10 Faux Progressive Companies ... With Some Dirty Secrets

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Lauren Kelley

10 Faux Progressive Companies ... With Some Dirty Secrets
Many of these companies have earned credibility among progressives, despite having a poor track record with the environment, sexism, union busting, monopolizing, and more.

August 16, 2011 |


What makes a company "progressive"? A CEO's lefty politics? A dedication to people over profits? A solid environmental track record?

.....(snip).....

1. Apple -- Apple has long positioned itself as the computer company for creative types -- people who "think different" and are the antithesis of square, monopolistic Microsoft. That marketing has worked well for Apple; left-leaning cities like New York City and San Francisco are positively dripping with iPhones and MacBooks.

Although Apple products are beloved by progressives, Apple doesn't uphold a number of progressive values. For instance, the company has sneaky ways of getting around having to offer affordable health insurance to many of its workers, including including those who work 40 hours a week. Maddeningly, when workers voiced concerns about insurance and working conditions at the company, Apple managers responded by saying that working at Apple “should be looked at as an experience.”

.....(snip).....

2. Whole Foods -- Whole Foods may have started out as an independently owned, crunchy granola health food store in Austin, Texas, but the company long ago abandoned many of its hippie values. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/152043/10_faux_progressive_companies_..._with_some_dirty_secrets/

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Why should we ever think that corporations are progressive? Anything whose #1 motive is profit....

is capable of really anything, to get money. And of course, it's the least among us that they'll throw under the bus in exchange for money.

[DirkGently]

2. Once they go public, greed becomes the guiding principle. It's the law.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. That's pretty much it. It's literally the law of the public corporation. Stupid question:

Have any companies ever REVERSED their public status and removed themselves from Wall Street?

[DirkGently]

9. Hard to put the genie back in the bottle. I think most corp-private buyouts are by investments firms

[ixion]

3. Add Credo Mobile to that list

claiming to be a 'progressive' phone company, their policies mirror all the other not progressive cell phone companies, and their customer service is deteriorating rapidly.

[OneGrassRoot]

6. That surprises and disappoints me.

:(

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Thanks much. I'm always in search of such information. K&R n/t

[KurtNYC]

7. Never thought of Google, Starbucks, Urban Outfitters, Avon, Whole Foods or Coke

as progressive.

Maybe Newman's Own, and Wild Oats (killed by Whole Foods).

[GillesDeleuze]

10. Annies?

Burts Bees before it was bought by clorox?

i dunno

[KurtNYC]

12. Ben & Jerry's before it was sold to Unilever (?)

[xchrom]

8. recommend

[Citizen Worker]

11. Whole Foods or Whole Paycheck?

[Yavapai]

13. If corporations are people, then they are sociopaths !

Without a conscience or ethics. A few people rob banks but banks rob everyone and then get government welfare to boot.