Workers look for clear line in murky border issue
| Boston and Washington
Emily Garbutt says her work for online retailer Wayfair is 鈥渢he best job I鈥檝e ever had鈥� and describes the workplace as inclusive and collegial. But this week, she also helped organize a protest against the company鈥檚 sale of beds to an organization managing one of the controversial detention centers housing migrants apprehended at the U.S. border in Texas.
Those detention camps have drawn heightened attention in recent days after news reports of appalling conditions for young children, separated from their parents and lacking basic needs such as soap, toothbrushes, or diaper changes.
鈥淧eople have said, 鈥極h, it鈥檚 a slippery slope. If you won鈥檛 sell to these guys, then who else will you not sell to?鈥� But I think this is a good place to draw the line,鈥� Wednesday as she and co-workers staged a public protest in Boston鈥檚 Copley Square. 鈥淭his is one we can get out ahead of and say, 鈥榊eah, we shouldn鈥檛 make money off of people imprisoning children. We shouldn鈥檛 benefit from that in any way.鈥� 鈥�
Why We Wrote This
Ethical issues are rarely easy for companies. Wayfair, targeted by its own employees for alleged complicity in a humanitarian crisis along the U.S. border, is the latest example.
Wayfair isn鈥檛 the only company caught up in the storm of public concern about what many Americans see as a humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, as migrants largely from troubled Central American nations stream northward faster than U.S. authorities can process pleas for asylum. This week, Bank of America said it would cut ties with companies that run private prisons and border detention centers.
The focus on how private companies intersect with U.S. border policies reflects a wider trend. Increasingly, businesses are being nudged to take stands on questions of societal values or justice, driven not only by customers and advocacy campaigns but also by their own workers. The reasons, experts say, range from generational changes in attitudes to the way social media has accelerated the ability for people to communicate and organize.
This changing societal ethos can create challenges for corporations. If staying neutral on an issue has often felt like the safest course in the past, today in at least some cases it carries reputational costs.
鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that companies cannot afford to sit on the sidelines when it comes to taking a stand on [a] trending issue,鈥� says Ericka McCoy, chief marketing officer at Resonate, a provider of consumer intelligence for marketers, based in Reston, Virginia. In an interview by email, she adds a caveat: 鈥淚t鈥檚 critical that the issues they choose to take a stand on align to ... their core brand values.鈥�
A complex reality
That can be a delicate distinction.聽
鈥淒ecisions on whom not to do business with shouldn鈥檛 be made on an ad-hoc basis. They should be guided by a set of principles and applied with a case-by-case review of the customer,鈥� Boston Globe columnist Larry Edelman . And 鈥渏ust because there is a process, it doesn鈥檛 mean that choosing whom to blacklist is easy.鈥�
He noted that the nonprofit that Wayfair sold beds to 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 make fighter planes, bombs, or assault rifles. It doesn鈥檛 peddle cigarettes to children and in foreign countries.鈥�
Overall, Americans are conflicted over immigration policy, with considerable support for both border security and for avoiding harsh treatment of immigrants who arrived without authorization.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a large contingent of American people that support border enforcement,鈥� says Jim Copland, an expert on legal policy at the conservative Manhattan Institute in New York. 鈥淚f people want to make a good faith argument for open borders, let them do it,鈥� he says. But for now 鈥渨e have to figure out what we鈥檙e going to do with people who come across the border. And to suggest that we don鈥檛 want to create adequate housing facilities or bedding for these people is inhumane on its face.鈥�
It鈥檚 a discussion that independent of the Wayfair protest. As the two parties sparred over dueling bills to add funds on the border, Republicans for being slow to deal with border needs. And Democrats, although they have backed away from alleging the crisis is entirely 鈥渕anufactured鈥� by President Donald Trump, argue that Trump policies .
Even within Wayfair, Mr. Copland notes that not all employees joined the protests, a signal of Americans鈥� mixed views on the issue.聽
Some onlookers to the protest, which crowded a well-trafficked section of Boston, disapproved.
鈥淚 would make sure, when they got back to their desks, that each one of them can vacate their desk by 5:00. Remove whatever personal belongings they have. And I would bring in a new wave of employees,鈥� said Cevin Hynes of nearby Arlington, Massachusetts.聽
Wayfair takes a step
For many of the protesting workers, a core point is that the detention camps shouldn鈥檛 be there in the first place.
Madeline Howard, a protest organizer, points to Wayfair鈥檚 own values as a company that markets furniture. 鈥淭he core one that we鈥檝e been naming is 鈥楨veryone deserves to live in a home that they love.鈥� Right?鈥�
Wayfair has pledged , a bit higher than what employees say were the profits from the sale of beds and mattresses. The company hasn鈥檛 publicly changed any policies on sales.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a start,鈥� says Tyrone Jackson, a Wayfair software engineer, referring to the donation. 鈥淎t least the profits are going somewhere.鈥�
Protest organizers had asked that the profits be donated to RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services), a nonprofit providing legal services to immigrants and refugees in Texas.聽
Some investor groups, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, are pressing companies to cut ties with border camps and privately run prisons, among other issues. Nadira Narine, a senior program director at ICCR, sees rising public concern about such moral concerns rooted in today鈥檚 quickening flow of information.
鈥淚t鈥檚 in your face these days, and in your face in the worst ways,鈥� she says, 鈥渨hen you鈥檙e seeing a father and daughter washing up on the shore鈥� after drowning in the Rio Grande. And when people choose to organize in response, 鈥渘ew technologies 鈥� are available to rally up in a short amount of time.鈥澛�
Travis Ellis, a Boston-area resident who was in Copley Square to support the employee walkout, acknowledges that a protest is 鈥渙utside of the normal realm of what we鈥檙e used to.鈥澛�
But he wants companies to be politically minded, in the sense of understanding that 鈥渆verything we do affects everybody else. So we have to be careful that we don鈥檛 end up hurting other people in the process of going about trying to make a buck.鈥�
Hannah Harn, Thomas Shults, and Danny Jin of the Monitor staff contributed to this story from Boston.
