• Ford Motor told employees in an internal communication that it had taken “a fresh look” at its DEI policies and practices over the past year.
  • Following that review, the automaker said it will not use quotas for minority dealerships or suppliers, adding that it does not have hiring quotas.
  • The company also will stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, as well as various other “best places to work” lists.
  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I, for one, am shocked that the company founded by GREAT AMERICAN Henry Ford would be against the ideas of things like diversity, equity or inclusion. I know that the PATRIOT Henry Ford would definitely be in favor of those things, but the Jews would never let him tell anyone.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Hello fellow Jew! Would you like to join me in suppressing Henry Ford’s positive views on race relations? We might even have time to work our way reverse-alphabetically through Edison, Disney, and Dahl.

  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 months ago

    On the bright side, all these companies walking away from DEI policies make the Corporate Equity Index’s lists a lot more useful for folks who want to vote with their wallet.

    For a while it felt like having a company’s name on the list was perfunctory, which makes it unremarkable.

    Doing the right thing before/after it being popular is remarkable, and worthy of my patronage.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      They should set up a list with lagging inclusion to capture companies that are more proactive in pursuing good policy, possibly indicating that they actually believe in it.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Surely now that conservatives have seen putting pressure on these businesses is effective in getting them to drop Diversity and Inclusion programs, they’ll have no further demands… Right?

    • Doug Holland@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The big mistake would be imagining that Ford or other giant corporations ever gave a damn about diversity, equality in the workplace, etc.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      The issue is, it means you may not be putting the best person for a position, in that position. Affirmative action stuff all sounds great until you see someone with better performance, more experience, and qualifications get passed by on a promotion because of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.

      Where I work does unbiased testing based out of standard books that questions are pulled from so there’s no bias. Unfortunately not every field can do such a thing.

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    So doesn’t this mean that all this DEI initiatives were corporate pandering and not a conspiracy by “the radical left” who hate freedom and want to implement “Marxism”??? Cause that’s what conservatives have been saying all this time.

    • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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      4 months ago

      Of course it was all corporate pandering, but conservatives don’t even want that. Pandering means acknowledging minorities exist and God’s Own Party wants minorities to feel excluded, so they can be better exploited.

      • qarbone@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I do believe the thread owner was engaging in a spot of sarcasm, my good person.

      • Drusas@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        I’m surprised SJW has disappeared from the nomenclature. It would be a lot more relevant now than it was back in its day.

        • tb_@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          People have caught onto what they really mean by “anti-sjw”, so they’ve moved onto the next buzzword. And then the next, and the next.

          Whatever it takes to keep their plausible deniability in front of the media that they aren’t simply racist. Gotta keep that mainstream appeal.

  • NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It doesn’t matter who you hire when you are just going to lay them off and beg the government for money anyway.

        • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          There’s a big difference between receiving money as a loan to do something the government wants (in this case, build electric vehicles) and begging the government for money because you’re broke. During the recession Ford was notable for being the only major American car company that didn’t ask for a bailout. Their American employee headcount fluctuates year to year but it’s up over the last decade btw.

            • psmgx@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Demand in the US just isn’t there for EVs – the market is mostly saturated. That’s why Tesla is having trouble, too.

              • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 months ago

                The demand is there. Carmakers don’t want to build affordable EVs. They just want to build trucks and SUVs.

                The 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs is more about protecting the Big Three legacy carmakers than anything else.

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Oh, so the government doing its job to incentivize the market to move in positive directions and closures which are highly coordinated and agreed to by the union are bad now? Lemmy, never change.

          • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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            4 months ago

            And I’m sure all the prisoners in the US are so thankful to have such an impressive rehabilitation system to ensure they don’t commit more crimes.

            Just because the “official” purpose is one thing, don’t think for a second anyone who profits from it gives a shit. From the company manager who gets a bonus to the politician they paid off.

  • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Ah another company admitting to only starting their program to avoid lawsuits. It’s not too surprising because many companies didn’t really commit to whatever program they claimed to start.

  • restingboredface@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    There isn’t the same level of pressure to commit to DEI as their is to stop it, and those supporting the latter position are probably seen as likely Ford customers.

    I’m sure cutting investment in any program also saves them money, which has to be seen as a benefit too.

  • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Nobody should have quotas for hiring based on characteristics that are unchangeable. Hiring should be based on ability and skill. Interviews should be conducted blindly and the interviewers should be required to be diverse to avoid bias.

    • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Utopic. Even if names are removed and replaced with a random generated number and interviews are done through text message exchange, significant bias will still show through. The interviewer will pick up on writing styles or maybe something in their education that gives a hint. The reason these quotas exist is because minority groups are discriminated against even by people who try not to. It is human nature to gravitate towards what you are comfortable with.

      Source: I run a firm in the tech sector and have been in a hiring position for about 25 years.

      PS: Bias is not exclusive to CIS straight white people as many articles try to allude to. Some of our clients have an ongoing struggle with entrenched Indian employees only hiring CIS straight Indians and caste discrimination.

      • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        As someone who’s also been heavily involved in the hiring side I have to agree with you. I’ve seen the impact of quotas and while they are a blunt instrument with their own problems for sure they do ultimately work.

      • a lil bee 🐝@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        “cis” isn’t an acronym, FYI. It’s just short for “cisgender” and doesn’t need to be capitalized. No shade intended at all, just wanted to let you know.

        • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          My phone always capitalizes it, probably because I have used CIS for “computer information systems” in the past.

    • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I think it’s worth picking this apart a bit to show just how complicated it all is. Your motivation seems right, but there’s an inherent contradiction in your suggestion. One of the purposes of DEI best practices is to have BIPOC people in the room at all levels of the organization, in decision-making roles, and normal worker roles. It helps everyone feel welcome, heard, and equal. Often this feeling is intangible but has very real impacts on how works gets done, how coworkers interact with each other, and how satisfied the workforce is. If you have a meeting full of diverse staff, its much less likely that the white folks will spew microaggressions and make everyone else uncomfortable.

      That means yes, interviewers should absolutely be diverse themselves, because they’ll typically hire a more diverse workforce. But how do you suggest that we require interviewers be diverse to avoid bias? We need DEI training and enforceable policies for that. So we’re stuck in a vicious cycle.

    • BlackRing
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      4 months ago

      Yes! Yes they should. I’m not sure they can be. Not with so many companies out there.

      I work for a company in a location in a modest sized upper Midwest town. It is a decidedly white area. Yet, even with rather easy hiring requirements, the store is whiter than the area by a considerable margin. The GM sees fit to refuse staffing certain departments with women. At all. He’s openly used the n-word on the sales floor. He was called to the mat for that, and even with a history of bigoted activities and remarks, still has a job.

      This is only an example. So yes, they should. But they don’t.

    • anon6789@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m far from an expert, but I don’t feel preference to one group over another is the purpose of DEI. I think we can look at this a few ways and have that make sense.

      I watched a video discussing DEI this morning, and it pointed out that these for-profit companies, run by wealthy individuals, would not be doing DEI to begin with if it didn’t have tangible benefits. Some of it can be the moral equivalent of greenwashing, but what business of any size would say, no, I don’t want to hire the best person, I need more X people instead? That would only be sabotaging yourself.

      Well what benefits do employers get from DEI? If a talented person from a minority group is looking for work, and they had their choice of places to work, would they pick a place with a monoculture, or one that is making an effort to show they are welcoming to people of all backgrounds? If they take a job that embraces people of all walks of life, they’ll also retain those people as they won’t feel like someone who’s only there to check a box on a list of hiring requirements. If they hire people that went to the best schools in Europe, China, India, etc. they’re getting ideas and innovation from all over the world.

      I’m at my second pharmaceutical job, and both facilities hire the best people they can from around the world. At both places, I’m the only white person on my team. It obviously did not impair me getting hired and I’ve never felt treated better or worse than anyone else. But I have greatly expanded my horizons from getting to know people from the other places and cultures. I’ve been able to give them different perspectives on things as well.

      I wouldn’t want to get a job just because I was white more than anyone would want to get a job purely because they weren’t. I couldn’t imagine somewhere like that would be a place that I wanted to be at for very long. But being at places where I see everybody no matter who they are getting treated the same lets me see there’s at least some level of fairness going on. So DEI isn’t something to give something to some particular someone and not somebody else, it’s just to make sure everyone is getting something where that’s possible. It’s not a quota system, but a desire to prevent becoming one.