The Just 1000 Are Coming

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[news]

I've been pushing for the private sector to raise wages across the board for quite a while now. It's part of my vision that American capitalism has to broaden its responsibility to many stakeholders, beyond its decades-long pursuit of short-term shareholder value maximization. For months, Ken Langone and I have met with various organizations and power brokers to drum up support for our higher-wages initiative. We aren't alone. In fact, we're catching up with many pioneers who have been talking this way for quite a while now, determined to join my voice to the growing chorus.

As a result of what I've been writing, I was happy to hear about Paul Tudor Jones, the founder of Just Capital. It's a new organization completely aligned with what we've been doing, and in fact they are creating a framework for rating companies based on how extensively they take all stakeholders into consideration while making a profit.

As Fortune magazine pointed out recently, socially-conscious investing is a decades-old, $6.6 trillion industry. Even so, as yet it hasn't succeeded in pressuring Fortune 500 companies, as well as the vast majority of smaller businesses, to share more of their wealth with workers. "Jones had a different idea: competition. Why not rank America's top 1,000 companies based not only on what Wall Street values--profits--but also on what Main Street wants?"

Just Company was founded earlier this year, but already you can find the extensive survey (completed only a few weeks ago) of more than 40,000 Americans. The survey establishes what most of us want from our private sector on issues like community relations, job creation, wages and benefits, environmental impact, customer satisfaction and corporate honesty. The mission for Just Capital is simple and sensible: to make corporate leadership aware of what Main Street wants and needs and to rank companies on how well they are run, based on those indicators. As their website puts it, "Use the results to create an index to rank companies on how they stand with these qualities." In other words, generate competition among companies to become more responsible and attuned to the needs of their employees and customers--to be more "just" in the sense of good, fair, and honest.

The findings are encouraging. The majority of those surveyed believe corporations:

• Should be measured for their behavior.

• Are heading in the wrong direction.

• Are becoming less just, (though the wealthiest Americans are the most likely to say corporations have become more just.)

• Should prioritize customers, communities, employees and the environment more than they do now.

• Should prioritize many stakeholders, not simply shareholders.

• Should get credit for improving the way they affect people or the environment, even if they still have some problems.

• Are essential to the working of the American way: what's good for business is good for the country.

Respondents said that information about a company's justness would influence their decisions to buy, work for, and invest in that company. The primary finding, for me, is that most Americans believe employee relations and pay are by far the most important aspect of corporate performance. For them, employee compensation and fair hiring are the core of corporate justness. It's never acceptable for corporations to pay very low wages, no matter what the short-term benefit it offers. That is simply what the public believes, and companies that don't heed it will find themselves increasingly marginalized, and ultimately the bottom line will suffer.

About a year from now, Just Capital plans to publicize a ranking of the Just 1000 in order of how committed they are to the ideals the American public longs to see from them. That list will be renewed annually to track how companies respond to their current standing. Let's hope it becomes as influential as the other coveted lists. Companies that understand how much public opinion governs the future of free enterprise will thrive in the years to come. Right now, let's hope Just Capital inspires more and more companies to raise wages and increase benefits for all our workers. Changing the culture of our currently misguided version of free enterprise capitaism is both urgent and essential for our prosperity and social welfare.

Peter Georgescu is the author of The Constant Choice. He can be found at Good Reads. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.












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