George Floyd protests lead to reckoning as Black employees speak out on racism and discrimination in the workplace

Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY June 17, 2020




Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a video on Twitter announcing a $100-million initiative to fight racism and break down barriers to opportunity, including inside his own company.

Tanya Faison, who is Black and for five years worked in technical support at Apple, says she’s skeptical of these expressions of solidarity from corporations that for years stayed silent on systemic racism while perpetuating racial inequality by failing to hire, promote or fairly pay Black people and people of color.

“It’s very nice that he’s decided to take this moment to start focusing on Black folks, when he is in a company with Black employees who are not being taken care of,” Faison said of Cook.

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, corporations from nearly every sector of the American economy have taken to social media proclaiming their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and condemning police killings as protests over the death of George Floyd still flood American streets.

Seizing an opportunity to be heard, Black employees are responding on social media with painful stories of workplace racism that they say they were too fearful to discuss before. The wave of firsthand accounts and activism has led to resignations, drawing parallels to the #MeToo movement.

“We need more than performative, symbolic or superficial statements. We need action,” says Aerica Shimizu Banks, one of two former Black employees who went public this week with charges of racial discrimination against social media service Pinterest. Pinterest denies the charges.

“I hope companies are recognizing that your employees will not stay silent to racism, sexism and discrimination anymore."

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The voices of Black workers are being amplified by colleagues of all races, turning up the pressure on employers to make real change in hopes this moment could mark a turning point for racial equity in the American workplace.

At Adidas, dozens stopped working to attend protests outside the company’s North American headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Hundreds of Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout to protest CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to take down inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump.
Black Lives Matter pledges under scrutiny

Driving this wellspring of employee activism: pledges by businesses large and small that in the past have done little to balance the economic scales for Black workers or to eradicate toxic work environments.


Protesters march on June 15 in New York City after the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.More

In recent weeks, Facebook and Citibank chimed in, as did Nike and the NFL. Bank of America said it would spend $1 billion over four years to address racial and economic inequality. Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, called for racial equality in the U.S. in an open letter to federal, state and local officials, saying he would work on equitable justice as part of a new Business Roundtable, a committee of large-company CEOs.

Google's YouTube video service said it will funnel $100 million into a fund for Black content creators. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, made Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in America, an official paid holiday at both companies. L'Oreal SA on June 9 rehired Munroe Bergdorf, a Black transgender model it fired in 2017.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, even took a knee for a photograph with staff from one of the bank’s branches, a nod to former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was blacklisted from the NFL for protesting the police killings of African Americans.



Yet African Americans are woefully underrepresented in the echelons of corporate America, where the Fortune 500 has just four Black CEOs and senior leadership teams are still made up entirely of white men. And the coronavirus pandemic has only deepened inequalities in the business world, disproportionately claiming the lives and livelihoods of African Americans.

The statistics are sobering. Black workers are paid less than white workers, even in high-wage positions. Research shows that the black-white wage gap has been widening for decades, even during periods of economic expansion. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the overall average wage for black workers in 2019 was $21.05. For white workers, it was $28.66. As a result, in the U.S., Black households have one-tenth the wealth of a typical white household, according to Federal Reserve data.

Being called out are companies publicly throwing their support behind the Black Lives Matter movement while continuing the status quo.

On Twitter, Amazon called for an end to “the inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people” in the U.S. Its CEO Jeff Bezos posted on Instagram an email from a customer criticizing the Black Lives Matter banner on Amazon’s home page, and responded that this was the kind of customer he was “happy to lose.”


A protester kneels and holds up a fist as he and others demonstrate the death of George Floyd by closing down and blocking traffic on I-395 in Washington, DC on June 15.More

At the same time, the company has been criticized for relegating workers, many of them African American, to low pay and harsh working conditions. In March, it fired a Black warehouse employee who was advocating for safer conditions during the pandemic. Amazon said the worker violated its social distancing policy.
Push for accountability led by employees, activists

The Plug, an online news service created by journalist and entrepreneur Sherrell Dorsey to cover Black innovation in the tech world, is pushing for accountability with a spreadsheet that tracks the recent statements by tech companies and pairs it with information on the demographics of these companies, including the dearth of Black people in leadership and technical roles.

Online racial justice organization Color of Change has launched a campaign to urge corporations including Amazon, Adidas, Nike and Target to move #BeyondTheStatement.

“I have seen an outpouring of companies saying Black lives matter,” Color of Change President Rashad Robinson told USA TODAY. “I want them to actually make Black lives matter through their policies and their practices.”

He says all of these gestures are hollow unless corporations back up statements with concrete plans to close racial pay gaps, hire and promote more Black employees and ensure more wealth flows into Black communities.


Rashad Robinson, president of online racial justice organization Color of ChangeMore

“What I am seeing across the board is not a full recognition from corporate America about all the ways they have written the rules and all the ways they benefit from the rules that fuel racial discrimination and racial injustice in this country,” Robinson says. “Now is not the time simply for statements of support that don’t actually come with real structural change. Now is the time to actually change rules and change behavior.”
Tech industry confronting its race problem

The race problem in the tech industry was thrust into the national conversation in 2014 when companies from Facebook to Google disclosed for the first time how few women and people of color they employ. The companies pledged to make their workforces less homogeneous.

The paucity of underrepresented minorities in an industry increasingly dominating the U.S. economy drew sharp scrutiny from company shareholders and Washington lawmakers. Yet hundreds of millions, if not billions, in diversity spending later, very little has changed.

After the 2016 presidential election, corporations pulled back on their commitments to diversify their workforces, says Karla Monterroso, CEO of Code2040, an organization that advocates for proportional representation of Black and Latinx leaders in the tech industry as a way of diversifying high-wage work in America.

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“A lot of different corporations were making real deal investments in this stuff. Once the election happened, and the president won, you saw a huge backtrack from those investments,” Monterroso says.

“The social capital around this disappeared and the capital capital around this disappeared. There was a lot of fear. I had people, directly and indirectly, tell me that they were afraid to make these investments and be public about their beliefs because it would put them in the crosshairs of a president with an itchy Twitter finger.”

Undeterred, employees at companies from Facebook to Google have come forward with personal stories of racism and discrimination inside their companies.
Black employees speak out on discrimination

On June 2, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann wrote a public post about the changes the company planned to make to elevate racial justice content on the social media service and increase the diversity at the company, where 3.7% of employees are Black, 2.8% of managers are Black and none of the senior leadership is Black, according to the company’s 2018 federal filing.

“With everything we do, we will make it clear that our Black employees matter, Black Pinners and creators matter, and Black Lives Matter,” Silbermann wrote on June 2.

Quietly, less than a week earlier, Banks and Ifeoma Ozoma, two Black employees in prominent public policy positions, left the company. On Monday, they went public about the racial discrimination they said they faced at Pinterest.

Ozoma told USA TODAY that she wanted people to know that “in this moment when Pinterest is claiming to care about Black employees and Black lives, that just a few weeks ago, when I was still there, that was not the case for me at all.”

Despite driving high-profile initiatives for Pinterest such as the decision to stop promoting former Southern slave plantations as wedding venues or to steer searches for vaccine-related information to public health groups, Ozoma says she was not paid fairly. When a white male colleague, upset with her work on policy issues, shared sensitive personal information about her in "just about every dark corner of the internet," she says she was forced to hire a company to monitor online information and threats.

Banks told USA TODAY that she almost immediately regretted the decision to join Pinterest to head up its Washington, D.C., office, in May 2019 and barely lasted a year in the role.

Banks, who is African American and Japanese, says she faced disparaging remarks about her ethnicity from her manager. Even after she left the company, she says her sponsorship of Black organizations and businesses was scrutinized.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Pinterest said it conducted a “thorough investigation” into the allegations.

“We’re confident both employees were treated fairly,” the company said.

Color of Change is launching a petition to secure back pay for Ozoma and Banks.

"The retaliation these women experienced underscores the risk Black workers in Silicon Valley endure every day for speaking out against racism and discrimination," Color of Change campaign director Jade Magnus Ogunnaike said in a statement. "To show a serious commitment to racial justice, the company should use this opportunity to change their hostile culture for Black workers and set an example for the tech industry."

Robinson says he's thrilled to see employees "speaking out and pushing back."

“We are hearing from employees in very powerful ways," he says, "and that’s important."
Former Apple employee, Black Lives Matter activist speaks out

One of those employees is Faison, the Black Lives Matter activist. The job at Apple in Elk Grove, California, paid well, came with good benefits and gave her time to devote to her Black Lives Matter activism in the Sacramento area.

But there was only one Black supervisor and no managers of color in her office, she says. And even as coworkers were encouraged to openly embrace gay rights, Faison says it was made clear to her that, if she wanted to get promoted, she would have to keep quiet about her fight against police killings.


Tanya Faison, of Black Lives Matter, addresses a demonstration outside the Sacramento Police Department to protest the decision to not prosecute the two officers involved in the 2018 fatal shooting of Stephon Clark.More

Faison says she held her tongue, even when customers she was helping with their iPhone or Mac problems made racist comments or used the N-word, presuming she was white. But holding in her feelings for a paycheck left Faison angry and depleted by the end of the day.

“I couldn’t even go into diversity and inclusion meetings and talk about the work or what’s going on and how it is impacting us,” she says.

Then, in February 2018, Apple announced that Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors had been invited to speak at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. Faison pushed her ergonomically adjusted chair from her desk and, in the middle of her shift, stood next to her car trying to make sense of it.

“It really upset me because, for years, I was holding my breath. For years, I was tiptoeing around Apple about my work,” she says. “I had been hiding everything, and that wasn't acceptable.”

A month later, when 22-year-old Stephon Clark was killed by two police officers in his grandmother’s backyard, drawing national scrutiny of police shootings and discriminatory policing of Black neighborhoods, Faison took a leave of absence and then another to organize a wave of protests in Sacramento. Then she quit. She says Apple tried to convince her to stay on, but she couldn’t.

“I couldn’t hold the weight of the work and also the weight of what was happening in the streets anymore,” Faison says. “I had to go.”

And, even though she needs a job, Faison says she’d never go back.

Apple’s $100 million pledge, its first directed to the Black community, pales next to its investments in clean energy, manufacturing jobs and housing. It’s also a drop in an overflowing financial bucket. Apple, the world’s most valuable company, made a profit of $55 billion on revenue of $260 billion last year.

And Apple has made slow and halting progress in diversifying the company. According to a 2018 filing with the federal government, Apple has one Black executive out of a total of 123, less than 1%, and 284 Black managers out of a total of 9,878, less than 3%. Nine percent of its U.S. workforce is Black.

“Black employees are not being treated with dignity. They’re not being treated fairly. They’re not being promoted fairly. There’s not a lot of Black leadership within the company,” Faison says. “And there were not a lot of places for us to go to express that we were not being treated the way that we should be.”

Reached for comment, Apple said it believes in treating everyone with dignity and respect and that it applies those values in all aspects of its business.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Racism in corporate America: Black employees speak out amid protests

BLACK AMERIKA
Why Juneteenth is so important and why so few people know about it

Jeanette Marantos,LA Times•June 18, 2020

Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation printed by the Strobridge Lithographing Co. of Cincinnati. (Library of Congress)

Juneteenth is Friday, June 19, a holiday that is arguably as important to our nation as the Fourth of July, since it commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people of Texas, then the most remote region of the Confederacy, finally learned slavery had been abolished and that they were free.

Juneteenth — a mashup of "June 19" — became a day of celebration for Black people in Texas, a tradition that slowly spread as they migrated to other states such as Louisiana and California.

Texas declared Juneteenth a legal state holiday in 1980, the first state to do so, but national awareness has been spotty, even among Black people, said Brenda E. Stevenson, professor of history and African American studies at UCLA, whose most recent books include "What is Slavery" and "The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender and the Origin of the LA Riots."

"Growing up in Virginia, I didn't hear about it until I went to college," Stevenson said.

But the recent demonstrations against police killings of Black Americans and growing recognition of systemic racism in our nation's businesses and institutions has brought Juneteenth to the forefront of public awareness.

Brenda E. Stevenson has been a professor of history and African American studies at UCLA for nearly 30 years. (Annette Hornischer / American Academy in Berlin)

On Wednesday, New York’s governor signed an executive order recognizing Juneteenth as a paid holiday for state employees to commemorate the emancipation of slaves in the U.S. Efforts to make America's other Independence Day a national holiday have long stalled in Congress, although all but three states — Hawaii, North Dakota and South Dakota — have followed Texas' lead in some way, declaring Juneteenth a state holiday or observance, according to the Congressional Research Service. (In 2003, California declared the third Saturday of June to be a state observance known as Juneteenth National Freedom Day.)

Over the past two weeks, corporations such as Twitter, Square, Nike, Target and the National Football League declared Juneteenth a paid company holiday. And others, such as historian and Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs professor Peniel Joseph, are publicly lobbying for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.

"A national holiday commemorating Juneteenth would spur not only conversation about the origins of our current racial and political conflicts, but would also prompt vitally necessary education about white supremacy and its manifestations in policies and political actions that are anti-Black, anti-democratic and anti-human," Joseph wrote in a June 13 op-ed for CNN.



To add to the recognition, a critically acclaimed movie, "Miss Juneteenth," becomes available for streaming Friday on FandangoNow. The movie, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is about a former beauty queen-turned-single mom trying to groom her reluctant daughter to win the Miss Juneteenth pageant, earn a full-ride scholarship and avoid the life mistakes she made.

An additional spotlight was cast on Juneteenth last week when President Donald Trump announced he would have his first major, post-COVID-19 reelection rally on June 19 in Tulsa, Okla., the site of "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history," according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. After a public outcry, the president said he would change the rally date to June 20 out of respect for the holiday. (He also took credit for raising awareness about Juneteenth, telling the Wall Street Journal "Nobody had ever heard of" it and adding, "I made Juneteenth very famous.")

As for Stevenson, the UCLA professor, she plans a small family gathering for June 19. "I'll be throwing some fish on the grill for myself and some jackfruit for my daughter, who's a vegan," she said, laughing.

But the most important part for her will be having some serious meal-time conversations about racism then and now. "We've really got to take advantage of this moment," she said.

"I do appreciate emancipation, and I want to take a moment to thank God for it and talk about our own legacy. ... But clearly, we are a deeply racialized society. When [President Barack] Obama was elected, people said, 'Oh, now we're in the post-racial era,' but that era never arrived and certainly isn't here now."

An examination of Juneteenth illustrates how deep those racist roots go, said Stevenson, who has taught at UCLA for nearly 30 years, specializing in the history of American slavery.

Celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 1866. (Library of Congress)

The lessons begin in 1862, when the Union was losing the Civil War against the Southern Confederate states. President Abraham Lincoln was looking for a way to cripple the Confederacy's funding, Stevenson said, so he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves in the Confederate states, starting Jan. 1, 1863.

"The thinking was, by freeing the slaves, the Confederacy wouldn't have enough workers to produce the cotton crops sold to England and the Confederacy wouldn't have enough money to continue the war," Stevenson said.

But the proclamation was more strategic than liberating, Stevenson said, since it applied only to the Confederate states. Slavery was still permitted in the border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri.

"Lincoln did not want to push the border states into the Confederacy by freeing those people's slaves," Stevenson said. "He had promised if they remained loyal to the United States, they could retain their slave property."

Eventually that changed when Congress approved the 13th Amendment on Jan. 31, 1865, abolishing slavery throughout the United States. A few months later, on April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, marking the beginning of the end of the Civil War, which continued to be fought in remote parts of the country until its formal conclusion in 1866.

There was no internet or telephones then to spread the news, so when Union Major-Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas — the most remote outpost of the Southern slave states — on June 19, 1865, there were only unconfirmed rumors about the Emancipation Proclamation that had freed enslaved peoples more than two years earlier, Stevenson said.

But Granger's reading of General Order No. 3 finally made it official:

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

One has to wonder how much was heard by the crowd after "all slaves are free," but that's how Juneteenth was born, Stevenson said.

"There was a lot of celebration, a lot of singing of songs and giving out prayers of thanks to God" among the newly freed slaves, Stevenson said, but liberty brought nothing else.

Artist W.E. Winner painted this portrait of President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. (Library of Congress)

Yes slaves were freed, Stevenson said, "but a lot of people stayed on the plantations because they had nowhere else to go. They had no land, no housing, no work tools, seeds or work animals."

Plantation owners had little desire to pay for the labor they had once gotten for free, Stevenson said. "That's when you see sharecropping developing and renters having to give up what they earned to the landowner."

The result being that while people were set free, they remained in economic bondage to their former owners.

And then there was the deeply entrenched belief of white supremacy, a mindset carefully nurtured for generations, to justify the enslavement of Black people and other people of color, Stevenson said.

"The whole mythology about Black incompetence and inferiority was very ingrained. They [slave-holder society] saw this as a rule of natural law, and it wasn't about to flip because of a proclamation," Stevenson said.

Slaveholders forced these beliefs onto their children at an early age, Stevenson said, "to the extent that they sent them away to school to remove them from the companionship of Black (slave) children. They had to teach them their 'friends' on the plantation were inferior, and someday you're going to be their master. It was a real indoctrination. This was very seriously enforced, and you could not, as a white person, act otherwise if you did not want to be ostracized."

One wonders how different our history — and race relations — might have been if the entire nation came together to celebrate our second Independence Day, the end of legal human bondage in the United States.

Now, 155 years later, we have a lot of catching up to do, Stevenson says, which makes national conversations about racial injustice and inequality so important.

"Racism is deeply rooted in American culture and ideology," she said, "and we just have to keep digging deeper and deeper until those roots are out."

Bridget Foley’s Diary: Make Juneteenth a Non-Shopping Holiday

As retail brands embrace the Juneteenth holiday, may it be a day of reflection for all — in-store employees included.

By Bridget Foley on June 18, 2020 

Nike and Target are approaching the Juneteenth holiday differently. Nike is closing its stores and distribution centers. Target outposts will remain open, and employees will be paid time-and-a-half.

Shutterstock

Juneteenth, tomorrow, has long been celebrated by Black people and across communities of color. The holiday references June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, when a document declaring the end of slavery was read publicly in Galveston, Tex., by a U.S. Army general. Now the day is getting broader recognition, as numerous American companies, including some in fashion, are making it a paid holiday. Congress will likely take up the issue as well, and Juneteenth could, and should, become a national holiday.

How great and long overdue for our country to formally celebrate the end of slavery, and by doing so, come face-to-face with the horrific devastation it wrought and that is ongoing. Not so great that this reckoning comes only after the killings by police of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and too many others, acts that have shaken American society to its core. In response, millions of people have joined voices in condemning and demanding an end to systemic racism and inequality, and their countless granular manifestations, including those across the employment sphere.

Over the past three weeks, U.S. and global companies have unveiled broad-stroke social-justice initiatives. Typically, these involve pledging to do more to diversify the workforce across its breadth and up through the management ranks; ensuring that those newly diverse work environments are genuinely inclusive, and check-writing, lots and lots of check-writing, mostly to organizations aimed at ending racism and its resulting injustices that so profoundly impact people of color in general, and Black people most dramatically.

In the U.S., newly instituted Juneteenth observations are part of these moves. Among the fashion retail-involved companies instituting the paid holiday are Target Corp., J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Nike Inc. and Ralph Lauren Corp. (PMC, WWD’s parent company, is also observing Juneteenth.) At Nike, the holiday is of the sort that we once perceived holidays to be — a day off company-wide, all-inclusive. This year at least, Nike is closing all U.S., EMEA and Canadian Nike and Converse stores, as well as distribution centers and Air MI facilities. Yet righteousness and commerce don’t always intersect seamlessly. While published numbers and anecdotal evidence suggest that people of color comprise huge portions of the in-store workforce, Target, J.C. Penney and Ralph Lauren are keeping stores open, with those working receiving extra pay. At Ralph Lauren, hourly employees will receive time-and-a-half and salaried workers, comp time. At Penney’s, those working will get non-specified holiday pay.

Target announced its implementation of the holiday simultaneously with the fabulous news that, starting July 5, it is making permanent its increase of minimum pay to $15 an hour (up from $13) that it instituted as hero pay early in the coronavirus pandemic. Retail associates who work on Juneteenth will receive time-and-a-half, and if in-store employees choose not to work, they will be paid for the day. So on one level, no one loses out, and some employees will gain financially.

But what are the optics? And optics be damned, the deeper messaging?

Target employs more than 350,000 people. According to the company web site, 48 percent belong to a “racial/ethnic minority.” While specific percentages for in-store and corporate employees are not given, it’s safe to deduce that a huge number of that 48 percent work in-store, and that many of those employees are Black.

Regardless of a company’s scale, there’s a philosophical gap — and a common sense gap, to boot — in the segment of employees who work in-store not having equal access to the holiday. If a cashier must request the day off when her colleagues in the corporate office get it automatically, she doesn’t have equal access to the benefit.

People in service industries — U.S. retail workers in particular, a large percentage of whom are people of color — get the shaft during holidays, and have for years. They just do. Because stores are always open. Once upon a time, stores closed for major holidays (in the U.S. we have 10 national holidays, but only a few merit major work closures) and even on Sundays. And do you know what happened? Life went on. People knew to stock up on their toilet paper, fresh veggies, beer and Thanksgiving canned cranberry sauce the day before. But somehow, we developed an insatiable societal need for 24-hour access to everything. Now, many stores are open on most holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas and — irony of ironies — Labor Day. (Target is open 363 days a year, closing for Easter Sunday and Christmas.)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted for all of us exactly what are essential businesses, and who are essential workers. Target — absolutely, an essential business. Its retail-store and distribution-center employees are essential, and among the heroes of the COVID-19 crisis. Target’s sales associates sell us the things we need; its stockroom workers, store managers, distribution staff and truck drivers facilitate those purchases. But “essential” does not necessarily mean 24/7 access required. Short of pharmacies — there is genuine emergency need for pharmaceuticals — no store really has to be open on a specific day. We know we need toilet paper; we know we need food. If my cupboard is wanting of such items on Juneteenth, Labor Day or Christmas, that’s my fault.

The steps being taken now by the mostly white corporate world to acknowledge and deal with racial discrimination and inequities within their organizations, and efforts to affect the larger society, are crucial and long overdue. But lest self-righteousness come knocking even faintly, it’s important to acknowledge that this awakening is not born of pure principle. It is a pragmatic awakening forced by public outrage over the shocking killings by police of innocent Black people.

That’s not to say that corporate hearts and minds aren’t in the right place, and that their moves and proclamations are showboating. But one test of strength of conviction is what happens when principle swerves afield from immediate financial interest. Imagine the statement if more retailers professing to make Juneteenth a paid holiday really make Juneteenth a paid holiday, as Nike is doing. If the lords of commerce say by their actions that, in our world now and going forward, June 19, Juneteenth, is a day for community. For reflection. For reconciliation. Not for shopping. It would also be a fine day to arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor.

Corporate America observes Juneteenth: What to know in markets Friday

On Friday, a number of public corporations across a variety of industries will observe Juneteenth as a company holiday.

Emily McCormick Reporter Yahoo Finance June 18, 2020

The date – a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth” – commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. June 19, 1865 represents the day following the end of the Civil War when Union General Gordon Granger informed those in Galveston, Texas, of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the final remaining slaves in the state and country. The holiday was first celebrated by freed slaves in Texas in 1866, and this year is set to be the 155th anniversary of the original date.

Juneteenth, which is not recognized as a federal holiday, will be commemorated this year by a host of public companies, either as a paid holiday or a day during which normal business operations will be changed. These decisions come as the country and corporate America face a reckoning over racial injustice, with nationwide protests over police brutality and other issues contributing to and reflecting the impacts of systemic racism continuing since late May.

In tech, Alphabet-owned Google (GOOG, GOOGL) recently added Juneteenth as a U.S. holiday in its Google Calendar, and the company instructed its employees to cancel meetings on the date in observation.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of peer tech giant Amazon (AMZN) also sent a memo to employees this week to encourage workers to cancel meetings Friday. Twitter (TWTR) and Square (SQ) – each co-founded and led by CEO Jack Dorsey – will both observe Juneteenth as a paid company holiday starting this year. And music streaming company Spotify (SPOT) is also offering workers a paid holiday, and said it would feature black artists on its “New Music Friday” playlist.


NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2020/06/15: Demonstrators hold placards as they march through the streets during the protest. Protests continue against police brutality and racial injustice in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)More

In retail, Nike (NKE) CEO John Donahoe said in a recent memo to employees that Juneteenth would be a paid holiday this year and going forward. The company added in a LinkedIn post that it will close its retail stores, offices and distribution facilities in the U.S. and use the day “for our employees and teammates to educate and connect on the significance of this moment in Black history.”

Target (TGT) will keep stores and distribution centers open, but gave Target team members the option to take the full day off with full pay, with those still working receiving paid time and a half. Headquarter offices will close, and CEO Brian Cornell said in a statement, “Moving now to recognize [Juneteenth] on an annual basis—as a day to celebrate, further educate ourselves or connect with our communities—is one more important action Target can take as a company to help the country live up to the ideal of moving forward in a new way.”

Best Buy (BBY) said it was giving workers a paid volunteer day for use Friday or later in the year, and would add the date as a formal paid company holiday starting next year. JCPenney (JCP) CEO Jill Soldau also designated the date as a paid holiday in a memo this week, urging employees to “continue to learn, connect with each other, and reflect on how we can move forward and achieve permanent and lasting change.”

Meanwhile, the NFL is also set to recognize the holiday, with the league’s offices closing Friday, according to a memo from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Multiple teams within the NFL, including the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers, also said they would permanently recognize Juneteenth.

A number of U.S. banks also plan to shut branches and offices early Friday for Juneteenth.

—

Trump administration move could add 'significant risks' to retirement accounts
Ben Werschkul DC Producer Yahoo Finance June 18, 2020





When it comes to a 401(k) account, most savers simply choose a target date fund and leave it that.

Now, thanks to a rule change from the Trump administration, those retirement vehicles could soon get a lot more complicated. It’s likely to lead to new risks (and perhaps new rewards) for savers.

Managers of 401(k) plans now have the ability invest in private equity. In other words, your 401(k) could soon take stakes in private companies.

The goal, according to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia is to allow investors to “gain access to alternative investments” and “ensure that ordinary people investing for retirement have the opportunities they need for a secure retirement.” The Department of Labor laid things out in a letter that says putting 401(k) money into private-equity funds would not “violate the fiduciary’s duties” of certain retirement plan sponsors.

But some experts see a big downside.

Barbara Roper, the Director of Investor Protection at the Consumer Federation of America, said the “significant risks” associated with private equity investments haven’t been adequately addressed.

“By the Department of Labor's own admission, these are investments that are more complex, more opaque, less liquid, more difficult to value, with often higher costs than the investments that are traditionally offered through retirement plans,” Roper said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

You ‘could do much, much worse’

The DOL letter means that a 401(k) manager could now decide to invest in private-equity funds that previously were not accessible. These funds traditionally have been reserved for the wealthiest traders and institutional investors. They typically come with higher risk since private companies are not required to disclose nearly the same about of data with the SEC as public companies do.

The new rule could be tempting for average savers who may now have a roundabout way to get a piece of a company – like SpaceX or AirBnB – that’s still private. The American Investment Council, which represents the private equity industry, has lauded the change, saying it will strengthen Americans’ retirement security.

One thing that remains up in the air is how quickly the managers of the big retirement plans will embrace their new options. Companies like Vanguard and Fidelity have not yet offered comment on the new guidelines. Another outstanding question is whether these plans would list private-equity funds among the options for savers to choose from, or whether private equity would simply be mixed into existing funds.


Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, right, says the change will allow investors to "gain access to alternative investments”. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)More

Alexis Leondis, an opinion columnist for Bloomberg, recently asked if the move is worth the risks. “Many plan sponsors don't have the sophistication or background in alternatives to fully understand the complicated structures of many private equity funds," she wrote.

Roper said that “the dispersion of returns in the private-equity fund space is huge, much broader than it is in the public markets.” And while the returns for over-performing private equity funds can, indeed, beat the public markets,“if you get in a below average fund, you could do much, much worse," she said.

An example of a big downside in private equity fund is SoftBank’s Vision fund. That fund recently announced losses of $24 billion after failed investments in WeWork and OneWeb.

According to a 2018 study by the Stanford Center on Longevity, about half of American workers are saving money through a retirement plan at work. Access to and participation in 401(k)s is much lower among younger workers. A report from the National Institute on Retirement Security found that two-thirds of working millennials have nothing saved for retirement.

A second rule change, over financial advice

A second change is coming soon and is expected to relax restrictions on the advice financial professionals give about their retirement investments.

The change, passed by the SEC last year with a compliance deadline of June 30, says brokers must act “in the best interest of the retail customer at the time the recommendation is made, without placing your financial or other interest ahead of the retail customer’s interests.”

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has said that the change is part of "raising the standard of conduct for broker-dealers," while he has discussed in interviews how the best interest standard is different than a fiduciary standard.

According to the Consumer Federation of America, the move could lead to an understanding that investment advisers are not true fiduciaries. A fiduciary is someone legally obligated to act in the best financial interests of the clients they are advising.

Roper says that this potential new rule gives broker-dealers and investment advisers “virtually unlimited ability to act as advisers, while simultaneously failing to regulate them accordingly.” They can now “mislead their customers into believing they are getting trusted, best interest advice when they are actually getting investing recommendations biased by toxic conflicts of interest,” she said.
Roper appeared as part of Yahoo Finance’s ongoing partnership with the Funding our Future campaign, a group of organizations advocating for increased retirement security for Americans.

Consumer Federation of America is an association of non-profit consumer organizations. More than 250 groups – from local agencies like the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs to private groups across the country – participate in the federation.

All of these changes may not be noticed by certain savers who are often encouraged to take a “set it and forget it” approach to their retirement. If their 401(k) provider does end up getting involved in private equity, advocates like Roper say that "the promise of improved performance is not necessarily met by the reality.

Virus layoffs top 45.7 mn as US economic distress persists

Chris Stein, AFP•June 18, 2020

Another 1.5 million people filed new claims for jobless benefits in the United States last week, barely changed from the prior week and indicating that layoffs continue (AFP Photo/Olivier DOULIERY)

Washington (AFP) - Layoffs caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the United States have passed 45.7 million, raising fears that despite some positive signs, the economy faces a halting recovery from the downturn.

Another 1.5 million US workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, a decrease of only 58,000 from the prior week and higher overall than analysts expected.

An additional 760,526 filed claims under a program for those who would not normally be eligible for benefits, while the insured unemployment rate showing people still receiving aid was unchanged as of the week ended June 6 at 14.1 percent, with 20.5 million people getting benefits.

"Based on this side of the firing and hiring equation, labor market improvement is muted," tweeted Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.

The world's largest economy has seen a protacted downturn since businesses began closing in mid-March to stop the spread of the coronavirus, with the unemployment rate climbing to 13.3 percent in May and millions of layoffs reported each week.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump reiterated his expectation that the economy would recover by the time voters decide whether to give him a second term.

"We will have created a lot of jobs prior to November 3," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "I expect a tremendous increase in GDP. And we'll be heading for the top. We'll be back."

- Claims 'still so high' -

The wave of jobless claims peaked in late March and has been decreasing ever since. Yet it remains well above any single week reported during the global financial crisis in 2008, even as states move to reopen businesses and get consumers spending again.

Those efforts have paid off in sectors such as retail sales, which the Commerce Department said spiked 17.7 percent in May, nearly double the gain analysts expected, while other data has shown growing optimism among consumers and businesses.

Wall Street has also recovered much of its losses for the year after plunging as the virus arrived, though markets had an uneventful session Thursday, with traders holding back as they weighed the claims data.

"It's not clear why claims are still so high; is it the initial shock still working its way up through businesses away from the consumer-facing jobs lost in the first wave, or is it businesses which thought they could survive now throwing in the towel, or both?" said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

"Either way, these are disappointing numbers and serve to emphasize that a full recovery is going to take a long time."

In congressional testimony earlier in the week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that unless consumers feel confident COVID-19 has been defeated, "a full recovery is unlikely."

"The levels of output and employment remain far below their pre-pandemic levels, and significant uncertainty remains about the timing and strength of the recovery," Powell told the Senate Banking Committee.

The central bank chief has predicted the contraction of GDP in the April-June quarter "is likely to be the most severe on record," and called for more support to the economy.

But the Fed can only lend, not spend, and it will be up to Congress to decide whether to act ahead of the expiration of parts of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act stimulus package in the coming weeks.

The United States has seen the world's worst coronavirus outbreak with more than 117,000 deaths and 2.1 million cases diagnosed.

The epicenter has shifted from New York and states in the northeast to the south and west of the country.

US jobless claims worse than expected despite reopening

BBC  June 18, 2020

A business closed sign in NYC

A further 1.5 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, a higher-than-expected number that signals the economic damage caused by the pandemic is continuing.

Although reopening is underway throughout the country, the number of new applications for benefits fell by just 58,000, the Labor Department said.

It was the 13th week in a row the figures have held above one million.

The claims remain more than double the pre-pandemic record set in 1982.

The smaller-than-expected decline in claims last week likely reflects "some moderation" in the pace of reopening, Wells Fargo economics said.
Human suffering

US employers added a surprise 2.5 million jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%, the Labor Department said earlier in its monthly report.

But most analysts expect the US unemployment rate to be above 9% at the end of the year - close to the high set in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Labor Department's report on Thursday showed more than 29 million people - nearly one in five American workers - continued to collect jobless benefits as of 30 May.

"Like the threat posed by the virus, we must not become complacent about the level of human suffering associated with the economic downturn simply because of its persistence," said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

The head of the US central bank this week warned of "significant uncertainty" regarding the recovery and told Congress he thought further economic relief would be necessary.

UPDATED
Wirecard Suspends Executive After $2.1 Billion Goes Missing

 Eyk Henning, Jan-Patrick Barnert and Sarah Syed

Bloomberg June 18, 2020


View photos
(Bloomberg) -- Wirecard AG has temporarily suspended its outgoing chief operating officer after revealing that auditors couldn’t find about 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in cash, spooking investors and casting doubt on the company’s leadership and survival.

Jan Marsalek has been suspended on a revocable basis until June 30, the company said in a statement on Thursday. James Freis, who had already been tapped to lead the company’s new “integrity, legal and compliance” department starting next month, will begin in his role immediately. Marsalek was due to step down from the COO role to a new position in charge of business development, Wirecard said in May.

The company suffered one of the worst stock slumps in the history of Germany’s benchmark index on Thursday after revealing that auditors had been unable to find billions of cash that was supposed to be held in Asian banks. The company warned loans of as much as 2 billion euros could be terminated if its audited annual report, delayed for the fourth time, was not published by June 19.

Marsalek had tried to get in touch with the two Asian banks and trustees over the past two days to recover the missing money, but wasn’t successful, according to a person familiar with the matter. It’s unclear if the funds can be recovered, the person added.

A representative for Wirecard didn’t respond to requests for comment. Marsalek couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Ernst & Young was unable to confirm the location of the cash in certain trust accounts, and there was evidence that “spurious balance confirmations” had been provided, Wirecard said in a statement on Thursday. That’s about a quarter of the consolidated balance sheet total, Wirecard said.

“We are stunned,” said Ingo Speich, a fund manager at Deka Investments, a top 10 shareholder at the firm. “A new start in terms of personnel is more urgent than ever.”

The escalating crisis also calls into doubt the future of Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun, who is the company’s biggest shareholder. Braun has been at the helm since 2002, building the company from a startup into a payment provider whose technology facilitates transactions around the world.

Braun painted the company as a potential victim in a separate statement. The CEO has been resisting calls to resign and aggressively defending the company against accusations of accounting fraud, led by a series of articles in the Financial Times.

“It is currently unclear whether fraudulent transactions to the detriment of Wirecard AG have occurred,” said Braun, adding that the company will file a complaint against unnamed persons.

The stock dropped as much as 67% to 35.85 euros in Frankfurt on Thursday, the biggest fall on record and the largest for a member of Germany’s prestigious 30-company DAX stock index. Wirecard’s bonds also suffered a record plunge.

Loan Issue

Wirecard warned loans up to 2 billion euros could be terminated if its audited annual report was not published by June 19. Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimated that Wirecard has available cash of around 220 million euros, if it cannot locate the missing $2.1 billion.

“While we would expect Wirecard to seek covenant waivers, if the banks call 2 billion-euros of debt and that is mostly drawn, then we expect investor focus to turn to the balance sheet and liquidity,” said analysts at Morgan Stanley in a note on Thursday.

Wolfgang Donie, analyst at NordLB, warned that the “overall situation at Wirecard can only be described as insupportable and the scandal is now becoming a crisis that is threatening the existence of the company.”

German financial markets regulator BaFin said it is examining Wirecard’s disclosure on Thursday as part of its investigation into whether the company violated rules against market manipulation, according to a spokeswoman.

In September 2018, Wirecard reached a market valuation of 24.6 billion euros, replacing Commerzbank AG in the DAX alongside titans such as Volkswagen AG, Siemens AG, and Deutsche Bank AG. Following Thursday’s collapse, the company is valued at around 6.7 billion euros.

“Wirecard’s retreat could be terminal,” said Neil Campling, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities.

Asian Banks

EY told Wirecard that their results will require additional audits after two unnamed Asian banks that have been managing the company’s escrow were unable to find accounts with about 1.9 billion euros in funds, Wirecard said in an additional statement. Those funds had been set aside for risk management, the company said.

Wirecard said last month that the latest delay in publishing results was due to Ernst & Young needing more time to finish its review, and that the auditor hadn’t found anything material within the scope of its work. Wirecard had previously postponed the results while it was working with KPMG on a probe into allegations about accounting irregularities.

Braun has aggressively fought against allegations that the company’s financials have been mismanaged. Braun has also resisted calls from activist investors TCI Fund Management Ltd. to step down, promising to regain investor confidence and improve compliance and control.

Wirecard headquarters were searched in May by German prosecutors as part of a probe involving the company’s senior management.

Wirecard said in February that full-year revenue rose about 38% to 2.8 billion euros while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization jumped 40% to 785 million euros.

(Updated with Wirecard statement, CEO comment, context on loans.)

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Crypto Card Issuer Wirecard Says It’s Missing $2.1B in ‘German Enron’ Scandal

 Paddy Baker CoinDesk June 18, 2020


Former German blue-chip Wirecard has said a quarter of its total balance sheet is missing after “spurious cash balances” were provided to its auditor, EY.

In an explosive statement Thursday, the Munich-based card issuer, said a total of €1.9 billion ($2.1 billion) could not be accounted for and that some members of the company had purposefully filed false or misleading statements “in order to deceive the auditor and create a wrong perception of the existence of such cash balances.”

Wirecard admitted the accounting hole was roughly a quarter of the company’s total balance sheet.

A former poster child of the German tech scene, Wirecard has been heavily scrutinized over supposed irregularities in its accounting practices. The company was accused last year of fraudulently inflating sales and profit figures, and that it was using client funds held in escrow accounts to boost cash balances.

Wirecard’s share price has tanked. At press time, shares traded at the €36 (~$40) mark, down 70% since Wednesday. The credit card issuer had once been one of Germany’s most prestigious companies, even surpassing Commerzbank with a €24.6 billion( ~$27.6 billion) market valuation in September 2018.

Lionel Barber, former editor-in-chief of the Financial Times, said on Twitter that Wirecard was turning into a German version of the Enron scandal.

Wirecard subsidiary Wirecard Card Solutions branched out into crypto when it became the issuer for crypto payment card providers Crypto.com and TenX. Wirecard had also partnered with TON Labs, the developer house behind Telegram’s blockchain. A court document also claimed Wirecard’s COO participated in the $1.7 billion token sale in 2018.

It’s unclear if Crypto.com, which only rolled out is payment card in Europe last month, is planning on switching its card issuer. CoinDesk reached out for comment but hadn’t heard back by press time.

Wirecard had already delayed the release of its audited financial statements and Thursday was supposed to be the final publication date. Today’s news has now pushed this back indefinitely. The delay means creditors will be able to pull up to €2 billion (~$2.2 billion) worth of loans as of Friday.

Wirecard’s board is now working “intensively” with EY “towards a clarification of the situation.”

 German payments firm Wirecard and its missing billions

Reuters June 18, 2020

(Reuters) - Billions of euros of loans to Wirecard could be called in as early as Friday after the German payments company said its auditor had refused to sign off on its 2019 accounts, knocking more than half the value off its shares on Thursday.

Wirecard said that its auditor EY had informed it that sufficient evidence could not be found for 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in cash balances on trust accounts - or around a quarter of its balance sheet total.

Following are some key facts about the company and pivotal dates in its recent history:

* Founded in 1999, Munich-based Wirecard has 5,800 employees in 26 countries around the world. It processes digital payments for both consumers and businesses and reported revenues of more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in 2018, more than triple the figure in 2014.

* Wirecard's expansion was driven by its chief executive and leading shareholder Markus Braun, an Austrian who has led the company since 2002. It was promoted to Germany's blue chip index in September 2018 when it ousted Commerzbank.

* In Feb. 2019, Singapore police said they were looking into reports by the Financial Times of alleged financial irregularities at Wirecard's local office, allegations that had driven its shares sharply lower.

* In Oct. 2019, Wirecard rejected any impropriety after the Financial Times published documents on the company's accounting practices which it said appeared to indicate an effort to inflate sales and profits.

* An independent investigation by auditor KPMG published in April this year found Wirecard did not provide sufficient documentation to address all allegations of accounting irregularities made by the Financial Times.

Wirecard said the KPMG audit had not uncovered any incriminating evidence to support allegations it manipulated its accounts and it would not restate its accounts for the years 2016 through 2018.

* On June 5, Munich prosecutors said they had searched Wirecard's headquarters and opened proceedings against the payment company's management board as part of a market manipulation probe initiated by financial regulator BaFin.

Prosecutors said the company was suspected of having issued misleading information which may have impacted Wirecard's share price between March 12 and April 22.

($1 = 0.8885 euros)

(Editing by Keith Weir and Alexander Smith)

Wirecard shares plunge after saying auditor can’t find billions of missing cash

Published: June 18, 2020 By Steve Goldstein

The headquarters of the technology and financial services company Wirecard in Aschheim near Munich, Germany, on September 18, 2018. 

Referenced Symbols
WDI
-66.35% WCAGY
+5.27% DAX
-1.13%

Shares in Wirecard lost two-thirds of their value as the German payment processor said on Thursday its auditor can’t find evidence for a quarter of the cash on its balance sheet.

Wirecard WDI, -65.97% WCAGY, +5.27% shares lost 65% as the firm said Ernst & Young said it didn’t have sufficient audit evidence for €1.9 billion euros in cash.

“There are indications that spurious balance confirmations had been provided from the side of the trustee,” the company said.

“Previously issued confirmations by the banks were no longer recognized by the auditor. All parties involved are endeavoring to clarify the matter as quickly as possible,” said Markus Braun, Wirecard chief executive, in a statement. “It is currently unclear whether fraudulent transactions to the detriment of Wirecard AG have occurred.”

Wirecard said the banks managing the escrow accounts are two Asian banks that have investment grade ratings. The trustee, who has been in office since 2019, holds numerous mandates in Asia, Wirecard said.

The DAX DAX, -1.12% component postponed its 2019 annual financial statements for a fourth time, and if not completed by Friday, some €2 billion of loans can be terminated.

It is the latest twist in a long-running saga. The Financial Times reported in October that Wirecard staff appeared to have conspired to fraudulently inflate sales and profit at subsidiaries. Wirecard has denied those charges, while KPMG has conducted a special investigation and said it couldn’t prove the revenue of its third-party acquiring business.

“Even today Wirecard’s long standing CEO Marcus Braun has brazenly tried to portray the company as a victim of fraud and instead tried to focus investors on apparently strong reported revenue growth,” said Barry Norris, manager of the Argonaut Absolute Return Fund, who said the stock was his biggest short position. “During our first-quarter conference call we previously described the company as ‘having more red flags than you would see at a communist rally.’”

Wolfgang Donie, an analyst at NordLB, cut the stock’s rating to sell from hold, and his target price to 20 euros from 80 euros, saying the new allegations are leading to an “existential crisis.”

Germany’s stock-market regulator separately is investigating Braun over insider-trading allegations. Braun held 7% of the stock, according to FactSet data, making him the largest shareholder







Wirecard Bet Hammers Star U.K. Stock Picker

Suzy Waite and Lucca de Paoli
Bloomberg June 18, 2020




(Bloomberg) -- Star U.K. stock picker Alexander Darwall’s investment trust slumped as its biggest holding went into freefall amid accounting concerns.

Wirecard AG accounted for just over 10% of the European Opportunities Trust Plc’s investments as of May 31, according to the website of Devon Equity Management, where Darwall is chief investment officer.

When the German payments firm delayed the release of its annual report for a fourth time on Thursday, shares in Darwall’s trust fell 11.6%. That was the biggest daily drop since 2008.

Devon’s Chief Executive Officer Richard Pavry declined to comment.

Darwall built his reputation over almost a quarter century at Jupiter Fund Management Plc, where he at one time managed nearly 8 billion pounds ($10 billion) focusing on large bets on European firms. Many of his vehicles were heavily invested in Wirecard, which had proven to be a profitable wager for the manager. In the 10 years before Darwall left Jupiter, the German firm’s share price surged from 6 euros to around 150 euros.

Wirecard stock dropped by a record 62% in Frankfurt on Thursday after auditors were unable to find about 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in cash, causing analysts to question liquidity at the German payments firm.

In January, Darwall apologized to investors of the trust about its large stake in Wirecard, and said at the time he would not have out-sized positions in any stock in the future. He also reiterated his confidence in the stock, despite a number of reports questioning the accounts of the growing business.

Investors pulled 4.5 billion pounds from Jupiter in 2019, which CEO Andrew Formica said was “almost entirely” because of Darwall’s decision to leave. His departure was announced in July last year.

(Updates with closing share prices in 3rd and 6th paragraphs)

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/wirecard-committed-elaborate-and.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/wirecard-fights-for-survival-as.html