What Are Wal-Mart and eBay Trying to Hide by Opposing Gender Pay Gap Disclosure? (Video)
Shareholders at both eBay and Wal-Mart want the companies to reveal any disparities in pay between the women and men who work for them.
Shareholders at both eBay and Wal-Mart want the companies to reveal any disparities in pay between the women and the men who work for them, and both firms have rejected the proposal. At eBay, that could have something to do with potentially angering the 42 percent of its employees who happen to be women. Or perhaps the company fears that nearly half of its workers would demand better pay. And huge multinational corporations can’t have that, can they?
The Guardian:
Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management arm of investment adviser Baldwin Brothers, announced Thursday that it had filed the proposal, which requests that eBay publicly report the pay disparity between its male and female employees and set goals to close any gaps.
The company responded that it would oppose the resolution, which it said is not in the best interest of its stockholders, according to Natasha Lamb, Arjuna Capital’s director of equity research and shareholder engagement. Ebay did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment, but confirmed in the San Francisco Chronicle that it plans to oppose the proposal.
Lamb disagrees that the proposal wouldn’t be in shareholders’ best interests. “The eBay proposal is clearly in the interest of enhancing shareholder value,” she said in a press statement. “Gender diversity is a key driver of innovation and performance, factors of particular importance to the tech industry.”…The eBay news comes after Walmart opposed a similar proposal late last month.
Read more.
—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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