Corporate Social Responsibility
aaron chatterji & siona listokin
Corporate Social Irresponsibility
Progressives need to end their fixation with corporate social responsibility—and focus on reform that actually works.
fter years spent fruitlessly attempting to organize Wal-Mart, unions and other liberal activist groups have taken a new tack: a public campaign to force the Bentonville behemoth to become more socially responsible. In 2005, Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), created Wal-Mart Watch, with an annual budget of $5 million, devoted exclusively to making Wal-Mart “a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen.” At almost the exact same time, a parallel group called Wake Up Wal-Mart launched, with much the same goal. In the nearly two years since, both Wal-Mart and its new opponents have spent millions dueling in the public and legislative spheres. The labor-backed groups have managed to stop Wal-Mart from opening stores in a number of communities and won isolated victories in court to force the company to aaron chatterji is an assistant professor of management at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and a fellow at the Center for American Progress. siona listokin is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.
52
winter 2007
A
increase benefit expenditures. Yet they have not fundamentally altered WalMart’s behavior: Its wages are unchanged, its benefits are still restrictive, and its workers are still non-unionized. All of which raises an important question: Can progressives really change Wal-Mart—or any other company, for that matter? And if they can, at what cost? A generation of activists has been raised on the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR)—that large corporations can be cajoled into paying employees better, being more environmentally responsible, improving labor conditions in developing countries, retaining more American workers, embracing diversity, and donating money to fix inner-city
Corporate Social Irresponsibility
Progressives need to end their fixation with corporate social responsibility—and focus on reform that actually works.
fter years spent fruitlessly attempting to organize Wal-Mart, unions and other liberal activist groups have taken a new tack: a public campaign to force the Bentonville behemoth to become more socially responsible. In 2005, Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), created Wal-Mart Watch, with an annual budget of $5 million, devoted exclusively to making Wal-Mart “a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen.” At almost the exact same time, a parallel group called Wake Up Wal-Mart launched, with much the same goal. In the nearly two years since, both Wal-Mart and its new opponents have spent millions dueling in the public and legislative spheres. The labor-backed groups have managed to stop Wal-Mart from opening stores in a number of communities and won isolated victories in court to force the company to aaron chatterji is an assistant professor of management at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and a fellow at the Center for American Progress. siona listokin is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.
52
winter 2007
A
increase benefit expenditures. Yet they have not fundamentally altered WalMart’s behavior: Its wages are unchanged, its benefits are still restrictive, and its workers are still non-unionized. All of which raises an important question: Can progressives really change Wal-Mart—or any other company, for that matter? And if they can, at what cost? A generation of activists has been raised on the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR)—that large corporations can be cajoled into paying employees better, being more environmentally responsible, improving labor conditions in developing countries, retaining more American workers, embracing diversity, and donating money to fix inner-city