Companies respond to a post-Roe v Wade world

Sascha: [00:00:02] From Equity Mates media. This is the diet. I'm your host, Sascha Kelly. The world's eyes have been on America's Supreme Court as they handed down the jobs of US Jackson Women's Health Organisation Decision Overturning the Right to privacy established in the Roe v Wade case. [00:00:17][15.2]

Audio clip: [00:00:18] The Supreme Court has just issued, and this is the decision many were waiting for a ruling. And Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organisation. This is a major case regarding abortion rights in this country. [00:00:29][10.6]

Sascha: [00:00:29] There has been plenty of commentary on the health, political and legal aspects of the case. We don't have anything meaningful to add that hasn't been said more eloquently elsewhere. We have, however, watched the reaction from corporate America with great interest. [00:00:44][14.7]

Audio clip: [00:00:45] A lot of companies have made some decisions that could be deemed controversial and may be troublesome for them down the road, despite their presumably good intentions. Here are those including Disney, Alaska Airlines and Citigroup. Yelp, Uber, Lyft, Apple. [00:00:58][13.3]

Sascha: [00:00:59] Traditionally, companies would have been reluctant to make policies on what was seen as a polarising issue. Corporate America's neutrality was perhaps captured best in Michael Jordan's famous line Republicans buy sneakers, too. [00:01:11][12.7]

Audio clip: [00:01:12] I don't think that statement needs to be corrected because I said it in jest. [00:01:15][2.9]

Sascha: [00:01:16] But not this time and not on this issue. Many American companies have been vocal and backed it up with meaningful policies, additional paid leave, travel assistance. They're implementing policies to ensure employees will still have access to abortion. It's Monday, the 11th of July. And today I want to understand how corporate America has responded to the Dobbs ruling. And what can we learn from the increasing willingness of companies to publicly comment or make policies around an issue like abortion rights to do this, my colleague at Equity Mates Darcy Cordell, and I talk to Amelia Lester. Amelia is the executive editor at Foreign Policy magazine based in Washington, D.C. She also writes the foreign correspondents column in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers on Saturdays. Amelia has been following the story and watching how companies have responded. Amelia, thank you so much for joining us on The Dive today. [00:02:08][52.1]

Amelia Lester: [00:02:08] Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you about this. [00:02:11][2.7]

Sascha: [00:02:11] Because you're actually on the ground in America. Can you explain what it was like when the decision came down? [00:02:16][5.1]

Amelia Lester: [00:02:17] Yes. A reproductive rights activists had warned for years that it might be a possibility that Roe would be overturned. And there was, of course, a leak of the draught decision in May. So it was widely anticipated was coming before the end of this Supreme Court cycle. But even given the build up, I have to tell you that I think most people certainly most people I know felt a real sense of visceral shock. [00:02:41][24.4]

Speaker 5: [00:02:42] Angry, because we have reached the culmination of what Republicans have been fighting for and going for for decades now. And we are going to fight back. [00:02:55][12.9]

Amelia Lester: [00:02:56] I think one important stat to keep in mind is that as of this June, a clear majority of Americans do think that abortion should be legal. And it's hard to think of many policy issues in the US at this point that have that sort of consensus. Around 60% of Americans think that and it's stayed pretty stable over the last several years. [00:03:11][15.9]

Darcy: [00:03:12] Amelia, there's been a range of responses from businesses across the United States. Can you give us some notable examples of those responses? [00:03:18][6.0]

Amelia Lester: [00:03:19] Yeah, it's interesting about how companies responded, because corporate America has definitely become one of the more progressive forces in the US over the last 20 years. And that trend really accelerated with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. [00:03:39][19.7]

Audio clip: [00:03:40] Your Twitter account only Rosie O'Donnell. [00:03:42][1.7]

Amelia Lester: [00:03:44] But in comparison with an event like Pride Month, which was of course, in June as well, which most companies have really vigorously adopted in terms of their front facing materials, I noted that most of the company responses to the overturning of Roe didn't actually talk about the decision itself. They were kind of more practical in nature. And there were a lot of major companies who announced policies to cover travel expenses for employees seeking abortions. That was everyone from Bank of America to Starbucks to international companies in the US like H&M and the total cost employers generally reimburse is usually around $5,000 they've announced. But I've seen costs that companies have said they'll reimburse up to around even $10,000. A handful of companies did go further and made more political statements. You have to remember at this point that the Supreme Court didn't actually ban abortion. It just said that it was no longer a constitutional right and that it was now up to each state to determine what they wanted to do. And so since this decision coincided with many American companies deciding to go fully remote during COVID, some firms have now committed to covering employees relocation expenses. The idea being that that if you're in one of the states that ban abortion, you can move to somewhere that allows you greater freedom and access to reproductive health care. And companies that have made that pledge include Salesforce and Airbnb. And to just give you a quick idea of the number of states that fall into that category, it's ultimately explosive that about half of US states will ban abortion completely, though there are many legal challenges right now. And so as of recording, only nine states are currently enforcing total bans. Just finally, a couple of other interesting cases. I noticed Lyft and Uber announced that they will provide legal protection to drivers in their networks who are at risk of lawsuits for driving passengers to abortion appointments. Because in some states, such as Texas, private citizens can sue other private citizens if they think that they've been involved in procuring an abortion to someone. And the dating app OkCupid put a notification in its app that encouraged people to call their representatives. And I did notice that some companies that have more employees for women, like, for instance, Sephora has 80% of its workforce are women. They put out a much strongest statement denouncing the decision itself and saying that they would fight to restore women's rights on behalf of their employees. [00:06:05][141.3]

Sascha: [00:06:06] I think it's so interesting that you pick up that really pertinent point, that is that corporate America has become a progressive voice in American society. And you combine that with the fact that health care has always been so central to American employment in a way that's so unusual for the rest of the world. How have actual employees and people responded to these new policies from the company? [00:06:29][22.8]

Amelia Lester: [00:06:30] Yeah, it's such an important point to make that that in the US for many people, their health care and their ability to access health care is tied up with their employment status. And I thought it was just worth stepping back a little bit to explain how the US got to that point because as you say, it's very weird and especially for Australia and other industrialised nations because in fact the US is the only industrialised nation that does not have a national system of guaranteeing affordable health care to citizens. But in America, basically universal health care has always been seen as this like extreme left wing fantasy, like this socialist fantasy we. [00:07:07][37.6]

Audio clip: [00:07:08] Are going to repeal and replace Obamacare. [00:07:10][2.8]

Amelia Lester: [00:07:12] And basically what happened, the reason why to evolve like that is because after World War Two, employees were trying to compete for employees, and companies that offered employees access to private health care insurance were more attractive to attract employees. And so that basically just spiralled out of control from there. Unlike, say, in Australia or the UK post-World War Two, they said we should probably think about making sure everyone gets access to health care. That never happened in the US and the employers just kind of stepped into that vacuum. So yeah, this was a huge deal for every basically every company in America had to decide how they were going to thread this needle on this ROE decision, because almost by definition, companies have to offer health care to their employees. And so there was this immediate question of do we continue to include reproductive health care as a coverage option within our health insurance plans? And perhaps that's why, in fact, the vast majority of companies didn't come out with more political statements because every company had to make this very practical decision, first and foremost, about how they were going to handle the health care billing side of things. [00:08:23][71.4]

Sascha: [00:08:24] We're just going to take a short break to hear from our sponsors, but we'll be right back with more from Amelia Leicester in only a moment or. You kind of answered what I was going to ask next, which is, of course, companies are going to all the employees, they're going to encompass such a broad range of political and religious perspectives. Companies are small nations in ways that everyone has different beliefs. So how are they managing that tightrope as well internally? [00:08:56][31.8]

Amelia Lester: [00:08:57] Yeah, this is a particularly acute issue for people that I know because of course, being in the media, our whole role is to make sure that we convey an objective and neutral stance on things. So for media companies, it was a particularly difficult decision to make about how to to make a statement about it. And a friend of mine told me about the email that her CEO sent around to the journalists in her company. And it started. Many people are feeling upset about what happened today. Some people are not. And I thought that was a brilliant way of kind of making sure that everyone within the organisation felt included, regardless of their political stance. And then it went on to suggest that employees should feel free to take the afternoon off if they needed to process the news by themselves away from the desk. But more generally, I would say that this is actually a less polarising issue than so many of the other issues that are that are dividing America today. I pointed out 60% figure that I said earlier, 60% of Americans think that abortion access should be legal and readily available. And remember that as the decision was handed down, we also had the January six hearings going on in Congress at the same time. And 35% of Americans think that the last election was actually fraudulent and that the people who stormed the Capitol on January six were just kind of trying to point out that the election had been a lie. So that's a much more divisive issue, much more alive issue in many ways, as is the guns issue, which is also obviously a debate that's raging at the moment in the US. So the point is there's lots of other issues on which Americans are more divided than this one. And as a result, I don't think that there was the kind of dissent or disharmony within workplaces that you might expect after the decision is handed down. [00:10:46][109.3]

Darcy: [00:10:47] Amelia, you've given us some statistics on the majority of Americans supporting a woman's right to an abortion. Do you think we could see other implications of the policies that these businesses are implementing over time could affect who they employ or who does business with them? [00:11:01][14.6]

Amelia Lester: [00:11:02] Definitely. I think one area to watch is an increased awareness and targeting by consumers of companies who have given donations to politicians actively who actively campaigned for the end of Roe. And that would basically be a lot of Republican politicians. Of course, company donations are pretty readily available to people to look up. And Wal-Mart, for instance, has already been trying to sort of stifle stories about their donations to Republicans who cheered the decision on. And I notice that Businessinsider reported that the telco giant AT&T had given 1.2 million last year to leaders backing abortion ban. So I do think we'll see more organised boycotts by consumers in the months and years ahead. [00:11:43][41.6]

Sascha: [00:11:44] And earlier this year we saw Disney lose their tax exempt status in Florida because of their response to the don't say gay law. Do we think we'll see any similar responses from state governments towards those companies that have just been more forthright in their views on on the overturn of Roe? [00:12:00][16.0]

Amelia Lester: [00:12:00] Yeah, I think it's possible. But what makes this issue particularly complicated and what might actually, in the end, save companies from getting too embroiled in conflicts over it is that it's a very much a state by state thing at this point. And B, the status of laws within individual states is completely murky. It's not as though the Supreme Court decision actually resolves anything about the status of laws in any state. All they did was say, Hey, states, you figure it out now. So that's why you may have heard people talking about these like trigger laws going in place after the after Roe was reversed, meaning states that had automatically set up laws to say that abortion would be illegal the minute Roe was overturned. But even those trigger law states have been now caught up in legal conflicts and appeals about whether or not those laws are legal. So I think the big winners from this decision right now, in addition to the right to life movement who spent 40 years organising for this outcome, are lawyers, because it's an incredibly confusing legal landscape at this point, and it's not likely to get any clearer any time soon. [00:13:07][66.5]

Sascha: [00:13:08] Well, you listed one winner there, which is lawyers. But do you think there will be any other longer term implications for businesses or employees that we should be thinking about or looking at? [00:13:17][9.0]

Amelia Lester: [00:13:17] Yeah, I actually do wonder if the fact that getting an abortion is becoming more difficult sometimes, maybe even impossible, means that employers are going to be pressured to offer more attractive parental leave policies for employees. Because when you consider that currently 85% of working people. The US do not have access to paid family leave through their employers. That's a pretty staggering stat. And of course it's even worse for families of colour, even in the professions. And I'm speaking anecdotally here. Women typically have to cobble together this very informal combination of the leave allotment plus holiday time, plus government disability leave. And that's all just to get them to say two months sometimes, if you're lucky, three months of parental leave, which my Australian friends cannot believe. So when you consider that studies actually show that women are more likely to return to the workforce when they get paid parental leave, it just makes me wonder whether or not this is going to lead to some kind of reckoning about that being a good idea society wide. And that's my attempt at a silver lining. [00:14:16][58.8]

Sascha: [00:14:17] A huge thanks and gratitude to Amelia for spending her time talking about this topic with us today. If there's a story you want us to talk about, then contact us at the dive at Equity Mates dot com. Or just send us an email. It's right there in the links below, as is all our social media accounts. Remember to give us a rating. Five stars, please, if you would. And follow us on your favourite podcast app and subscribe. So every time we have a new episode, it's delivered right there to you. The money drops. Thank you so much for joining me today, Darcy. [00:14:45][28.6]

Darcy: [00:14:46] Thanks, Sascha. [00:14:46][0.0]

[861.6]