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.