In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe vs. Wade, many companies have vowed to help their employees seek abortions. Will it work to make access easier for Americans?
President Biden has vowed to help protect the ability of those who seek abortions to travel to other states. California and other states have stepped up to offer expanded access. And now companies are vowing to do what they can to help their employees continue to access abortion. But how much do those vows from private businesses really matter?
Today, we talk about how corporations are stepping up when the government won’t. But are they actually changing anything in a meaningful way? Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guest: L.A. Times business reporter Sam Dean
More reading:
Companies vow to help employees access abortion after Roe vs. Wade is overturned
Hollywood companies vow to pay travel costs for abortions after Roe vs. Wade decision
How Apple, Levi Strauss and other U.S. companies are creating a brand-new abortion benefit
Gustavo: Roe versus Wade is dead. So president Joe Biden has vowed to help protect the ability for those who seek abortions to travel to other states.
tape: If a woman lives in a state that restricts abortion, the Supreme court's decision does not prevent her from traveling from her home state to the state that allows it. My administration will defend that bedrock right.
Gustavo: And California and other states have stepped up to offer expanded access and help
tape: The Western United States. It will stand tall in terms of our reproductive values and reproductive freedoms.
Gustavo: And executives for companies are now valuing to do what they can to help their employees continue to access abortion. But how much do those vows from private businesses really matter?
I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to “The Times,” daily news from the L.A. Times. It's Wednesday, June 29th, 2022.
Today, more and more corporations see themselves as social stewards at the forefront of social change, stepping up when the government won't. But are they actually changing anything in a meaningful way?
Sam Dean is a business reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Sam, welcome to “The Times.”
Sam Dean: Thanks for having me.
Gustavo: So companies were preparing for Roe’s aftermath one way or another, but when use of its overturning happened on Friday, many immediately took to social media to tell the world where they stood. What did you see and what struck you about some of, uh, what you saw?
Sam Dean: Yeah, a lot of companies, especially on the kind of tech and finance side that have a lot of cash on hand immediately went out and said that they would in various ways, support employees seeking abortions or other types of reproductive healthcare that might be banned now in the state that they work. And a lot of that comes in the form of saying that they'll reimburse travel expenses and health expenses for these kinds of things. But a lot of companies also did not say anything. You know, Walmart, the nation's largest employer, has said nothing. They refused to respond to comments. A lot of the other biggest companies in the country just, you know, won't say anything won't comment either way. So it is interesting seeing who's trying to get out in front of this. And big companies like Amazon have committed to giving people some benefits though.
Gustavo: Do you see like a breakdown, maybe older companies haven't said anything while the younger ones have, I know you said tech, but I'm just even thinking of like just younger companies period.
Sam Dean: Well, a lot of younger companies are smaller, you know, so they don't really make as much of a splash when they announce things. It really does seem to be companies that have a big public footprint. So it is, you know, tech companies, companies that are front and center for people and ones that are based in states that don't already have this, you know, trigger laws or anything that's going to outlaw abortion and other reproductive healthcare. So, you know, Walmart is based in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's not really that surprising that they might wanna weigh in on this or might not be politically aligned with the idea of providing healthcare coverage for people seeking abortions. So it really does seem to break down into, kind of, companies that are based in, you know, cities like Seattle, Bay Area, New York city or coming out in front of this.
Gustavo: What are some of the companies who did speak up in support of helping employees and what exactly, what, what are some of the offers or promises that they made?
Sam Dean: Yeah. So a lot of them are saying that they will offer up to a certain amount of reimbursement for travel and expenses. So some, some places say $4,000, some places say $10,000. Dick's Sporting Goods, surprisingly, has said that they will offer that for employees. Walt Disney has said that they have a kind of vague policy already in place for out-of-state travel, including family planning issues and pregnancy related decisions in their language. So, you know, a bunch of big companies have come out in front of it and then other ones have just said more general statements about supporting employees' health, but refuse to go into detail. So it's kind of all over the place. But the main strategy does seem to be this up to $4,000 or $10,000 in travel expenses.
Gustavo: Dick’s Sporting Goods. That's the one that really struck me. I mean, it's the biggest sporting goods retailer in the United States, but it's hardly the first business you think of when it comes to reproductive rights.
Sam Dean: Yeah. I mean, it just comes down to the company leadership. Ultimately, you know, this is fully in the control of the companies. They can do what they want and so it's really just up to whoever's running the companies to make this kind of call.
Gustavo: You mentioned that a lot of the support so far comes from basically places in blue states in California and Washington. But I'm curious about places like Amazon. Amazon is based in Washington and they vowed to protect abortion access for its employees. But the company also has 60,000, almost 60,000 employees that are going to be affected by trigger laws in states where abortions now is gonna become illegal. So how are cases like that going to be unique for companies?
Sam Dean: So, yeah, I mean, Amazon's an interesting case because it is based in Seattle, but it's one of the country's biggest employers. They have hundreds of thousands of employees in warehouses across the country. And, you know, they have 95,000 people just in Texas. Another 60,000 people, like you said, in other states that are gonna have trigger laws banning abortion. So, you know, they're really where the rubber hits the road. If we're gonna look to companies to try to tackle this issue. But it is unclear exactly how that's gonna play out in practice. You know, people have raised over the, the last couple days, questions of, do you go to your HR manager? Does this happen through your healthcare? And I know some of our colleagues are working on stories now digging into that to see like how this actually works. And I think it's also worth pointing out. You said that Amazon said they would support employees in this issue. You know, these companies at the same time that they're saying that they're putting out these policies to support individual employees have been donating to the exact same lawmakers who are supporting the abortion bans for years. You know, it's like all these companies give out money to anyone who's in power. In a lot of these states, that means pretty right wing state lawmakers who are actively seeking to make a more difficult to seek an abortion. So, you know, it's a little bit of a mixed message when it comes to their corporate responsibility.
Gustavo: It seems like these companies want to have it both ways. Are you seeing any smaller companies offer these promises on abortion access? I'm thinking like, you know, mom and pop shops. In other words, is there a certain cutoff point that you're seeing where companies just can't afford to be able to help their employees seek abortions?
Sam Dean: I have not seen that myself, but also it's hard to imagine that it would happen or be something that they would announce, especially because, you know, mom and pop shops have a lot less power and legal clout. So if you're like a five person diner in Austin, Texas, you're not gonna go to the newspaper and announce that you're offering this potentially illegal benefit to your employees.
And also small businesses in general, don't tend to offer very good health benefits. So it's just, that's probably not gonna be the place where you see this play out. You know, individual small business owners could talk to their employees and say, Hey, we'll help you out if you need it. But you know, it's not something that we're gonna see in public.
Gustavo: We'll have more after the break.
Gustavo: So Sam, companies telling employees that they're gonna stand with them in the case that they need abortion. It's a great commitment to those employees, but, well, who are those employees who are actually going to benefit?
Sam Dean: So it's unclear, like who's gonna actually be able to use this resource is still unclear because things are gonna be outlawed in different ways. There's gonna be different enforcement mechanisms. And a lot of companies have not even committed to not sharing their information with states. You know, if they get subpoenaed, if, uh, states are looking around for people who are violating these new laws or even people who are Googling things to try to find access to abortion. So it's really just a gray area on how helpful this will even be. I mean, I'm sure for people working at these companies, it's nice to know it's an option and that the company says that it has your back, but until the details get ironed out, it's really just up in the air.
Gustavo: But I'm also thinking, like, is it only gonna be full-time employees? Are part-time employees gonna be able to have these access? Is it gonna be mostly white collar employees? When, you know, blue collar employees, especially employees of color, they're probably gonna need it more than say white collar employees. And also in like, in cases like Starbucks, which say they'll support travel reimbursements, but they're not gonna be able to make any promises for unionized workers because Starbucks does not want any unions, you know, in its corporation.
Sam Dean: Starbucks is seeming to use it as a kind of bargaining chip for its unionization campaign right now, or, its anti unionization campaign, which is, you know, I don't know, unseemly is maybe a nice way to put it, but it's true that big companies like Amazon, they do have employee health plans and things like that, but they've also had a lot of problems historically over the last couple years with, you know, OSHA inspections, COVID outbreaks at their warehouses, taking away paid leave for, for when people test positive for COVID. So, you know, it's unclear exactly how this will be spread across the private sector. And it's also, you know, a lot of the banks and financial institutions, tech companies that are saying they're providing this. These are already the better paid jobs on average versus people working at Walmart or a bunch of small mom and pop shops or at car washes. You know, the most of the economy is, is lower wage. And so, uh, the people who are already working at these big companies already probably had the resources to figure out how to get out of state and seek medical care somewhere else. But, you know, the exception is a place like Amazon, where, you know, a lot of warehouse workers aren't paid so much money. And so this kind of mobility could actually change things for them.
Gustavo: What about the risks for these companies to take these prominent positions over politically divisive topics?
Sam Dean: There hasn't been much of a clear backlash yet politically, .You could see coming down the line states with very right wing attorney generals or laws, like in Texas, where individuals can Sue people who assist people in seeking an abortion. You know, you could see some kind of backlash for these companies, but thus far, there isn't really anything, you know? although I was talking with John Michaels, he's this UCLA Law School professor a couple months ago when the draft of the Dobbs decision first dropped. And it was interesting talking through a different case, you know, with the Disney's reaction to the, “Don't Say Gay” bill that came out a couple months ago in Florida, as a case study of what big companies do in these kinds of controversial situations.
Gustavo: Yeah, the don't say gay law bans classroom discussions about “sexual orientation or gender identity” in elementary schools. But Disney was quiet at first about it, but employees forced the company to react....
Sam Dean: Yeah… first Disney didn't really react to the law in their own initiative, even though they have tons of lobbyists, they know what's coming through the state legislature in Florida. And then when employees pushed back, they started pushing back a little more, but the end result was just that the company decided to not donate to either political party and just kinda washed their hands of the issue. And so that ends up making the powers that be that just remain the powers that be it just reinforces the status quo. If these big players aren't trying to push against it. And so it's unclear exactly how this is gonna play out over the next couple months for political backlash. But, ultimately businesses, especially publicly traded companies are not gonna do things that are too bad for their bottom line. So if it starts seeming like states are gonna ban companies from doing business in Texas or start really suing them or fining them for offering this benefit to employees. I don't know that a company like Amazon or a lot of these other companies will be able to pick up stakes and walk away or just kind of eat that punitive damage situation.
Gustavo: Yeah, we forget that companies are companies. And companies have to make money in order for them to do anything at the same time. But I could also see that if they don't take some positions, then you're going to have people boycotting them or they're, you're gonna have people not using them. So there's been a lot of talk about, especially with Disney over their battle with Florida over the “Don't Say Gay” bill, that's still unfolding, where you have a lot of conservatives, both politicians and just consumers saying we don't want anything to do with Disney. But do you see the opposite with Roe vs Wade? So for, you know, a company like Walmart, people who are pro-abortion or, you know, pro having rights for abortion saying, well, we're not gonna shop out Walmart anymore because you're not taking that stand.
Sam Dean: That kind of pressure will just depend on consumers and political activists. I mean, you can see a company ending up in a situation where they're trapped on the one side between state lawmakers who are saying that they're violating the law and then that's a problem. But then, you know, if they totally fold, they might face a consumer boycott or employees will leave or something like that. But you know, this is maybe a cynical read, but as a business reporter companies are not gonna be leading the social vanguard here, companies are just going to try to whatever is easiest for them. Like with the Disney case in Florida, I was mentioning saying that you're putting out these policies for employee to help them lead the state. That could be, you know, huge benefit for the employees individually. But while you're also donating to the same Republican lawmakers who are putting these bans in effect, It's kind of like having your cake and eating it too. You get to look good to the public and say, “Hey, we're supporting our individual employees,” but without really getting into the details of how many people that helps also how much money that even costs, you know, $4,000 of travel expenses for a couple thousand people, it adds up and it's not that much money for the bottom line. But at the same time, you're benefiting from the lax labor laws, lower corporate taxes, pro-business policies that you get from a kind of further right wing Republican administration. As long as they're allowed to walk that line and not face too much public pressure or legal pressure for both sides, you know, they will. And they'll just, it'll take people acting en masse to make anything change.
Gustavo: Sam, it feels like we've been here before. I'm thinking back to 2020 when after the George Floyd protests companies promise to incorporate all sorts of inclusion and diversity initiatives and equity, racial bias training. You also hear this every June for Pride month. Do these initiatives actually spark real change in society?
Sam Dean: That's a tough question. So some of these initiatives in the last couple years have sparked some change within companies. You know, you do see some actions take place, some increased mobility within the ranks of a company. Uh, maybe they hire more people, but you know, this issue is so fundamentally different from past diversity inclusion initiatives, because those are often about how a company's internal culture works about promotions, about things that are more in the company's control, but you know what we're probably gonna start seeing with these abortion bans going to affect are people dying.
Tape: Forcing women to carry pregnancies against their will, will kill them. It will kill them, especially in the state of Arkansas, where there is very little to no support for life after birth.
Sam Dean: Women and people who are pregnant are going to start dying from either complications of births that go wrong, or from seeking abortions that are now illegal. So it's just gonna be a totally different type of story. And the impact is gonna be so much more, I think, wrenching and, and trackable. You know, if there's a story that an Amazon employee or a Walmart employee couldn't get access to this benefit and now is dead. You know, that's different than someone saying they weren't promoted for years. There's been this, uh, nasty internal company culture and now there's a civil rights lawsuit. They're both very serious problems, but this is just gonna be a much more visceral issue as it plays out.
Gustavo: Because the stakes in this case literally seem to be life or death.
Sam Dean: Yes. They do. And I mean, and that's, that's come up with corporate responsibility before. Often the discussion has been about this kind of intercultural stuff and not, you know, saving the lives of your employees. So I think it'll be intense and definitely something worth watching as the next couple months unfold.
Gustavo: Finally, Sam, it's interesting to me to see like, all these corporations stepping up, all this praise of corporations that are stepping up to make sure that there is access to abortions for its employees, It's a very conservative argument to me that the market or business should be relied on to fill any gaps that government is not giving to you. So with moves, like what we're seeing on abortion access, does a private sector actually offer that hope of, like, being able to give people what the government doesn't?
Sam Dean: I think they'll probably be overstating it. You know, some type of national legal change would certainly help a lot more quickly, but it will be the case that you can get a job, you know, a full-time job at Amazon and sign up for their health plan. And if you live in Texas, you'll have better access to abortion than if you work at Walmart, bottom line if they follow through on this. And so it'll be interesting to see if companies are willing to run with that. Cause you can imagine that taking off to some degree, you can imagine that being an actual thing that people seek out in the work. And it remains to be seen whether companies will really embrace that image and say, we are a safe place for this. Once it picks up and risk the political and consumer backlash that that might bring from people and lawmakers who are against abortion.
Sam Dean: So, you know, it really remains to be seen how far it'll go, but it does seem like an interesting first step in that direction. That we could have private companies really planting a flag in the ground about protecting people's abortion rates. But historically when push comes to shove, it, it's not companies that are often in the lead on social issues.
Gustavo: Sam, thanks so much for this conversation.
Sam Dean: Thanks so much.
Gustavo: And that's it for this episode at “The Times,” daily news from the L.A. Times.
Ashlea Brown and David Toledo were the jefes on this episode. And Mark Nieto mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toldeo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera.
Our intern is Surya Hendry. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilera and Shani Hilton. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. Like what you're listening to? Then make sure to follow “The Times” on whatever platform you use. I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.