When companies prize investors above all, they’ll do anything to increase their stock price, and that’s not good for workers.
Juno entered the ride-hailing market in New York City with a simple proposition: it was going to treat its drivers better than its competitors, notably Uber, did theirs—and do “something that was socially responsible,” as one of Juno’s co-founders, Talmon Marco, told me last fall. In practice, that meant drivers would keep a bigger part of their fares and be eligible for a form of stock ownership in the company. But, on April 26th, when an Israeli company named Gett announced that it was buying Juno for two hundred million dollars, that changed.
.. Some call it conscious or socially responsible capitalism, but the basic idea is that any business has multiple stakeholders—not just owners but employees, consumers, and also the community—and each of their interests should be taken into account.
.. Michael Jensen, whose “agency theory,” developed in the nineteen-eighties, sought to align the interests of managers with those of the company’s investors.
.. a Citigroup analyst named Kevin Crissey wrote in a note that was sent to the bank’s clients. “Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers.” Jamie Baker, of JPMorgan, also chimed in: “We are troubled by AAL’s wealth transfer of nearly $1 billion to its labor groups.”
- .. Both Costco and Whole Foods .. paying workers above the bare minimum.
- .. Unilever, has made reducing the company’s carbon footprint a priority, recently fought off a takeover bid from Kraft Heinz, which is known for its ruthless cost-cutting.
- .. Maple, which made the nearly unheard-of decision to offer health benefits and employee status to its food-delivery people, folded in recent months.
- .. Etsy .. has lost most of its stock-market value since it went public, in 2015
.. the company and agreed to cut its driver stock awards because they couldn’t find new investors to finance its growth.
.. “The interesting thing is always to ask them, ‘What’s the value proposition for employees? Why should these people work only for the interest of the shareholders? How are you going to get people to work hard?’ ” He went on, “I don’t think they have an answer.”
.. “If you are a millionaire and all around you is poor, you have no safety,” Sarder, who comes from Bangladesh, said. “Happiness is there when everyone has happiness.”