Posted on 06/16/2002 11:29:08 AM PDT by John Jorsett
Edited on 05/11/2004 5:33:47 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives.
The Post-Dispatch checked with managers at 38 stores in 11 states. All but two said they had received instructions from Home Depot's corporate headquarters this month not to take government credit cards, purchase orders or even cash if the items are being used by the federal government.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
We have been notified that this proposal will be presented for consideration at the meeting:
WHEREAS: Home Depot claims to bar employment discrimination but its written policies do not explicitly bar discrimination based on sexual orientation; Our company has an interest in preventing discrimination and resolving complaints internally so as to avoid costly litigation and damage to its reputation as an equal opportunity employer; San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle and Los Angeles have adopted legislation restricting business with companies that do not guarantee equal treatment for lesbian and gay employees and similar legislation is pending in other jurisdictions;
Our company has operations in and makes sales to institutions in states and cities which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; A recent National Gay and Lesbian Task Force study has found that 16% - 44% of gay men and lesbians in twenty cities nationwide experienced workplace sexual orientation harassment or discrimination;
Other leading retailers, including Albertson’s, BJ’s Wholesale, CompUSA, Costco, Office Depot, Safeway, Sears, Staples, SuperValu, Target, TJX, Toys R Us, and Walgreen’s, all explicitly bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, as do more than half of Fortune 500 companies;
National public opinion polls consistently find more than three-quarters of Americans support equal rights in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals;
RESOLVED: The Shareholders request the Board of Directors amend Home Depot’s written equal employment opportunity policy to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and to substantially implement this policy.
STATEMENT: By implementing a written policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, our Company will ensure a respectful and supportive atmosphere for all employees and enhance its competitive edge by joining the growing ranks of companies guaranteeing equal opportunity for all employees.
STOCKHOLDER PROPOSAL B (ITEM 4 ON THE PROXY CARD)
Well, HD has lost my Business! They are now looking out for No 1 in keeping sales going in "gay" areas! Others do it so we should too!( Another Klintoon legacy!)
And their decision is based on "polls"!! Morality need NOT apply to making money! (X42 again!)
Granted doing business with the Feds is difficult, but then, the Feds ARE the biggest RAINBOW Coalition backers! Go Figure! Anyway LOWES KNOWS!!!! (I hope)
I have a small consulting business and one of my clients is a major Fortune 500 company that does a minimal amount of business with the federal government, primarily through commissaries. Every year I would get a four or five page questionnaire that I had to fill out indicating I was in compliance with a variety of laws and telling me that the feds had jurisdiction over who I give preference to in hiring because I provided services to a company that did business with the feds. Hell I didnt contract with the government, I contracted with the company. The feds can kiss my ---.
Refusing to accept govt issued credit cards isn't discrimination against personnel. I'm absolutely sure it that uniformed member of our military establishment used a "civilian" credit card, it would be honored no problemos.
Burt being pressured by sexual exhibitionists and perverts to conduct business in strict compliance with the liberal democrat political agenda is okay?
You go ahead and do business with Home Depot. Liberal democrats will be thrilled.
When I go into our local HD, my experience has been that most of the employees are on their phones complaining to one another about the latest outrageous management demand on them while hotfooting it around the corner to avoid interaction with the despised customer.
Plus their lumber stinks.
Your Home Depot is definately different from the one around here. Ours has better lumber than the Lowe's next door, has friendly helpful staff, and will come running to assist you if you appear to need it. I buy most of my building supplies there.
That's not to say that I never spend money in Lowe's. I just bought an unfinished solid wood corner kitchen curio there since nobody else seemed to have one, finished or otherwise. That store, too, is friendly.
Maybe its just a southern thang. :^)
HERE >>>>>>> . <<<<<<< anal retent
Another advertisement?
By the way, it's "rententive".
PS: In a battle of wits, don't show up unarmed. Moron.
Not half the power liberal democrats exercise through PFLAG, Rainbow Coalition, and other "private" organizations.
Oh yeah, add the libertarian bean-brains to the pro-liberal democrat alliance. Go spend your money at Home Depot--you and zon. Make Papa Marx proud.
Oak Ridge is a small city, built in 1942, by the Federal Government in order to build the first nuclear weapons, a business they're still in, along with weapons and energy research, and research of other kinds.
Nearly every business here is related to supporting the Federal Government's facilities here in Oak Ridge. The local Home Depot does a lot of business with those folks. Granted, they are private contractors with the Federal Government, however, they usually get their purchase orders for supplies, product and consumables from the facility they're working at - i.e., one of the local Federal Government facilities.
Home Depot here in Oak Ridge made the majority of its bulk sales to the local facilities, i.e., the Federal Government. Since Home Depot is now refusing to do business with them, that business will be taken back to the folks they used to do business with. The primary reason Home Depot built it's facility here was to do exactly the kind of business that they are now refusing to do.
OK, I'm going to read back over this and see if it was clear enough. I realize there's a few words of more than two syllables....
Nah, that sucks. But what you gonna do? It's like wanting to buy American and finding out almost everything you buy is made in China. This moves the ball down the field a few inches in the right direction towards less regulation. I'll take it.
Last time I checked, Home Depot's founding partners have completely opposite political views, and both put their wallets where their mouths are. On the Left, Bernie Marcus supports every liberal cause you can imagine, though his benevolence to medical and humanitarian charities is quite admirable. Other than Home Depot, his monument to fame will be a $200,000,000 Aquarium in Midtown Atlanta.
On the Right, Arthur Blank supports a myriad of Conservative candidates and causes throughout the United States. Other than Home Depot, he will be known as the (new) owner of the Atlanta Falcons.
That is all public knowledge, available on the internet. That said, however, I don't shop at Home Depot because of anybody's politics. I shop at Home Depot because it is a great business which sells what I want at prices I am willing to pay. That's why I bought its stock, and that's why I'll go back...
Sorry for yelling.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission moved to intervene in a 1995 lawsuit covering 310 Home Depot stores east of the Mississippi. A third lawsuit is pending in New Jersey. This is the largest sex discrimination case the EEOC has ever taken on. The HD response? Home Depot said it was "puzzled and outraged" that the federal government has intervened in a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against the nation's largest building supply retailer.
On discrimination and EEOC laws:
Sheesh, we can't even trust our "employees" -- government officials -- to let them into our homes and businesses without a search warrant if we don't want to let them in. But somehow a business is forced to trust a total stranger with an open door policy. A person/business owner can refuse to allow a government agent access to his property but not a total stranger! And get this, it is the government that can't be trusted without a search warrant that is telling property owners that they must trust total strangers.
Discrimination laws are unjust.
Sometimes I have to wait a few minutes but that is because they are helping another customer with his questions. On the whole, I find them trying to be very helpful.
But it sounds like you're saying that those small contractors are making their purchases with federal purchase orders instead of their own capital. That would be a problem -- but would make me wonder why they do that. Might they rely on federal POs because it would take too long for the feds to reimburse them? If so, that would prove the wisdom of Home Depot's decision not to do business with a slow-paying, strings-attached customer like the federal government...
That's a definite possibility.
I think Yankees tend to be a little more crotchety.
Like me :-)
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