PayPal Withdraws Plan for Charlotte Expansion
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McCrory is a real idiot. The money in NC comes from the cities. They may have won a Pyrrhic victory in the gerrymandering, but now that the rural districts have this power to drive legislation, they are going to drive companies/money right out of Asheville (brewing, tourism), Charlotte (finance/finance tech), and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill (software R&D and biotech).
PayPal isn't the first news. NC lost a startup incubator that was going to start a local presence already. There is more to this, and it's going to end the governors' national political ambitions as well has harm the economy of NC for decades.
edit: if it doesn't get overturned (in its entirety) immediately when the legislation gets back in session or through the courts, which is already in progress.
And spare me the whining about gerrymandering. The Governor is elected by everyone in the state; gerrymandering has no effect on that election. If this were really an issue of gerrymandering, we would have seen a crappy bill passed by the Legislature, and sent to the governor, and promptly vetoed because the governor more closely represents the average people in the state. That didn't happen.
The governor is at high risk to lose his reelection to the state AG later this year because of this and his perception of being in the pocket of his former employer (Duke Energy) because of his behavior in several high profile coal fly ash pond industrial accidents. He positioned himself as a social moderate and business friendly, and he has spent all his capital and then some on this.
edit: Not sure how this comes off as whining. I am giving an honest account of this bill/the NC political background as I can. You're obviously right, the voters own this in the end.
One is currently in power; the rural, poor, uneducated.
The other is more modern. We live in cities and we want our homes to be good places to live for all people.
You can view maps of this state and how it votes, and the places this law will negatively impact (places where modern industry might have otherwise come) did not vote for this.
There is a war here: rural versus urban. The rural counties are in control and they siphon off tax revenues from the cities. They strip the cities of any local autonomy (not just in this issue) both fiscally and socially.
You can say "the people voted for this" but the people who voted for it are not negatively impacted by it (except that there will be less tax revenue in the cities they can siphon off of).
I'd point out that California has had first hand experience in this regard as well - with Proposition 8. The happy ending to that story defied the will of the Californian people.
Lament the laws of NC, but don't paint us all with the same brush.
But you had to realize before moving to NC that that state was like that. Like every Southern state which votes "red" in the Presidential elections, there's a large number of conservatives there, and the conservatives in the South tend to be even more religious than the average conservative. So I don't think it's quite fair to move to urban NC and then complain about the rural voters giving you shitty laws: there was never any indication that this state, overall, voted more progressively. If you want a state that really is more progressive overall, you have to go someplace like New York or Massachusetts or Connecticut or Washington (state). But of course, the cost of living isn't as low in places like that as it is in the South; that's the price you pay.
Never thought I would ever write these words: way to go, PayPal!
That is corporations with money, power and lawyers determining and overriding voters in yet another way. Doesn't matter how you see this particular issue. The next time it could go in another direction. [1]
[1] Live by the sword, die by the sword.
What's your alternative here?
Not to mention what about the harm that comes to the citizens who would have held those jobs as well as the other economic impact of the decision? All to citizens who might not have had a say in choosing this outcome?
I won't even get into the impact on stockholders who buy the stock to, in general, make money with their investments not for social issues.
Several years ago, in response to a request that Apple commit to only agree to measures that wouldn't impact the bottom line, Tim Cook told an activist investor "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock." (It was in response to a question about Apple's environmental stance, but Tim likened it to a request to ignore accessibility issues.)
If I disagree with Paypal's disagreement, I'm free to withdraw my investment and go to a company that will ignore social issues.
> If I disagree with Paypal's disagreement, I'm free to withdraw my investment and go to a company that will ignore social issues.
If you are a long term investor and if the stock is not trading at a good point for you that may not be possible. Let's assume you have a large position in the stock and it has lost money since you bought it as only one example.
(Sure, if that's like your only money, than that's not so easy a decision.)
Many a company did not work with or in South Africa during apartheid for the same reason.. Was that wrong of them?
So? They clearly have an opinion on this. Why isn't a company, especially a big company which has many types of stakeholder, allowed to share its opinion?
I'd much rather it did this than just bribe the politicians to change the laws.
> what about the harm that comes to the citizens who would have held those jobs
Well, indeed. This was going to be a huge operation that would have involved shipping in many families, exposing them to these laws.
This is a strange argument to make. By even deciding to open the facility in NC in the first place, PayPal decided against 49 other states - do those people have a claim to these hypothetical jobs? Are they forever committed once the location of these future jobs is announced?
North Carolina has lots of issues. So the legislators pass a law like this instead of dealing with something else. What can you do?
Paypal has options. The sad thing is, many people in minority populations of North Carolina, don't have options.
So, while the side effect of their PR is good, it's more or less a side effect of PR for them. I'll believe their intentions when the move out of all places which have medieval anti LGBT laws.
Local Charlotte paper kind of agrees, it would be interesting to see companies pull out of places like China and Saudi Arabia, given the investment that has been made already, and the loss of growth that would come from that.
Essentially, the company would have to put social issues as a priority over being competitive, because I can assure you that someone else with lower morals would take that business. Would be a very hard stance for companies to take with share holders.
This week, it's fashionable to attack and punish North Carolina. Next week, it will be somewhere else, probably also in the US.
But Paypal will never cease business in Saudi Arabia or anywhere in the Muslim world where the government executes gay people.
We shouldn't celebrate or support people "standing for their beliefs" when they're not actually risking anything.
You are either a brave culture warrior fighting for what's right or you're a cowardly bigot. You can't be both.
* this effects Y Combinator https://ei.ncsu.edu/y-combinator/
* it effects Google Ventures: http://recode.net/2016/04/01/google-ventures-north-carolina-...
* There are local incubators and less formal groups of local startups against it.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2016/04/05/n-ccomme...
The NC law is bad but this from PayPal is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Why? What is the underlying reason for that? Is it different if your (hypothetical?) son of the same age might have a woman (regardless of dress) in with him?
I'm genuinely curious.
But, if the issue is whether we should have separate bathrooms for the genders, let's have that conversation instead of forcing it on society in the guise of discrimination.
I'm confused... in bathrooms in the US, you don't have cubicles that shut+lock? You strip naked in public areas? In my country, we have cubicles that lock and people pull their clothes back on before unlocking them.
Also, like... why's it ok for her to see strange cis women taking a shit, in case you actually do all shit in the open?
That's okay; a lot of people have reading deficits, and in fact my company works a lot to help people with them. One thing we've found helps with reading deficits is breaking things down, so let's do that.
First, load up http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v1.pd... in another browser window. That's the actual bill text, presented as a diff.
HB2 has three parts. The first part is about bathrooms, and the second part prohibits cities have a minimum wage other than the state's, so I'm going to completely ignore those two bits.
That leaves part III. Part III has three main parts. Here's what they do:
Part III, Section 3.1(c), says that only the state definitions of protected classes matter, and that local municipalities cannot define their own: "this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State". So the only protected classes are those defined by the state.
Part III, Section 3.2, adds the line, "This Article does not create, and shall not be construed to create or support, a statutory or common law private right of action, and no person may bring any civil action based upon the public policy expressed herein." This is technical language, but "private right of action", in this context, means "bring a suit." Thus, only the state can bring action; you can't. And due to Part III, Section 3.1(c), local cities cannot create their own laws that do permit this. Thus, the first part of my statement: you are now barred from suing for discrimination, and must rely on the state.
Finally, Part III, Section 3.3(a), redefines the state's protected classes to include "race, religion, color, national origin, or biological sex". Since sexual orientation and gender identity are not included here, and Part III Section 3.1 forbade cities from having their own protected classes, we have now prohibited the entire LGBT community from being declared a protected class, and therefore the state is under no obligation (and, in fact, has no legal basis) to bring discrimination complaints about sexual orientation.
It is far beyond transsexual citizens of NC, though that aspect of the bill is ridiculous, too. Or will police have to inspect the genitalia of M2F/F2M transitioned people in the presence of a birth certificate?
Please, by all means google pictures of transitioned people, both male and female, and look at their outward appearance versus their chromosomal sexual identity. Then imagine them being forced to use the bathroom with other people sharing the same genetic sexual identity.
Everything was working just fine before this bill. There were laws about public indecency, sexual assualt, and invasion of privacy that covered any and all bathroom misbehavior. It solves zero problems, and lost NC $20M in annual salary.
Again, and please look at the details of how it takes rights away from cities and states, and completely guts state level discrimination protection for all classes (veterans, race, religion, et al).
Stonewall all over again - "Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any men dressed as women would be arrested."[0]
You'd think the US would be doing a little better nearly 50 years on, eh?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots#Police_raid
Others have already pointed out that this is not all it does. It goes far beyond the bathroom.
In addition to that, it also botches the bathroom portion because it sorts people into bathrooms by what is on their birth certificate. If your birth certificate says "male", for instance, but you've had male to female sex reassignment surgery you'd still be sorted into the men's room under this law.
The proponents of the law say that it is easy in North Carolina to get your birth certificate changed to match your new sex when it changes, such as due to sex reassignment surgery.
The problem with that is that there are actually people who are born outside of North Carolina, but for inexplicable reasons move there. North Carolina did not issue their birth certificates, and so North Carolina's ease of changing a birth certificate is irrelevant to them.
Idaho, for example, does not allow amending the sex on a birth certificate. A person who is born female in Idaho, moves to North Carolina, and undergoes female to male sex reassignment surgery will be required to use the woman's room, despite sporting a penis, in North Carolina.
Maybe we are splitting bathrooms wrong. Maybe instead of men/women, the split should be stand/sit. Have one kind of bathroom that just has urinals, and one that just has enclosed stalls. If you have a penis and just need to urinate, you use the former. If you do not have a penis or you need to defecate you use the latter.
Since the latter would have enclosed stalls, you should have enough privacy that it doesn't matter who else is using the other stalls.
A black baker should not be required to bake a cake for the KKK; a homosexual florist should not be required to provide flowers to the Westboro Baptist Church; neither should a Christian baker or florist or software developer be forced to employ his art and skill in service of something which he opposes, and which opposes his belief system.
* it overturns a local law regarding who can use a bathroom, and removes the ability for anyone but the state to legislate that (takes power away from cities and counties)
* it removes the ability of city and counties to enforce hiring standards on government contractors (minimum wage, discrimination practices, safety standards) in any way whatsoever.
* it effectively undoes the state employment discrimination laws for all classes of employees. You have to file discrimination charges in federal courts (of which their are fewer, have higher filing fees, and shorter windows to file under federal law).
Since you seem generally ignorant of the law, this is a good explanation :http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/ar...
It is particularly deplorable that they demonized transsexuals to pass the less popular/otherwise more difficult to pass portions of the bill. It was clearly just a way of threatening people in primaries if they didn't run against the bill that was passed in a highly unusual emergency session.
But... assuming you know all this now, what you propose is shameful. PayPal is under no obligation to 1) not have ethics/standards at a corporate level or 2) hire people and open facilities in a state it doesn't want to do business in. The bakers/florists can do whatever they want (and could before/after this bill), but they cannot benefit from the payroll taxes collected by NC from the PayPal employees that will now be hired elsewhere.
Shame on you for either not thinking about your argument or being dishonest. It's an important issue and should be distracted from/intentionally obfuscated.
Thank you, I'm glad I can help share how awful (even moreso, the more you dig into what it does and how it was passed) this bill is.
It was throwaway at first, but I've grown fond of it.
I certainly don't believe I'm a troll; I think that I've posted reasonably compelling (if brief) arguments in favour of tolerance and against using the violence of the State against dissenters, and have decried PayPal's advocacy for intolerance and State violence.
The legal concept that we're discussing here is something called a protected class. Protected classes are generally things that are intrinsic to who you are--age, skin color, gender, and so on. While I am aware that some people do not agree with this statement, the majority, both within the medical community and outside it, acknowledge at this point that you do not "decide" to be gay; you are gay. Just like I do not decide to be white, a man, or have blond hair. Conversely, you absolutely do decide to be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, or a member of the KKK; those are views you are taking that are not inherently something you cannot change. These can and should be treated differently, and we do treat them that way in law.
No, that being awful (by some folks' lights) should be legal — i.e., that violent force (which is the ultimate backstop of any law) should not be employed to force people to be nice to one another.
> This is a religious thing in this case so a government should not be in the business of protecting one religion or any religious belief
Government shouldn't be involved, period. If someone wishes to do business with someone else, good (or bad) for him; if not, good (or bad) for him all the same. No-one should be forced to do business with someone he dislikes: not PayPal, and no-one else either.
I think such a person would be wrong, but that neither you nor I have the right to beat him for refusing to serve; indeed, if we use violence to compel him to work, then we have reduced him to a state of involuntary servitude — i.e., slavery.
So, let me understand: do you think people should be beaten and killed because they refuse to do business with someone?
First, that case law was settled over 50 years ago when we ruled segregation illegal. Contrary to your wishes, that ship has sailed.
Second, businesses are permitted to serve the public and subject to lots of laws. You can't say "I don't want to comply with the health code, and it's unfair that the government is using violent force to make me wash my oven!" Similarly, all three branches of government have definitively ruled that you can't refuse to do business with someone based on their attributes (race, gender, religion, etc.). There's no meaningful line you can draw between "I don't sell cake to gay people" and "I don't sell cake to black people". Both are explicitly illegal in most places and morally reprehensible in all.
I agree that both are morally reprehensible.
Can you see the difference between refusing to bake a cake for a gay customer and refusing to bake a cake with the message, 'congratulations to Tim & Steve on their wedding'? The first is about people; the second is about speech. I can live with protecting people; I cannot tolerate compelling speech.