But it attracted only a handful of large employers. Stark, the Tara Health Foundation executive, said.Įven before the Texas law was passed, corporations were cautious about addressing abortion rights.Ī 2019 effort, Don’t Ban Equality, called for companies to offer wide access to reproductive health, including abortion. “Someone wants to be first and no one wants to be first,” Ms. It was unclear what would come of the conversations, as many companies involved in the discussions were wary about inserting themselves in the debate. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, based in Houston, declined to comment on the ban, but said the company “encourages our team members to engage in the political process where they live and work and make their voices heard through advocacy and at the voting booth.”īy Friday afternoon, at least two nascent efforts to organize a broader corporate response opposing the law were underway. “That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.” “In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness,” he wrote on Twitter in response to Mr. Musk, who said he has moved to Texas and was investing a lot in the state through Tesla and SpaceX, was among them. “We are deeply concerned about how this law will impact our employees in the state.”Ī couple executives tried to find a middle ground, cheering on democracy and opposing discrimination while remaining silent on the Texas law. “The effective ban on abortions in Texas not only infringes on women’s rights to reproductive health care, but it puts their health and safety at greater risk,” he said. Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said on Twitter that his company would also cover its drivers’ legal expenses.Īnd Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, issued a statement. MCKESSON INVENTORY MANAGER DRIVERS“TX SB8 threatens to punish drivers for getting people where they need to go - especially women exercising their right to choose,” he wrote on Twitter. Lyft’s chief executive, Logan Green, said the company would pay the legal costs of any drivers who faced lawsuits under the law. On Friday, some Silicon Valley technology companies began speaking out, too. Over the past few days, companies have been scrambling to decide what, if anything, they would say about the new law. “Companies were caught off guard,” said Jen Stark, an executive at the Tara Health Foundation, which has organized companies in support of reproductive issues. MCKESSON INVENTORY MANAGER DRIVERThe law empowers private citizens to sue anyone who performs an abortion or “aids and abets” such a procedure, a broad definition that could include a driver for a ride-hailing company who takes a woman to a health clinic.īut the Supreme Court declined on Wednesday night to block the law, which rules out abortion as an option before most women even know they are pregnant in the second-most-populous state, while the legal challenge to it continues in court. “We just haven’t seen any evidence of that, and we frankly are grateful for that,” he said.īefore the law, known as Senate Bill 8, went into effect on Wednesday, some legal experts had argued it would face legal challenges that would postpone its enforcement or ultimately strike it down. Joe Pojman, executive director for Texas Alliance for Life, another group that supports the new law, said he had seen scant evidence of any pushback from the businesses. “When all of these companies who participate in things like International Women’s Day won’t speak out on reproductive health care, it shows that they care about the bottom line, not what women need and want,” said Lindsey Taylor Wood, chief executive of The Helm, a venture capital firm that funds female founders. And Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that teams up with big companies to “build workplaces that work for women,” declined to comment. Even companies that are quick to speak up on social issues, including Patagonia and Levi’s, did not say anything about the new law. Many of the biggest employers in Texas, including AT&T, Oracle, McKesson and Phillips 66, declined to comment. Among those that would not say something were McDonald’s, a sponsor of International Women’s Day PwC, a major supporter of diversity and inclusion efforts and Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, which led a corporate backlash last year against a restrictive voting bill in Georgia, where they have their headquarters. Two dozen major companies contacted by The New York Times on Friday either did not reply or declined to comment. “If I’m a business making a political calculus, it’s just a matter of who I’m going to piss off.” “No one is going to walk willingly through this door,” said Sandra Sucher, a professor of management at Harvard Business School.
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