Demonstrators protest outside the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar in Minneapolis on Monday.Adam Gray/The Associated Press
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Among the many voices shouting about the second fatal shooting of a Minneapolis civilian by federal law enforcement agents this month, there is a new chorus that might not be expected – at least, historically.
The chief executive officers of some 60 local companies, including big publicly traded corporations such as Best Buy and 3M, issued a unified statement on Sunday pleading with lawmakers and law-enforcement agencies to de-escalate what has become a deadly and unstable situation.
Made public through the state’s Chamber of Commerce, the letter revealed that business representatives had been in continuing, behind-the-scenes negotiations with state and city government officials, the White House and law-enforcement at all levels in an attempt to quell the conflict.
“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the letter said.
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The unrest flared Saturday, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was recording federal immigration operations in Minneapolis on his phone. Mr. Pretti was killed after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Macklin Good, also 37, in the city earlier this month.
The remarkable public posture of these companies reflects the continued emergence of corporations playing roles in social and political issues that have nothing to do with the products and services they sell.
In fact, there is a growing expectation among stakeholders, particularly employees, that their companies will make a stand and take active roles in such situations.
This trend has been building over the last few years as stakeholder activism has prodded executive teams, who have traditionally kept an arm’s-length distance from politics.
It has been an uncomfortable evolution for the C-suite, mainly because so much of what corporate leaders need to know to navigate the modern marketplace, they don’t teach in business school.
Leadership teams that ignored these expectations have found themselves on the wrong side of such issues and have been punished.
Brewing company Anheuser-Busch became embroiled in a costly culture war when a Bud Light promotion with a transgender social media influencer outraged conservative brand loyalists, sank sales by over a billion dollars and sent the stock price tumbling.
Chick-fil-A’s 2019 expansion plans in Britain were scuttled when protesters objected to the company ownership’s posture on LGBTQ rights.
And Starbucks faced claims of racism in 2018, when a Philadelphia store manager called police on two Black men after denying them access to the restroom because they reportedly didn’t order anything.
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What makes the Minneapolis situation unique is not simply that the executives who signed the letter pre-empted widespread stakeholder pressure to say something. Together, they avoided taking sides in their desire for a peaceful outcome.
The letter is sober, rhetoric-free and skilfully sidesteps getting mired in partisan politics and pointing fingers. It gets to the point: Let’s stop this now so that no one else in our community gets hurt or killed and we can figure out who is right and who is wrong afterward.
The fact that the executives’ outreach has gone across the waterfront – to Minnesota’s Democrat governor and Minneapolis’s Democrat mayor, to the Republican White House and to a broad swath of law-enforcement agencies –is in itself remarkable. This is a bloc with credibility and influence that when applied properly, can transcend partisan politics in search of a solution.
Obviously, there is also a compelling personal reason driving these companies to weigh into this powder keg.
Together, they employ tens of thousands of local residents. So, their condemnation of the violence and pleas for peace go well beyond any impetus to do the right thing socially or gain some sort of commercial competitive leverage.
The people who work for these companies and buy from these companies and supply these companies are members of the local community. These are neighbours and friends and colleagues, not simply stakeholders.
“In this difficult moment for our community, we call for peace and focused cooperation among local, state and federal leaders to achieve a swift and durable solution that enables families, businesses, our employees, and communities across Minnesota to resume our work to build a bright and prosperous future,” the CEO letter concluded.
Of course, skeptics will say that the companies posturing is nothing more than a self-serving marketing opportunity – that disruptions like this are bad for business and the CEO outrage is all about losing money, not losing community.
At some level, that may be true. But when your neighbours and family members are in harm’s way through no fault of their own, there’s a more human imperative that goes beyond the profit motive.