LTP News Sharing:
Washington, D.C. – Starbucks shareholders will have the opportunity this week to weigh in on the company’s lack of health care coverage for gender detransition services, prompted by a proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP).
Steve Milloy
“Starbucks says it will pay for an employee, and presumably an employee’s covered family members, to transition from one gender to another. But Starbucks management will not pay for an employee or an employee’s covered family members to detransition,” FEP Executive Director Steve Milloy will tell shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting. “We are asking for a report from management on the consequences of this obvious and arbitrary discrimination.”
Proposal 6 requests that Starbucks’s board evaluate and issue a report on “financial risks associated with the company’s apparent exclusion of detransitioning in its health care coverage.”
In the proposal’s supporting statement, FEP notes that “the Supreme Court has clarified that employers cannot discriminate based on gender identity or expression when making employment decisions (including health care), without violating Title VII…. Refusal to provide detransition services could expose Starbucks to costly anti-discrimination lawsuits involving damages and sanctions from private plaintiffs and the government.”
“If transitioning is health care and a medical benefit, why is detransitioning not one? What if you transitioned and later decide you want to transition back? What is the corporate attitude? Tough luck,” Milloy will tell shareholders. “Transitioning costs upwards of $60,000. That is quite a benefit for employees who can earn as little as $16,000 per year and qualify for the benefit.”
Fellow shareholder activist group the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has also encouraged its network to support Proposal 6, noting that “if Starbucks continues to subsidize these procedures while excluding or ignoring the necessary ‘reparative’ care for detransitioners, it is inviting a class-action avalanche that will dwarf the cost of a simple report.”
“Only covering transitioning and not detransitioning is unfair, discriminatory and potentially costly and injurious to the corporation’s reputation,” Milloy will tell shareholders. “Maybe we’ll talk about the business sense of offering super lavish, optional health benefits next year.”
In its Proxy Navigator proxy voting guide, FEP provides recommendations regarding many of the proposals listed in Starbucks’ proxy statement, urging Starbucks shareholders to vote as follows:
AGAINST Proposal 1 (election of the board of directors)
FOR Proposal 4 (majority voting, sponsored by The Accountability Board)
FOR Proposal 5 (independent board chair, sponsored by NLPC)
FOR Proposal 6 (detransition coverage, sponsored by the National Center’s FEP)
FOR Proposal 7 (gender care, sponsored by Bowyer Research)
FOR Proposal 8 (politicized partners, sponsored by The Heritage Foundation)
FOR Proposal 9 (religious charities, sponsored by IWP Capital)
More background on these recommendations can be found at Proxy Navigator.
About
The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 60,000 active recent contributors.
The Free Enterprise Project, the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life, aims to push corporations to respect their fiduciary obligations and to stay out of political and social engineering. More relevant information about individual corporations and FEP’s proxy voting recommendations (including how to automate voting your values) can be found in FEP’s mobile and web app, ProxyNavigator.
Contributions are tax-deductible and may be earmarked for the Free Enterprise Project. Sign up for email updates at https://nationalcenter.org/subscribe/.
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Author: The National Center
