big business Archives

Big Business, Government and Privatisation

04/08/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Hidden face of big business with government in it’s pockets

I have written about how ‘Big Business” is in bed with government. George Monbiot’s article from November 2013, has never seemed more apt as we are learning about G4S (the people who privatised the running of some prisons and of delivering prisoners to court (and losing them) are now to be responsible for the crucial discrimination helpline.

I believe that Theordore Roosevelt, stated the problem clearly in one of his addresses in curbing monoplies:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

I have been consistently worried about how our government thinks that by privatising our various institutions it is

Let’s privatise, and make profit – oh where does governemnt responsibility come in?

saving money and therefore bolstering the country; this is a completely and utter farce. If you privatise the central core functions of government, what is government there for? We cannot make businesses responsible for morality or social thought, there first responsibility is to its share holders and to make profit.

We must stop government eroding our freedoms, our ability to make them accountable (that is what they are elected for).

Campaign launched highlighting economic case for pro-LGBT rights

30/09/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Jill Treanor

Tuesday 29 September 2015 20.57 BST

Open for Business ‘pulls together data that makes the case for the LGBT community in the workplace’

Fourteen global businesses, including Google and Royal Bank of Scotland, have launched a campaign to put forward the economic case for ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender individuals.
Launched at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, the Open for Business campaign published research showing economies, companies and individuals perform better in societies that support LGBT employees.
The report by Open for Business spells out that nearly 80 countries criminalise consensual, adult same-sex activity, or use other laws to marginalise and persecute LGBT individuals.
The initiative, which also includes technology group IBM, consultancy EY and law firm Linklaters and backed by businesses that employ 1.3 million people globally, comes after the controversy sparked by the US state of Indiana in March, when it backed legislation that appeared to allow discrimination against the LBGT community. The row prompted Apple’s boss Tim Cook, who spoke out last year about being gay, to call for a rethink of such laws that have been passed in 20 US states.
In an editorial in the Washington Post at the time, Cook said: “Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. Regardless of what the law might allow in Indiana or Arkansas [which also accepted the legislation], we will never tolerate discrimination.”
Deborah Sherry, UK and Ireland partnership director at Google, said she expected more businesses sign up to Open For Business. The group also includes PR company Brunswick, Standard Chartered bank, financial companies American Express and Mastercard, the McKinsey consultancy, news service Thomson Reuters and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group.
It is not advocating specific actions against counties or companies which discriminate against LGBT individuals. Sherry said: “It’s specifically to bring together data and make the business case that if you include the the LGBT community in society, if people can bring their whole selves to work, you attract better people, it lowers [business] costs…its makes them more productive and more entrepreneural and so the company has better output.
“Clearly the LBGT community has got various states of rights and inclusion in society, but there is still much to be done. And change often happens from the ground up so Open for Business is an initiative to pull together the data that makes the case for the LBGT community in the workplace in the same way that has been made for gender and minorities.”
The report includes analysis by the Harvard Business Review, which shows that companies with greater diversity perform better than those which do not. The research found that employees at more diverse companies are 45% more likely to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year and 70% more likely to report that the firm had entered a new market.
The report cites reactions to companies in countries where there are laws discriminating against LBGT workers. It raises India, where in 2013 a law decriminalising gay sex was rescinded. Business such as IBM, Royal Bank of Scotland, Cisco, Citigroup, Google, Dell, Novell, General Electric and Microsoft met at the Bangalore campus of Goldman Sachs to discuss strategies to protect their LGBT employees.
It also cited research by MV Lee Badgett, a professor of economics and director of the Center for Public Policy & Administration at the University of Massachusetts, estimating the impact of discrimination on India’s GDP as up to 1.4% of economic output.

Major companies form group to push for LGBT rights globally

30/09/2015 By ACOMSDave 1 Comment

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 21:00, 29 September 2015 | UPDATED: 21:00, 29 September 2015

NEW YORK (AP) — A dozen corporations, including Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Coca-Cola Co., are joining a new coalition to push for LGBT rights in the workplace in places beyond the U.S. and Western Europe.
The organization is partly a response to the recent setbacks for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights in countries like Russia, Uganda and the Middle East. The Human Rights Campaign-led group will push for protections in the workplace globally, including in countries where LGBT individuals face legal discrimination or harassment.
“They deserve a fair chance to earn a living and provide for their families no matter where they live,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.
Corporate America has been cited as a force in the push for gay rights in the U.S., with some companies offering LGBT protections and same-sex partner benefits going back decades. Hundreds of companies signed statements advocating for same-sex marriage when the issue to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The coalition members are: the consulting firm Accenture, AT&T Inc., software company CA Technologies, Coca-Cola, Destination Weddings Travel Group, Google, IBM, Microsoft, home furnishings maker Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co., china and glassware company Replacements Ltd., and Symantec Corp. HRC officials expect the group’s members to grow.
“We have long supported LGBT rights, but it is very difficult to implement protections for our employees and for their families when laws do not exist or it’s a hostile environment,” said Mary Snapp, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft.
The group collectively employs nearly 1.4 million people in 190 countries and has combined annual revenue of nearly $550 billion.
The coalition will provide the members a common platform to talk about LGBT workplace protections globally. It also will be a platform for companies to get advice on how to implement LGBT friendly policies in places where legal protections may not be there, said Deena Fidas, director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program.
HRC since 2002 has issued a report yearly that scored how well large companies dealt with LGBT-specific issues. However the report, known as the Corporate Equality Index, focused mostly on the U.S., not elsewhere.
The new coalition will join an already existing group of advocacy organizations and companies that have been pushing more workplace protections for individuals beyond the U.S. For example, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, two companies who are not in HRC’s inaugural group, have been individually vocal about workplace protections in the countries they do business.
“The conversation around the positive business impacts of LGBT equality is increasingly a global one,” said Todd Sears with Out Leadership, a business focused LGBT rights organization, which has held global business focused summits on LGBT workplace issues since 2011.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3253714/Major-companies-form-group-push-LGBT-rights-globally.html#ixzz3nCyiwb1b