Employer Brand Rankings: February 2023
February was not a good month for employer behavior. Turns out the United States has a child labor problem, and already vulnerable people, like migrant children, are particularly at risk.
But reporters are doing the good work of exposing bad actors and the Department of Labor has vowed to crack down. Keep busting it up, boys.
Bottom of the Barrel
5. Salesforce
Salesforce laid off 8,000 employees in January, yet, somehow, still has $10 million per year to pay Matthew McConaughey for his “creative services.” Tom Dotan and Katherine Bindley at The Wall Street Journal broke the story in February.
4. Congress
The U.S. House of Representatives introduced the SHOW UP Act in February, which, if it passes, would end Covid-era remote work options. The acronym stands for Stop Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems, an outright hostile message to the federal employees who make their jobs possible.
3. Hyundai
Automotive manufacturer Hyundai and its sister company Kia are “in talks” with the DOL after a Reuters investigation uncovered multiple instances of child labor in at least four manufacturing plants in the companies’ supply chains
2. Packers Sanitation Services
Meatpacking company Packers Sanitation Services “allegedly employed minors as young as 13 to use dangerous chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws and other equipment,” reports Lauren Kaori Gurley for The Washington Post.
The DOL fined the company $1.5 million for employing more than a hundred children to clean its plants. Gurley reported that the plants are operated by massive meat and poultry producers, including JBS Foods, Tyson, and Cargill.
1. Norfolk Southern
The Teamsters union sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine raising the alarm about employee treatment following the chemical spill in East Palestine.
According to Abigail Weinberg for Mother Jones, “a Norfolk Southern worker and Teamsters union rep denounced the rail company’s cost-cutting business model, alleging that workers who were deployed to clean up February’s vinyl chloride spill have experienced adverse health effects” and were not provided with the appropriate PPE.
The company’s treatment of its employees in the wake of the crash is not the only focus of the letter. Weinberg reports that it also notes “the implementation of ‘precision scheduled railroading,’ . . . a system that involves increasing the lengths of trains while slashing the number of employees, as one of the primary ways that the company has prioritized profit over the safety and well-being of its workers.”
Cream of the Crop
4. Lowe’s
Catherine Muccigrosso reports for The Charlotte Observer that Lowe’s home improvement “is giving $90 million worth of bonuses to hourly employees and $70 million incremental bonuses to assistant store managers and supply chain supervisors nationwide.”
3. The Home Depot
Following a healthy quarterly earnings report, The Home Depot announced that it will raise employee wages. “Beginning in the first quarter, [The Home Depot] will invest an additional $1 billion in annualized compensation for front-line, hourly associates,” reports HR Dive.
2. Chick-fil-A
Fast food chain Chick-fil-A has opened a pop-up rest stop for food delivery workers in Manhattan. The Brake Room provides a comfortable lounge, free coffee, device charging, and bathrooms to people delivering food via apps like UberEats and Postmates.
1. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office
Arizona’s new attorney general Kris Mayes says she will make it a priority to protect election officials in her state. Hayes’ predecessor created a task force to investigate phony election fraud claims, and she has reassigned the team to instead focus on protecting voting rights and election officials.
Mayes told The Guardian, “I want to be very clear that we will prosecute anyone who engages in death threats or attempts to interfere in the conduct of our elections.”
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter based in Richmond, VA, who covers the future of work and women’s experience in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, Quartz at Work, and Digiday’s Worklife.news, among others.
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