a proposal asking electronics retailer Best Buy to assess
whether it was hurting its business through partnerships with and
donations to various LGBTQ advocacy groups, such as Human Rights Campaign,
that the proposal said advocate teaching radical gender theory to
minors.
Why are Best Buy shareholders funding the efforts to spread an ideology
seeking to mutilate the reproductive organs of children before they finish
puberty? the proposal asked.
Such proposals are pushed by fringe actors and use inflammatory,
offensive and straight-up inaccurate rhetoric, said Shawnie Hawkins,
senior director of HRCs Workplace Equality Program.
Best Buy convinced NCPPR to withdraw its proposal after the retailers
legal counsel assured the group that it would screen future donations by
its employee affinity groups to ensure they would not support the causes
that NCPPR identified as concerning. The exchange was reported earlier
by NBC.
Best Buy hasnt changed its policy regarding LGBTQ advocacy groups,
according to a spokeswoman. The company itself donates almost exclusively
to one group in any given area, such as Human Rights Campaign in the case
of LGBTQ issues, she said. Best Buy will continue to grant its employee
affinity groups discretion in allocating their own donations, she added.
The retailer may not have put the matter entirely behind it, however. The
Office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote Best Buy in
April expressing concern that its response to the shareholder proposal
could be seen as a departure from its stated commitment to policies and
practices that promote inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community.
The comptrollers office serves as trustee of the New York State Common
Retirement Fund, which invests in Best Buy.
The comptrollers office and the retailer are discussing the matter,
according to their spokespeople.
The specter of Bud Light
Beyond filing proposals more frequently, these shareholder groups have
also learned to narrow initiatives to better meet SEC guidelines and head
off companies arguments that their practices are standard business
operations, or that the proposals claims are misleading, said attorney
Sanford Lewis, who has for decades represented shareholder groups
including investment firms, pension funds and nonprofit organizations such
as the Sierra Club Foundation.
The conservative groups have gotten significantly better this year at
navigating those rules, Lewis said.
Theyre probably not going to get huge support for these things, but it
gives them a platform in the media, essentially, and forces the company to
debate the issue, he added.
Mondelez is set to hold a vote this month on a proposal from the National
Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, a conservative organization that
describes its mission as promoting ethics in public life, asking the
snack-food company to evaluate the risks and consequences of its
associations with external organizations.
The proposal focuses on marketing campaigns tying the Mondelez cookie
brand Oreo to LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG and lists positions from that
organization that it considers militant, including opposition to laws
that would prohibit medical treatments for transgender individuals under
the age of 18.
It is critical the Board of Mondelez International focus on its own
vulnerabilities before they become a liability, the proposal reads.
Mondelez maintains careful protections against all risks, including those
related to its marketing campaigns and affiliations with outside groups,
according to a spokeswoman. The company recommends that shareholders vote
against the proposal, she said.
PFLAG said companies that engage with the organization do so to ensure
LGBTQ+ employees and their families are affirmed and valued.
NLPC ramped up its focus on shareholder proposals in late 2021, filing
roughly two dozen annually in response to what it considered left-wing
activity in the corporate world, said Paul Chesser, director of NLPCs
Corporate Integrity Project. The Bud Light boycott was the crowning blow
of a broader reaction against such corporate activities, he added.
We said to Mondelez, look, you know, its only by good fortune that
youre not Bud Light, Chesser said.
None of the companies that have received proposals from NLPC have agreed
to change their approaches to social-justice marketing or partnerships,
but simply forcing them to listen is worth it, Chesser said. Attracting
attention on social media might be the most important measure of success
for these campaigns, he said.
Were doing it to make a point and also to, you know, raise the pain
threshold for these companies who have embraced all this, this political
agenda, Chesser said.
Write to Patrick Coffee at ***@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/brands-face-growing-pressure-from-activist-
shareholders-over-lgbtq-marketing-ea789aa1?siteid=yhoof2
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
working with LGBTQ organizations could become the next Bud Light
Conservative groups are increasingly asking company shareholders to
scrutinize LGBTQ-themed marketing and public relations campaigns, hoping
to open another avenue of pressure on businesses social positions.
Target, Mondelez and Dell are among companies expected to hold votes on
such shareholder proposals soon, while others have already done so this
year.
Still, getting a vote isnt the same as winning it. Levi Strauss
shareholders, for example, last month overwhelmingly voted no on a
proposal that the clothing company create a committee to determine whether
public and politically divisive positions, including its work with LGBTQ
organization Human Rights Campaign, had affected its financial
sustainability.
And companies including Walmart and Verizon have argued successfully to
the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks that they dont
need to hold votes on the proposals at all.
However, the propositions are becoming both more numerous and better
constructed. And they are drawing energy from the recent backlash to
corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often invoking the
damaging boycott of Bud Light last year over a collaboration with a
transgender social-media personality. Best Buy recently wound up making
assurances to the authors of one shareholder proposal to head it off.
The argument isnt new, but the tactics are new and theyre amping them
up, said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of LGBTQ rights
group Glaad. Many brands have recently approached Glaad seeking advice on
how to respond to these proposals, Ellis said.
National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank that
owns shares in a range of companies, has nearly doubled the number of
proposals it files each year to around 60 in 2022 and 2023 from about 30
in 2021, according to Scott Shepard, the groups general counsel and
director of its Free Enterprise Project, which writes the proposals.
Our goal is to get companies to return to their fiduciary duties, which
is to say, not to put the partisan policy preferences of executives or of
the executives of the giant investment houses first, Shepard said.
New twist on a long history
Shareholders have long proposed measures advocating a range of social
causes, including liberal priorities on climate emissions, plastic waste
and racial justice. The results are rarely binding, but just holding a
vote can spotlight company practices and create pressure to change.
Many of the conservative activist groups recent proposals have critiqued
corporate diversity and sustainability efforts. These groups are driven,
in part, by a belief that liberal interests have historically dominated
shareholder activism, they said.
The proposals that target companies work with LGBTQ groups, and related
messaging efforts, call those activities partisan and divisive,
particularly when they touch on transgender issues.
National Center for Public Policy Research, or NCPPR, late last year
submitted a proposal asking electronics retailer Best Buy to assess
whether it was hurting its business through partnerships with and
donations to various LGBTQ advocacy groups, such as Human Rights Campaign,
that the proposal said advocate teaching radical gender theory to
minors.
Why are Best Buy shareholders funding the efforts to spread an ideology
seeking to mutilate the reproductive organs of children before they finish
puberty? the proposal asked.
Such proposals are pushed by fringe actors and use inflammatory,
offensive and straight-up inaccurate rhetoric, said Shawnie Hawkins,
senior director of HRCs Workplace Equality Program.
Best Buy convinced NCPPR to withdraw its proposal after the retailers
legal counsel assured the group that it would screen future donations by
its employee affinity groups to ensure they would not support the causes
that NCPPR identified as concerning. The exchange was reported earlier
by NBC.
Best Buy hasnt changed its policy regarding LGBTQ advocacy groups,
according to a spokeswoman. The company itself donates almost exclusively
to one group in any given area, such as Human Rights Campaign in the case
of LGBTQ issues, she said. Best Buy will continue to grant its employee
affinity groups discretion in allocating their own donations, she added.
The retailer may not have put the matter entirely behind it, however. The
Office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote Best Buy in
April expressing concern that its response to the shareholder proposal
could be seen as a departure from its stated commitment to policies and
practices that promote inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community.
The comptrollers office serves as trustee of the New York State Common
Retirement Fund, which invests in Best Buy.
The comptrollers office and the retailer are discussing the matter,
according to their spokespeople.
The specter of Bud Light
Beyond filing proposals more frequently, these shareholder groups have
also learned to narrow initiatives to better meet SEC guidelines and head
off companies arguments that their practices are standard business
operations, or that the proposals claims are misleading, said attorney
Sanford Lewis, who has for decades represented shareholder groups
including investment firms, pension funds and nonprofit organizations such
as the Sierra Club Foundation.
The conservative groups have gotten significantly better this year at
navigating those rules, Lewis said.
Theyre probably not going to get huge support for these things, but it
gives them a platform in the media, essentially, and forces the company to
debate the issue, he added.
Mondelez is set to hold a vote this month on a proposal from the National
Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, a conservative organization that
describes its mission as promoting ethics in public life, asking the
snack-food company to evaluate the risks and consequences of its
associations with external organizations.
The proposal focuses on marketing campaigns tying the Mondelez cookie
brand Oreo to LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG and lists positions from that
organization that it considers militant, including opposition to laws
that would prohibit medical treatments for transgender individuals under
the age of 18.
It is critical the Board of Mondelez International focus on its own
vulnerabilities before they become a liability, the proposal reads.
Mondelez maintains careful protections against all risks, including those
related to its marketing campaigns and affiliations with outside groups,
according to a spokeswoman. The company recommends that shareholders vote
against the proposal, she said.
PFLAG said companies that engage with the organization do so to ensure
LGBTQ+ employees and their families are affirmed and valued.
NLPC ramped up its focus on shareholder proposals in late 2021, filing
roughly two dozen annually in response to what it considered left-wing
activity in the corporate world, said Paul Chesser, director of NLPCs
Corporate Integrity Project. The Bud Light boycott was the crowning blow
of a broader reaction against such corporate activities, he added.
We said to Mondelez, look, you know, its only by good fortune that
youre not Bud Light, Chesser said.
None of the companies that have received proposals from NLPC have agreed
to change their approaches to social-justice marketing or partnerships,
but simply forcing them to listen is worth it, Chesser said. Attracting
attention on social media might be the most important measure of success
for these campaigns, he said.
Were doing it to make a point and also to, you know, raise the pain
threshold for these companies who have embraced all this, this political
agenda, Chesser said.
Write to Patrick Coffee at ***@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/brands-face-growing-pressure-from-activist-
shareholders-over-lgbtq-marketing-ea789aa1?siteid=yhoof2
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.