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I have seen companies claim that the things that their customers do with their product is not their responsibility. They have claimed that they are right to ign
by X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
I have seen companies claim that the things that their customers do with their product is not their responsibility. They have claimed that they are right to ignore that issue because they believe it is "political".
Naming something as political can be used to shutdown conversation that can and should be happening in a company.
Let's get concrete with this:
Do you feel like a soft drink maker has an obligation to disengage with countries that have set up systemic discrimination and regularly violate human rights conventions?
It really doesn't seem within the mission of providing the world with sugary carbonated water.
It's hard to imagine cutting ties with a country due to disagreement with how they treat their population as non-political.
And yet 34 years ago this happened:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-...
But wait you say: it's just a prudent business decision because the economics were against them and it was a "PR" win.
It doesn't matter. It's political.
This is an inherently political statement:
“Our decision to complete the process of disinvestment is a statement of our opposition to apartheid and of our support for the economic aspirations of black South Africans.” -Donald R. Keough
- CyberRabbi 6y agoThat was a decision that the leadership of that company made. I don’t see how that justifies employees bringing their irrelevant politics into an environment.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y agoEmployees were publicly advocating for boycotts and performing strikes at the time. https://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1982/07/coke.html https://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1982/07/coke.h... EDIT: why did you assume it was a decision made solely by leadership and that employees or other stakeholders did not have a publicly held opinion?
- CyberRabbi 6y ago> why did you assume it was a decision made solely by leadership and that employees or other stakeholders did not have a publicly held opinion? Was my assumption wrong? Did the leadership of that company not make that decision?