I would eliminate the Minimum Wage Laws completely ...IF

[Toots]

A cap were to be put on all executive pay that was tied to lowest paid employee. Like maybe no executive could earn more than twenty five times that of their lowest paid employee. That way the only way they could get a pay raise is to raise the lowest paid employee's pay as well. I suspect that would be waayyy to socialistic for this enlightened country though..

[Ineeda]

1. I'm sure there are a few companies doing this

such as Ben and Jerry's. They're an impeccably social-conscious company and are hugely successful. I exclusively buy B&J because of it. (Plus they make the best ice cream products.) Anybody have a list of other companies like this?

[AllentownJake]

2. You know Ben and Jerry's is owned by

Unilever and not Ben and Jerry.

:rofl:

[Cal Carpenter]

4. LOL< indeed

From wiki page on Unilever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever#Israel
Criticism

Unilever has attracted a variety of criticisms from political, environmental and human rights activists.<14> For example, it has been criticised by Greenpeace for causing deforestation,<15> for testing products on animals by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and for making use of child labour,<16> among others.
Deforestation

Unilever was targeted in 2008 by Greenpeace UK,<17> which criticised the company for buying palm oil from suppliers that are damaging Indonesia's rainforests. Unilever, as a founding member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, responded by publicizing its plan to obtain its palm oil from sources that are certified as sustainable.<18>

In Côte d'Ivoire, one of Unilever's palm oil suppliers was accused of clearing forest for plantations, an activity that threatens a primate species, Miss Waldron's Red Colobus. Unilever intervened to halt the clearances pending the results of an environmental assessment.<19>
India

Unilever has been criticised by international commentators such as Corpwatch for failing to live up to the environmental standards it proclaims especially when operating in developing countries such as India.<20> In India Unilever operates through its subsidiary Hindustan Unilever.
Involvement in race issues

According to The Daily Telegraph, Hindustan Unilever, an Indian company that is majority owned by Unilever, was forced to withdraw television advertisements for its women's skin-lightening cream, Fair and Lovely. Advertisements depicted depressed, dark-skinned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin.<21>

According to the Austrian Newspaper Der Standard<22> and the Austrian Broadcasting Company<23>, the Austrian branch of Unilever (Eskimo) is producing and marketing an ice-cream under the name Mohr im Hemd<24>. "Mohr" (moor), as a colonial German word for African or black people, has a heavily colonialist and racist connotation. "Mohr im Hemd" (moor in the shirt) is a traditional Austrian chocolate speciality which refers to naked, "wild" Africans. Unilever refutes any racist intentions and claims that it has tested the name in broad market studies in Austria without any critical feedback.
Dumping of mercury at Kodaikkanal

Unilever was accused by Greenpeace of double standards and negligence for allowing its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever, to dump several tonnes of highly toxic mercury waste in the tourist resort of Kodaikanal and the surrounding protected nature reserve of Pambar Shola, in Tamilnadu, Southern India.

Greenpeace activists and concerned residents cordoned off a contaminated dump site in the centre of Kodaikanal to protect people from the mercury wastes that had been discarded in open or torn sacks by Hindustan Lever which manufactures mercury thermometers for export, mainly to the United States. According to Hindustan Lever, from there, the thermometers are sold to Germany, UK, Spain, USA, Australia and Canada. The factory, set up in 1977, imported from the United States, after the US factory was shut down for ‘unknown reasons’.<20>
Sexism

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood criticized Unilever for the 2007 Axe marketing campaign, which they considered sexist.<25> Unilever's response is that the Axe campaign is intended as a spoof and "not meant to be taken literally".<26> Critics noted that, to the contrary, Unilever had launched the contradicting Dove "Real Beauty" marketing campaign, which encouraged women to reject the underfed and hyper-sexualized images of modern advertising, around the same time.<27>
Trade unions

Trade unions representing Unilever employees around the globe have registered a number of complaints about the company, including tens of thousands of job losses in recent years. Many former Unilever employees are now outsourced, leading unions to write about "the vanishing Unilever worker". In one example of such a dispute, in September 2008 Unilever Pakistan called in police and paramilitary as a union protested job transfers to a third party. In December 2007 a global trade union day of action against Unilever was called.<28> In early October 2008, the global union federation representing food workers, the IUF, launched a new global website focusing on these issues called UnileverWatch.<29>


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Partial List of other things they own... (more at wiki link)

* Ades or Adez — soya-based drinks
* Alsa — desserts and syrups
* Amora — French mayonnaise and dressings
* Amino - dehydrated soup (Poland)
* Annapurna — salt and wheat flour (India)
* Becel — also known as Flora/Promise; health-aware: margarine, spreads, cooking oil, milk, fermented milk
* Ben & Jerry's — ice cream
* Best Foods — mayonnaise, sandwich spreads, peanut butter and salad dressings
* Bertolli — pasta sauces (ambient/chilled & frozen) and margarine
* BiFi - sausage-based snacks (Germany)
* Blue Band — family-aware: margarine, bread, cream alternatives
* Bovril — beef extract
* Breyers — ice cream
* Brooke Bond — tea
* Bru — instant coffee (India)
* Brummel & Brown — margarine
* Bushells — tea (Australia, New Zealand)
* Calvé — sauces, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, peanut butter
* Captain Findus — children's frozen food
* Conimex — Asian spices (Netherlands)
* Colman's — mustard
* Continental — side dishes
* Country Crock — margarine
* Delma — margarine (Poland)
* Du Darfst (Germany)
* Elmlea — Pourable artificial cream available in different varieties (UK)
* Fanacoa — Mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup (Argentina)
* Findus — frozen foods (Italy, UK, Scandinavia)
* Flora — margarine, light butter, jams



* Fruco — ketchup, mayonnaise and condiments
* Fudgsicle
* Gallo — olive oil
* Heartbrand — ice cream (umbrella logo)
* Hellmann's — mayonnaise
* I Can't Believe It's Not Butter — margarine spread
* Imperial Margarine — margarine

[Ineeda]

11. Regardless of your post, they maintain a relevent social conscience

Ben & Jerry's Mission Statement: Ben & Jerry’s is founded on and dedicated to a sustainable corporate concept of linked prosperity. Our mission consists of 3 interrelated parts shown above. {see http://www.benjerry.com/activism/mission-statement/ }

Underlying the mission of Ben & Jerry’s is the determination to seek new and creative ways of addressing all three parts, while holding a deep respect for individuals inside and outside the company and for the communities of which they are a part.
We have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices in our local, national and international communities by integrating these concerns into our day-to-day business activities. Our focus is on children and families, the environment and sustainable agriculture on family farms. Ben & Jerry’s commitment to economic justice starts with our employees. That’s why we are committed to paying all of our full-time manufacturing workers a livable wage – enough to allow for a quality of life that includes decent housing, health care, transportation, food, recreation, savings, and miscellaneous expenses.
Every year, we recalculate the livable wage to make sure it’s keeping up with the actual cost of living in Vermont. In recent years, Ben & Jerry’s livable wage has been more than twice the national minimum wage, landing at $13.25 in 2008.

* Capitalism and the wealth it produces do not create opportunity for everyone equally. We recognize that the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than at any time since the 1920’s. We strive to create economic opportunities for those who have been denied them and to advance new models of economic justice that are sustainable and replicable.

* By definition, the manufacturing of products creates waste. We strive to minimize our negative impact on the environment.

* The growing of food is overly reliant on the use of toxic chemicals and other methods that are unsustainable. We support sustainable and safe methods of food production that reduce environmental degradation, maintain the productivity of the land over time, and support the economic viability of family farms and rural communities.

* We seek and support nonviolent ways to achieve peace and justice. We believe government resources are more productively used in meeting human needs than in building and maintaining weapons systems.

* We strive to show a deep respect for human beings inside and outside our company and for the communities in which they live.

[juno jones]

13. Yep. I quit eating it when they switched to HFCS

a few years ago. I suppose that was about the time unilever took it over.

[HillbillyBob]

3. Are they still socially concious?

Didn't they sell out to general foods or something?

No most make 20 x the lower paid workers, a couple decades ago it was something like 7x that would be a better limit. I would not eliminate minimum wage though in fact agriculture workers like fruit pickers, florists and several others are considered ag workers and no matter how many employees they have do not have to pay minimum wage, and they should.

[AllentownJake]

5. Unilever

Their parent company isn't even American.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. You're missing a zero: average CEO salaries are now over 250 x lowest paid workers

and the average in 1980 was only about 40 times. And that comparison is salary, not total compensation. The others in the executive suite are being paid much more than 40 x lowest paid employees too.

[Ineeda]

12. Yes, they are. See link above. n/t

[safeinOhio]

7. BMW just did the same. nt

[Yupster]

8. Would that5 mean that Kobe Bryant

could only make 25 times more than the beer salesman?

Or Barbra Streisand could only make 25 times more than the ticket taker?

That doesn't sound reasonable.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. No, because Kobe and Barbra do not work for the arenas

in which they work. The person taking tickets is not part of the NBA and I assume Barbra is no one's employee but her own, she's have a corp, an be an employee of her own Corp.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. The beer salesman does not work for Kobe Bryant, nor does the ticket

taker work for Barbra Streisand.

[Spike89]

14. A good start, but

The reality is that salary isn't the disgustingly huge excess. It is grotesque, but pales in comparison to bonuses, stock options, and other perks. Additionally, a large percentage of the uber-rich don't get salary compensation at all. They simply make their money from owning lots of things (and they hire the CEOs to run those things).