COMCAST CORPORATION | Independant Racial equity audit

Status
18.30% votes in favour
AGM date
Proposal number
5
Resolution details
Company ticker
CMCSA
Lead filer
SEIU Pension Plans Master Trust
Resolution ask
Conduct due diligence, audit or risk/impact assessment
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI)
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Consumer Discretionary
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Service Employees International Union has filed the following resolution. This will be updated in the lead filer field as soon as possible.

That shareholders of Comcast Corporation (“Comcast”) urge the Board of Directors to oversee an independent racial equity audit analyzing Comcast’s adverse impacts on nonwhite stakeholders and communities of color. Input from civil rights organizations, employees, and customers should be considered in determining the specific matters to be analyzed.

A report on the audit, prepared at reasonable cost and omitting confidential or proprietary information, should be publicly disclosed on Comcast’s website.
Supporting statement
High-profile police killings of Black people have galvanized the movement for racial justice. That movement, together with the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have focused the attention of the media, the public and policy makers on systemic racism, racialized violence and inequities in employment, health care, and the criminal justice system.

In 2020, Comcast announced plans to allocate $100 million in cash and advertising to advance programs aimed at inequality against “any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability.”(1) Comcast also announced “diversity, equity and inclusion workforce initiatives.”(2)

These steps are laudable, but we believe that a racial equity audit remains necessary to help identify, prioritize, remedy, and avoid adverse impacts on nonwhite stakeholders and communities of color.

According to its EEO-1 data, only 6% of Comcast executives/senior officers are Black, compared to 18.6% of the remaining workforce.(3)

In October 2020, Comcast entered into a conciliation agreement with the U.S. Labor Department to resolve allegations of pay discrimination against Black and Latino employees after a routine audit found discrimination against Black employees in the engineer and program project management functions and Hispanic employees in the marketing and strategic planning development functions. Comcast denied the allegations, but agreed to back pay and interest plus salary adjustments.(4)

In 2020, Comcast settled a lawsuit with television producer Byron Allen, who alleged that Comcast refused to offer his TV channels in its cable bundles because he’s Black. The settlement gained Allen various benefits, including carriage for three of his channels in Comcast’s Xfinity packages.(5)

During the 2020 election cycle, Comcast gave $755,000 to members of Congress who voted to overturn the results of the presidential election,(6) an action some viewed as an “attack on the voting rights of people of color.”(7) Although Comcast paused such donations, PACs affiliated with trade associations of which it is a member have continued to donate.(8)

A 2021 study revealed that from 2015 through 2020 Comcast was a leading corporate donor to state lawmakers who support legislation that can discriminate against minorities by making it more difficult to vote.(9)

We urge Comcast to assess its behavior through a racial equity lens in order to obtain a complete picture of how it contributes to, and could help dismantle, systemic racism.

DISCLAIMER: By including a shareholder resolution or management proposal in this database, neither the PRI nor the sponsor of the resolution or proposal is seeking authority to act as proxy for any shareholder; shareholders should vote their proxies in accordance with their own policies and requirements.

Any voting recommendations set forth in the descriptions of the resolutions and management proposals included in this database are made by the sponsors of those resolutions and proposals, and do not represent the views of the PRI.

Information on the shareholder resolutions, management proposals and votes in this database have been obtained from sources that are believed to be reliable, but the PRI does not represent that it is accurate, complete, or up-to-date, including information relating to resolutions and management proposals, other signatories’ vote pre-declarations (including voting rationales), or the current status of a resolution or proposal. You should consult companies’ proxy statements for complete information on all matters to be voted on at a meeting.