article by Barbara Thau via forbes.com
For Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, caramel macchiatos and pumpkin spice lattes are as integral to the coffee-chain’s brand as its college tuition reimbursement and veterans hiring programs.
Now Schultz is once again flexing Starbucks’ “conscious capitalism” muscles with a plan to hire 10,000 refugees at its restaurants worldwide, he said in a letter to employees on Jan. 29 that’s posted on Starbucks’s website.
The move is a swift, direct response to Donald Trump’s executive order to effectively ban people from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. (including Somalia and Sudan), including refugees fleeing wars. As Schultz sees it, Starbucks’ new pledge is designed to ring an alarm bell with a vigor that the moment calls for.
“We are living in an unprecedented time, one in which we are witness to the conscience of our country, and the promise of the American Dream, being called into question,” he said in the letter. “These uncertain times call for different measures and communication tools than we have used in the past.”
Starbucks is hashing together a plan to hire 10,000 of the world’s 65 million refugees over the next five years in the 75 countries where it operates stores, starting with the U.S. market.
Under Schultz’s direction, Starbucks has long viewed business and what’s been called ethical retailing, or conscious capitalism, as related paths. And Schultz has carved a distinct niche as a social-activist CEO, of sorts. He has repeatedly pointed to his upbringing in a low-income family in the Bayview Housing projects in Brooklyn New York as informing his philanthropic outlook.
It’s one that’s reflected in Starbucks’ policies, such as its pioneering move in 1988 to offer health insurance for part time workers, to backing causes from high unemployment to countering racism.
To read more, go to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/barbarathau/2017/01/30/starbucks-to-hire-10000-refugees-in-latest-expression-of-conscious-capitalism/#5610d9cb622c
Posts tagged as “Muslim ban”
article by Katie Mettler via washingtonpost.com
In the weeks after the Nov. 8 election, when Donald Trump secured a surprise victory to become president of the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union received so much money in online donations — more than $15 million — that an official with the 100-year-old organization called the flood “unprecedented in our history.”
That was before Trump had even sworn the oath of office. Eleven days ago he did just that, then spent his first week as president signing executive orders and making good on some of his campaign promises, spurring massive protests across the country and the world — about women’s rights, the environment and what Trump calls his “extreme vetting” of travelers to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim nations.
Amid the swift and intense backlash, the ACLU seems once again to be benefiting directly.This weekend alone, the civil liberties group received more than $24 million in online donations from 356,306 people, a spokesman told The Washington Post early Monday morning, a total that supersedes its annual online donations by six times.
In an interview with CNN, the ACLU had a one-word reaction: “Wow.” Before the donations had soared to $24 million, Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director, told Yahoo News he was blown away by the influx.“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Romero told Yahoo News. “People are fired up and want to be engaged. What we’ve seen is an unprecedented public reaction to the challenges of the Trump administration.”
To read full article, go to: The ACLU says it got $24 million in online donations this weekend, six times its yearly average – The Washington Post
article by Brandee Sanders via newsone.com
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York put a temporary ban on an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on Saturday that was put in place to prevent Syrian refugees and travelers from Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. According to the Huffington Post, Donnelly declared that the ban “violates the rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”
From the Huffington Post:
The American Civil Liberties Union, immigrants’ rights groups and refugee relief organizations had filed the action in federal court Saturday morning on behalf of two Iraqi nationals who were detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, asking for a declaration that the order is unconstitutional and requesting an injunction to prevent its implementation against other travelers who may be equally harmed.
“The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioners and others similarly situated violates the rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution,” U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York wrote in her order.
The legal action named Trump in his official capacity as president, as well as the Department of Homeland Security and other high-ranking officials. Although temporary and subject to appeal, it represents the first major constitutional setback faced by the new administration.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt says that the ruling will protect people from other countries who have permission to be in the U.S. “This ruling preserves the status quo and ensures that people who have been granted permission to be in this country are not illegally removed off U.S. soil,” he told the Huffington Post.
To read more, go to: Brooklyn Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Muslim Ban | News One