Comptroller Stringer, NYC Funds Escalate Campaign Calling on Major Companies to Publicly Disclose Workforce Demographics

(New York, NY) – Today, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, on behalf of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers Retirement System of the City of New York and New York City Board of Education Retirement System (the “Systems”), announced that the first 24 shareholder proposals have been submitted to S&P 100 companies requesting that they publicly disclose the composition of their workforces by race, ethnicity, and gender. All of the companies receiving proposals were unresponsive to a prior request as part of national campaign launched in July 2020 by Comptroller Stringer and the Retirement Systems’ which called on S&P 100 companies to match their public statements in support of racial equality, diversity and inclusion with concrete action by publicly disclosing their annual EEO-1 workforce demographic data. As a direct result of the campaign, 40 additional S&P 100 companies will disclose their Consolidated EEO-1 Report, representing a 286% increase of S&P 100 companies and a substantial majority of the campaign’s 67 focus companies.

“Racism must be fought with concrete action – not corporate slogans. We launched this campaign back in July because we know how important it is for investors to hold America’s largest corporations accountable for their public commitments to diversity and racial justice. Disclosure will enable companies to demonstrate their impact in their own workplaces and set the tone for EEO-1 disclosure across U.S. public companies,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “Publicly disclosing the demographics of employees by race, gender, and ethnicity – including and most notably those in leadership and senior management positions – will provide critical information for shareowners to better understand workforce practices, identify areas for improvement, and benchmark diversity performance. Numerous studies support the fact that businesses are strongest in both performance and profitability when their workforce reflects the diversity of America. There’s still plenty of work to do to ensure diversity and inclusion in business, but in partnership with the New York City Retirement Systems, we will continue expanding this important campaign to hold companies accountable and create meaningful, systemic change in corporate America.”

The Consolidated EEO-1 Report is the “gold standard” for diversity disclosure and will enable investors to evaluate the performance of portfolio companies in terms of their ability to hire, retain, and promote employees of color and women. Prior to the July launch of the Comptroller’ campaign , there were 31 public companies that disclosed their Consolidated EEO-1 Report, of which 14 were in the S&P 100.

In their proposals, the Comptroller and the Systems request the Consolidated EEO-1 Report itself, which provides the raw number for each employment category. This disclosure gives investors and the public a comprehensive breakdown of a company’s U.S. workforce by race, ethnicity and gender according to 10 employment categories, including, importantly, senior management, defined to incorporate individuals within two reporting levels of the CEO.

Comptroller Stringer and the Systems submitted shareholder proposals to the following S&P 100 companies requesting EEO-1 disclosures:

3M Company

Abbott Laboratories

Caterpillar Inc.

Comcast Corporation

CVS Health Corporation

DuPont de Nemours, Inc.

Eli Lilly and Company

FedEx Corporation

Ford

International Business Machines Corporation

Johnson & Johnson

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Lowes Companies, Inc.

McDonald’s Corporation

Netflix, Inc.

NIKE, Inc.

The Boeing Company

The Charles Schwab Corporation

The Home Depot, Inc.

The Kraft Heinz Company

The Procter & Gamble Company

Union Pacific Corporation

United Parcel Service, Inc.

Walmart Inc.

The 24 proposals will go to a vote at the companies’ 2021 annual shareholder meetings. The Comptroller expects to submit proposals to additional companies in the coming months.

Comptroller Stringer and the Systems have secured EEO-1 disclosures or disclosure commitments from the following 40 S&P 100 companies since July 2020. As a result of these efforts, a substantial majority of all S&P 100 companies will be more transparent:

AbbVie Inc.

Altria Group, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc.

American International Group, Inc.

American Tower Corporation (REIT)

Amgen Inc.

AT&T Inc.

Biogen Inc.

BlackRock, Inc.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Capital One Financial Corporation

Chevron Corporation

Citigroup Inc.

ConocoPhillips

Dow Inc.

Duke Energy Corporation

Exelon Corporation

General Motors Company

Gilead Sciences, Inc.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Mastercard Incorporated

Medtronic plc

MetLife, Inc.

Mondelez International, Inc.

Morgan Stanley

PayPal Holdings, Inc.

PepsiCo, Inc.

Pfizer Inc.

QUALCOMM Incorporated

Starbucks Corporation

Target Corporation

The Allstate Corporation

The Coca-Cola Company

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

The Southern Company

U.S. Bancorp

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated

Verizon Communications Inc.

Visa Inc.

Wells Fargo & Company

Annual disclosure of the Consolidated EEO-1 Report submitted to the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provides investors with critical information that disclosure of diversity metrics selectively collected by management or partial EEO-1 disclosure does not. In particular, full public disclosure provides:

• Standardized, quantitative, relevant and comparable employment data across companies and industries, so that investors can assess the representation and progress of black employees and other employees of color and women at various levels of the corporation;
• Specific data on senior management diversity – in addition to setting a strong tone at the top for diversity, research by McKinsey suggests that companies in the top quartile for gender and ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams have stronger financial performance;
• Particularized data that will allow investors to assess the representation and progress of specific racial and ethnic groups by gender, such as black female employees. Disclosing only percentage representations prohibits meaningful, year-over-year comparisons.

Disclosure of EEO-1 Report data provides a cost-effective means to demonstrate substantive progress in diversity and inclusion practices since companies already collect the data for submission to the EEOC. Some companies resist disclosing their Consolidated EEO-1 Report on the basis that the mandated categories do not align with their particular organizational structure. However, disclosure of EEO-1 Report data does not preclude a company from disclosing any other data that management believes reflect the company’s organizational structure or demonstrates its diversity.

The proposals are the next step in a campaign launched in July by Comptroller Stringer, on behalf of the Systems, calling on 67 companies to match their statements affirming their commitments to racial equality and diversity and inclusion with concrete action, by publicly disclosing their annual EEO-1 Report data. Since July, 40 of the 67 companies now disclose or have committed to disclose their EEO-1 Report. The Comptroller’s campaign resulted in a 286% increase to at least 54 S&P 100 companies becoming more transparent about their employees.

For a sample proposal, click here.

In addition to Comptroller Stringer, the participating New York City Retirement Systems’ trustees are:

New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS): Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Representative, John Adler (Chair); New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams; Borough Presidents: Gale Brewer (Manhattan), Donovan Richards (Queens), Eric Adams (Brooklyn), James Oddo (Staten Island), and Ruben Diaz, Jr. (Bronx); Henry Garrido, Executive Director, District Council 37, AFSCME; Tony Utano, President Transport Workers Union Local 100; Gregory Floyd, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237.

Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS): Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Appointee, John Adler; Chancellor’s Representative, Lindsey Oates, New York City Department of Education; Natalie Green Giles; and Debra Penny (Chair), Thomas Brown and David Kazansky, all of the United Federation of Teachers.

Board of Education Retirement System (BERS): Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza; Mayoral: Isaac Carmignami, Natalie Green Giles, Eric C. Henry Vanessa Leung, Gary Linnen, Lori Podvesker, Shannon Waite, Michael Kraft (Manhattan BP), Debrorah Dillingham (Queens BP), April Chapman (Brooklyn BP), Geneal Chacon (Bronx BP) and Peter Calandrella (Staten Island BP); Thomas C. Sheppard, Kathy Park Price, Natalie Green Giles, Russell Buckley, Chris Attianese, Shaun D. Francois; and employee members John Maderich of the IUOE Local 891 and Donald Nesbit of District Council 37, Local 372.

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