Episode 1

Race and Corporate Responsibility

Transcript

Kevin Stevens: Welcome to the Q Talks podcast as we launch a miniseries exploring critical issues of race and systemic injustice in business. I am Kevin Stevens, dean of the Quinlan School of Business. Like you, I am sickened by the killing of George Floyd and the long history of systemic racism and violence of us directed toward the black community. I have spent much time listening and reflecting on what the Quinlan School of Business and I can do to move the world toward greater social justice. This podcast miniseries is just part of a list of concrete, measurable steps Quinlan has taken. This miniseries centers on the perspectives of black members of our community to explore critical issues. Please join us in these conversations and other Loyola and Quinlan initiatives as we seek to help end systemic racism.

Abraham Singer: Hello. I'm Abraham Singer, a professor of management and business ethics at Quinlan School of Business. And I am joined by my colleague and friend Cedric Dawkins, who's also professor of management and business ethics here at Loyola. Cedric, how are you doing?

Cedric Dawkins: Great. Great. Glad to be talking. Wish it wasn't under these circumstances, but glad to talk.

Abraham Singer: Agreed. Same here. I'm really excited to get this chance to pick your brain and talk to you a bit, I guess. So the main things we're going to talk about today are obviously the orders of the day, and what's going on in the world, specifically regarding the protests and uprisings in response to the killing of George Floyd. I was wondering if I could maybe actually just ask you a very general question, which is how do you understand what's going on? That is, if somebody who is completely ignorant of American history and American race relations were to come in and you had the responsibility of explaining to them what this moment is, what's going on now. What might you say to them?

Cedric Dawkins: Well, I would say that George Floyd is the proverbial straw. That these pieces of straw have been piled on the backs of Black people continually. And you never know which incident is going to make this real, which incident is going to be that straw that breaks the camel's back. And so they come out of nowhere. They're kind of like a surprise to everyone. Even people who are involved. You didn't know that you were going to be this involved. And that's because you just get so used to carrying around these straws of racism on your back that you're not sensitive to them. And then an incident like this explodes because so many people become sensitized to experiences. They bring things back to mind that you've forgotten about suppressed or whatnot. And that's why I think it's global. Because others in other countries have similar experiences. And this is the incident that brought that all to bear.

Abraham Singer: So aside from the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, which is always going to be something of a surprise, I was wondering if there's anything about the response to this particular killing and sort of the subsequent actions that we've seen. Is there anything that's particularly surprised you?

Cedric Dawkins: Yeah. So I'll mention something that really pleasantly surprised me. Once I heard that there were protests, I fully expected to read that black protesters take to the street over the killing of another black man, this kind of thing. But this wasn't the case. I mean, the protests were hugely multiracial. I mean, the energy, the thought, the passion of the protesters, it was clear that they understood the pain of having another incident like this, of having another black person killed by police. Their signs were thoughtful. They understood the complicity of silence. Whereas some of the signs would say something like White silence equals violence. I was very impressed and surprised that the makeup of the protesters in some cities reflect the makeup of society where the black protesters were in the minority. And I think this kind of understanding is promising. And I was very glad to see it. I hope it continues.

Abraham Singer: Has anything surprised you about the response to the protest? I mean, we've already seen in Minneapolis they've already pledged to disband the police department. We've also seen a specific response from law enforcement institutions and from the White House in various ways. I'm wondering if any of those things surprised you or if those maybe were more not surprising and that was the whole point.

Cedric Dawkins: I think I'm a little bit surprised by them because, you know, you have these situations and generally, the response might be, come back and talk to me after you calm down and don't care so much, and then maybe the people don't come back at all. But the protesters seem to understand this. And they weren't going to leave unless something happened. I think adds to these responses. And I hope it continues because I, I do believe that if they stopped and the attention gets dispersed. And there isn't the energy for reform that we need to have.

Abraham Singer: Wondering if now we can maybe narrow in specifically on some things that are in your scholarly wheelhouse that fit into your teaching and the research you do, which is generally on corporate social responsibility and the ethics of organized labor unions. So one way in which people have sought to keep the conversation going, sort of keeping these issues present in our mind so that we don't lose this push for reform that we're seeing right now is to demand statements or the expectation of statements from organizations. And so we're actually seeing a lot of corporate statements in this regard. I was joking to you the other day that three months ago I found out that every single club, every single business I've ever been affiliated with really doesn't want me to get COVID. And they're really concerned for me. And now I'm learning. They're sending me emails telling me, you know, we don't like racism where we think racism is bad. I tend to have a kind of cynical view about corporate statements like these, where I tend I tend to be like, okay, this is just, you know, you're protecting your bottom line. You're protecting your image. But maybe I'm a bit too cynical. I'm wondering what you make of these sorts of statements and how you interpret them and interpret what you've been seeing lately?

Cedric Dawkins: Well, I think businesses have always been political entities, despite any pronouncements to the contrary and more so in a global economy. And so it's difficult for them to escape when we have this type of societal upset. And they certainly can't ignore what's going on in the lives of their workers and consumers. So some companies are going to make statements that are probably legitimate, heartfelt, backed up by policy. But then the others have to consider whether or not they want to answer questions about why they didn't make a statement. And so you get other statements and the statements can be helpful, but they're superficial, in my view. If there aren't any actions to follow. I mean, if there if there isn't a paragraph in that statement that says and because we feel so strongly about this, here's what we're going to do. They're not particularly helpful. I mean, perhaps they say we're going to divest of any funding for private prisons. We're going to pay our share of taxes to the municipality regardless of the loopholes that are available to us. We're in a build in less affluent areas and make sure that the people who live there aren't displaced. Here's how we're going to do that. Those statements are good. But if you. If you look at the commissioner of the NFL, this statement is worthless. He's making a statement about racism when the league that he leads has blacklisted a player for peacefully protesting that very racism. It's obvious that Colin Kaepernick has the talent to play in the NFL. So how are players going to take this statement from the commissioner? I mean, the players aren't dumb. B, this comes across as disingenuous. But then you look at Michael Jordan, conversely, who's been criticized in the past for avoiding issues that he thought might potentially damage his brand. But his response to this particular circumstance is an example for his corporate peers, in my view, $100 million over ten years to organizations that pursue social justice, social equity, if the statements are part of their attempt to do something. Then I think they're useful. If they're not, then then they fall into your category of, 'Oh, I didn't know you cared.'

Abraham Singer: Yeah. I mean, in terms of. Corporate response is actual corporate response is what you were saying in terms of concrete actions that they can take. Over the past, however many years, when people in corporate social responsibility talked about race or talked about gender issues, it was almost always with these two words attached, which was diversity and inclusion, right? So it was always about we're going to make sure that there's a proportionate number of our board is going to look like America or something like that, or it never actually ever ends up looking like America, but there's fewer men and fewer white men. A lot of people have been critical of this approach to thinking about race from corporations, that is just sort of a very superficial way of dealing with the problem. I'm wondering what you think of that. Do you think diversity and inclusion initiatives are enough? Are they helpful or do you think that there's something beyond that which businesses and corporations ought to be dedicating themselves?

Cedric Dawkins: I think that these types of things are helpful. I mean, this brings to mind a 30% club, which whereby chairs and CEOs commit to increase gender diversity at their board by increasing the number of female members and their boards and e suites to 30%. And the 30% is not arbitrary. But I mean, I won't get into how they get that percentage. I think those should go beyond mere gender considerations. There need to be more than just gender considerations, I should say. And corporate leaders have yet to address issues of bias and merit forthrightly, in my view. I mean, if we take the percentage of diverse individuals at the corporate level and on boards. The numbers imply that white males are simply far, far, far, far better at managing companies. Now, a company won't say that they won't make that statement, but the numbers make that statement and these numbers get accepted uncritically. So at least when we talk about the 30% club or something like this. Then we begin to have some discussion about merit. And in my class, I ask the students what they think about the 30% club. Invariably, a significant portion of them will say it's unfair to white males. And you know, I leave them with the question, well, if I accept your premise that's unfair to white males. Which system of unfairness do you prefer? The old one? Or the new one? And how and why do you make that choice? Then I might say to them, You don't need to answer that question. But I would ask that you think about that question. Similarly in a company, workers will roll their eyes when they're asked to go to a training on implicit bias. But this is something that has to be grappled with. Unless we're going to say this is a meritocracy and five out of 500 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are minorities. Well, where does that leave us? It doesn't leave us in a good place, I would argue.

Abraham Singer: Right. I mean, I guess the response to something like that coming from a very different perspective than the student you just articulated. It's not about it being unfair to white people, but that it's not significantly fair. It doesn't significantly do enough for black people in those oppressed so that if you diversify your board of directors so now you have a diverse group of Wharton graduates, who you know, who then can run their business in such a way that gentrifies neighborhoods and under pays workers who are largely people of color, then, are you actually addressing enough? I mean, maybe a way of phrasing the question. So some people have argued that structural racism is inextricably tied up with corporate capitalism. So Ibram X Kendi I think, makes some version of this argument that goes back a very long way, obviously. I'm wondering what you make of that, A, and then B, if that's true or if some version of that is true, then what could businesses or corporations actually do to help address the problem of structural racism?

Cedric Dawkins: And one of the challenges, you know, I've heard this posed, and I thought it was just an excuse when I first heard it. But I've thought about it some more. And it does concern me a little bit. If corporations become involved in public policy much more aggressively than they are now. Then they may begin to dwarf other voices, I would argue they're going to dwarf other diverse voices because that's what corporations tend to do. They're big, they're powerful. They have money. And so I don't know how much we want corporations involved in this public policy making. And I'm going to get back to that in a minute. But because oppression is institutional, social, economic, political, I don't see that corporations are going to have a lot of success in saying we want to be the ones to fix this. Look at Starbucks' effort in Philadelphia, which was well intended but widely panned. I don't see capitalism providing any incentive to do anything other than what corporations are currently doing. I mean, look at the stock market now. It's completely detached from the several crises that are gripping the country right now. I don't remember a more fraught time in my life than now. I mean, I wasn't around for World War Two, but the stock market is doing great. So if corporations step outside of purely monetary interest, I think they can have some impact. But it does worry me a little bit. I mean, what if Amazon's criteria for locating a new headquarters had been equitable social policy in the metro area? How do they determine that? Who gets to determine that. Amazon themselves? There are such big players in the world that they might make some difference, but the way they're currently constituted, I'd be concerned about them doing a whole lot of it.

Abraham Singer: No, I mean, I think that's right. I think if you think of this as being we need to address this problem in a democratic way, that it's too attuned to social justice. It means not thinking that you have the solution to the problem, but letting the solution come from people. And maybe the way to think about the corporate response is to not try and fix it, but to let themselves be fixed.

Cedric Dawkins: Yeah, that would be. That's a whole different question. Yes. I think they would allow themselves, that they should allow themselves to be fixed, but I don't believe that they will allow themselves to be fixed.

Abraham Singer: So that's actually a really great segway to the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about. So one of the things that's been really exciting as a result of these social movements and protests is a whole bunch of different considerations for how to restructure or rethink policing in the 21st century. And you're seeing a whole host of proposed solutions. Some are more minor like training. So this is what our Mayor Lightfoot has come up with, some more training. Other people say we need to have community oversight. Some people say we need to abolish the police entirely. But one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, because this is right in your wheelhouse, is that there's been a huge focus on police unions. And this has come from the finding that police unions and once police have the ability to collectively bargain, you tend to see rises in police violence in the communities that they are supposed to protect.

Cedric Dawkins: Yes, I saw that.

Abraham Singer: So I was wondering. So you've done a lot of research that I've learned a lot from on this topic. So I'm wondering what you're thinking in general about these sorts of efforts.

Cedric Dawkins: Well, with respect to labour unions, labour unions have resisted discussions of corporate social responsibility and perhaps for good reason being, labour unions didn't want corporations doing these things voluntarily. They wanted them to respect the contracts that they bargained, and they wanted government to regulate corporations appropriately. So they've shied away from corporate social responsibility for that reason. A bad side effect of that is that labour unions haven't reflected a whole lot on their own social responsibility. Which I would argue they have.

Abraham Singer: By social responsibility. What do you mean? What do you mean by that?

Cedric Dawkins: I mean consideration for the footprint that they have in society and what they can do to make sure that that's positive outside of collecting the the fruits of their collective bargaining. I would like to see labor unions consider more fully the idea of moral suasion that they were founded on. I mean, the economic piece, the labor unions have pursued that piece. And by that I mean getting an equitable share of the wealth they helped create. I think they've done that. The Workplace democracy piece. I think that labor unions have done well there, having a voice for workers and having some say in quality of life types of things. But the social dimension, the fact that when labor unions were established in this country, they had to account for the social conditions of those that were to be their members. This isn't emphasized as much. And so when labor unions asked for public support. Then it's not as forthcoming because they're more easily painted as another special interest group when actually labor unions have continued to support immigrant communities and those that don't have an adequate voice in society. But it's not emphasized. I think that labor unions need to respect this portion of their mission and emphasize it more heavily. And this comes into focus because of the power of the police labor unions and because of their collective support for one another to the detriment of those that are supposed to protect in too many cases.

Abraham Singer: In some ways, what you're saying, if I understand you correctly, is unions began as not just economic organizations, but also political and social organizations. And they've become organizations that just think about their members, which obviously unions should do, but they've done that at the cost of imposing harms onto others. And then when you have a union like a police union, it's those effects are exaggerated.

Cedric Dawkins: Exactly. And with the police union problems, it doesn't help to make this bad apple excuse. Because I mean, I'm not a botany person, you know that. But bad apples do ruin the whole bunch because when they rot, they emit gases and that hastens the decay of other apples in the barrel. So bad apples do ruin the whole barrel. Labor unions, the police labor unions have gone whole hog in supporting their bad apples. It's confusing to those of us who are outside why good people would give aid and comfort to bad people. This happens repeatedly. We saw the same thing with Occupy Wall Street. I recall this veteran to come back from Afghanistan or Iraq and he was castigating the police saying, why are you hurt in these people? So I think the labor union, the police union in particular, they have to figure out how they're going to deal with their poor performing members. I mean, as a labor union, we have a labor union has a responsibility, a duty of fair representation to see that the contract is followed on behalf of their membership. But when it's a public union, they have to weigh that against the public good. And if you have a person with 18 complaints outstanding and they're training other officers, this is a shortcoming. And it's going to pollute the entire police union.

Abraham Singer: Right? I mean, yeah, like, if the police just say it's just one what bad apple. It's like, yeah, but you're the fucking farmer. Like, that's not an excuse. I mean, so maybe we could talk specifically about the way that works, right? So like what we see are sometimes we see efforts to hold these, quote unquote, bad apples responsible, and then we see the fraternity of police or other organizations, other police unions, benevolent societies and so forth, they're able to somehow overturn that. Can you walk us through how they're able to do that, how that works? Exactly how do unions contribute to this problem in specific ways?

Cedric Dawkins: Well, if you're a representative in a bargaining unit. Let's say your grievance officer, then it wouldn't be unusual for a grievance officer to say to an administrator, if you want to discipline or terminate one of my members, then you can do so. But you have to do so under the terms of the contract. And that's the kicker. Under the terms of the contract. And so we've seen on television, you know, cases of a law trial where it gets thrown out on a technicality. This kind of thing happens. That means that managers need to do X, Y and Z. Precisely. And in that order. And if they don't, then they're subject to losing an arbitration hearing. And then when they're bargaining the contract, the municipality may let something go in order to get the contract signed, thinking, you know, the chances of this coming up are pretty low, and if it does come up and we'll just go to arbitration. But in the meantime, we'll sign this contract. And so they get stuck with poor contracts. And for the union's part, the union might say, you know, this member is way out of order, but if we don't represent him or her, then we're going to get hit with the duty of fair representation complaint. And that's going to hurt us with the remainder of the membership. So it can get to be a complex and political exercise both with management and within the union itself. And this is the difficult part of, you know, where you continually hearing people say the vast majority of officers do their job honorably, we know from human resource management manuals that the vast majority of the manual is written. For the few hell raisers in the unit. That's the way discipline works. It's going to be I mean, for a police union, it's got to be the same way.

Abraham Singer: So, I mean the way you describe that was really helpful for me because it shows just how hard of a problem it is, right? Because you can if you went the way you framed it, you could sort of understand the incentives for why they see themselves as needing to protect these people. But so some people have responded like, well, that's the problem. And so some people have called for abolition of police unions. They say, you know, police officers shouldn't be unionized. And what's interesting to me is you're seeing people within the labor movement start to say this in ways that I'm sort of very surprised by. I'm of two minds of this. I was hoping you can help me resolve this, which is I, as I know you are very in favor of unionization and support labor movement very strongly. But I also find something kind of compelling about the argument for abolishing police unions. How do you make sense of this?

Cedric Dawkins: I'm glad. I'm glad that there are people within the labor movement calling for the abolition of police unions. But I don't want them to be successful. I just want them to make this case. I think that morally the labor movement is obligated to deal with its bad apples the same way the police union is obligated to deal with its bad apples. There have been times in the history of labor unions, when the AFL-CIO, they've kicked out the Teamsters. They've kicked out the Bakers. So they've kicked unions out of corrupt activity. And this needs to be on the table because if it's not, the implication is that we'll do what we need to do to protect our own, which ironically, is what the police unions are saying. What's scary about it, even more so is, I mean, in some provinces in Canada, you'll know this because you spend time there like I have, they have back to work legislation. And that means that if negotiations with a public labor union are at an impasse and I'm not sure how they determine what an impasse is, then the legislature can vote them back to work. In other words, the legislature can just break that strike. And I've seen this happen with the teacher's union in Nova Scotia. With the nurses union in Nova Scotia. And I would ask people, how hard are you going to bargain if you know that in the end you can simply force the striking workers back? The deck is stacked in favor of the premier. I'm afraid of this kind of thing confronting public labor union workers here in the US. Because they wouldn't stand strongly enough on this issue of police, labor unions and perhaps expelling those that don't want to reform. I mean, these 57 police officers in Buffalo who resigned in support of the two officers that shove this older man to the ground. Think about how that looks to the public. This is the hill you want to die on? Really? If the labor movement doesn't address that type of situation, then I'm afraid that it's going to redound badly for all of us. I'm saying us I'm not in a union, but that's how I feel about it.

Abraham Singer: You're heartened by and you think we should be seeing the labor movement being critical of police unions. And that's a that's a good sign. But you did say you don't want them abolished. And I'm curious what you're thinking of that is.

Cedric Dawkins: I think that the criticism is necessary. I think that the internal debate and the internal strife are necessary. It's a cleansing or a bloodletting of sorts. I think it's good that the public knows this, that the public knows that we are vexed by this in the same way that they are vexed by this. But I still think that getting rid of police unions, it's a nose in the tent. And if that happens, then we're going to arguments about schoolteachers, nurses, public transit workers. It's not going to stop with police unions, but I think that the public needs to see that the labor movement is having an honest discussion about this and will make every effort to discipline its own. If the public has to do it, then I think it's detrimental to the labor movement at large.

Abraham Singer: So we're just about out of time. I'm wondering if there's any last words you want to leave us with or any last thoughts that we didn't get to touch on that you'd like to close us out with?

Cedric Dawkins: Well, you know, I had said that I thought the discussion of getting rid of police unions was a discussion that needs to be had, but I didn't want it to be successful in the end. I think that labour unions have to be more aware of the environment within which they're operating. Now we know that corporate social responsibility is sometimes just a marketing ploy, but it's an effective marketing ploy. I would argue that labor unions are already doing these types of things, but they don't mention them because they're so taken for granted. The labor unions need to be in that discussion and they need to calibrate their commitment to one another versus their commitment to the public good, particularly public labor unions.

Abraham Singer: Beautiful. Cedric, thank you so much for letting me ask you some questions and for your really brilliant and wonderful responses.

Cedric Dawkins: I enjoyed it. We'll do it some more.

Abraham Singer: Absolutely.

Speaker3: This has been an episode of the Q Talks podcast where we seek to marry the wisdom of the Quinlan community with the issues of today. Our thanks to Cedric Dawkins and Abraham Singer for being a part of our conversation. Those listeners who are interested in learning more about anti racism are encouraged to watch the documentary I Am Not Your Negro by Raoul Peck or read the book White Fragility Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin D'Angelo. Many thanks to Dean Kevin Stephens for his generous support of this project. Matt Shiley, our student producer for editing this episode. Loyola School of Communication and WLUW for their continued collaboration. Please take a minute to support us by rating and reviewing our episodes to help us expand our reach. Thank you for listening and we hope you join us next time.