QuotaMatic Snapshot
[Adversity.Net Report
July 3, 2003] -- It
is much more than just a "quota moment" at the photo and imaging giant. Is
is a complete and repressive "quota culture".
Kodak's aggressive, forced-diversity policies and procedures actively exclude non-minority
employees, suppliers and subcontractors.
Acquisitions: Like most large companies, Kodak
frequently purchases smaller companies. Adversity.Net has examined some of these
purchases and has observed that Kodak's first order of business is to purge the acquired
company of most of its non-minority employees, especially non-minority males over 40 years
old. |
Kodak's headquarters are
located in Rochester, NY which is in Monroe County. Black Rochester residents adore
Kodak. |
Employee Manuals: Kodak's employee manuals and
procedures could have been a chapter from George Orwell's 1984.
| Kodak's Orwellian
thought police monitor employees' thoughts and attitudes regarding diversity and
Kodak punishes, demotes, fires and/or re-educates those employees with contrary
views.
And just as in Orwell's futuristic book, Kodak's "new speak" on all matters
diverse is mind-bogglingly contradictory and illogical.
Co-workers at Kodak are encouraged to act as thought police (or spies) when it comes to
politically correct attitudes and behavior regarding its diversity policies. |
|
Kodak's downtown Rochester, NY
offices. |
The company's
employee manuals spell out in great detail (a) what kinds of contrary views constitute a
crime against diversity, and (b) the specific steps your fellow employees should
follow in ratting you out.
Its all true, and its all on the public record.
You just won't hear about it from any Kodak employee who wishes to retain their job.
Downsizing Means Quota-Sizing: During the past four years (1998 -
2002) Kodak has eliminated as many as 20,000 jobs but somehow has managed to maintain
or increase the representation of minorities and women. |
For example, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported:
"One in four U.S. workers at
Xerox Corp., Bausch & Lomb Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co. was a racial minority in 2001,
up from one in five a decade ago. That was no easy feat -- U.S. employment for those three
companies fell by one-third during the period, but their minority representation
increased." [See Note 1]
Kodak publicly boasts about this accomplishment in their press releases and annual
reports. Such a feat could only have been accomplished by aggressively eliminating
more senior non-minority employees, particularly males, while selectively retaining
preferred minorities with far less seniority and job experience.
Source: Kodak 2002 Annual Report |
% Women |
% POC (People of Color)
Including Women of Color |
Year
Ending: |
2002 |
2001 |
2000 |
2002 |
2001 |
2000 |
Total
U.S. Employees: |
36% |
37% |
37% |
21% |
21% |
21% |
Board
of Directors: |
30% |
36% |
33% |
30% |
21% |
8% |
Senior
Managers, Directors, Managers and Supervisors: |
33% |
32% |
30% |
14% |
13% |
12% |
Exempt
Individual Contributors: |
28% |
29% |
29% |
12% |
11% |
11% |
Nonexempt
Contributors: |
40% |
40% |
41% |
25% |
25% |
25% |
Note particularly
the line titled "Board of Directors" in the table above. The proportion of
People of Color (Kodak's term) on Kodak's Board increased from 8% in 2000 to 30%
in 2002.
| Stated another way,
the proportion of non-minorities on Kodak's Board declined from 92% in 2000 to
70% in 2002. That represents a purge of 23.9% of the non-minorities from Kodak's
Board over the course of three years. [See Note 2] Minority
Non-Lawsuit:
Kodak's purge of non-minority board members and Kodak's phenomenal bragging about what a
nice place Kodak is for people of color can be traced to the mere threat of a
discrimination lawsuit by women and people of color in 1999. [See part 2 of our Kodak story: $13 Million Non-Settlement.] |
 |
In May of 1999 Kodak announced that it had settled this non-lawsuit for $13 million and
agreed at that time to implement many changes, including, of course, creation of the
inevitable Diversity Panel, as well as increasing minority representation on
their Board of Directors. Other changes included the addition of quota bonuses
(see immediately below).
| Executive
Bonuses for Racial Quota Achievements "Accountability is a key component of Kodak's commitment to
diversity and inclusion. Executives are held accountable for their results through metrics
[numbers or quotas] tied to a portion of compensation. This measures progress in
workforce diversity and culture transformation."
-- Kodak 2002 Annual Report |
|
Quota
Bonuses: Today
Kodak ties executive compensation and bonuses to the number of minority employees their
executives recruit and promote. In order to avoid using the term quotas
Kodak measures execs' quota achievements through what they call metrics. |
| CEO
Diversity Awards "The
Kodak CEO Diversity Award annually recognizes a Kodak middle -- or senior -- level manager
who role-models exemplary leadership and embraces the mindset and behaviors that lead to a
diverse and inclusive work group. ... Candidates are judged on their ability to leverage
diversity and inclusion to achieve business objectives and maximize the potential of
individuals and the organization."
-- Kodak 2002 Annual Report |
|
Diversity Panel: The photo giant also has a blue
ribbon Diversity Panel which monitors Kodak's racial quotas and forced-diversity
accomplishments. The chair of Kodak's Diversity Panel is none other than
Eric Holder, the black, Democrat, former Deputy U.S. Attorney General. (Holder was
appointed to his former job as Deputy U.S. Attorney General by none other than the first
"black" president of the U.S., Bill Clinton. More on Kodak's connection to
Clinton later.)
Also serving on Kodak's Diversity Panel is the Rev. Norvel Goff, pastor of the
Baber African Methodist Episcopal Church and president of the Greater Rochester chapter of
the NAACP. In 1999 the Rev. Goff played a key role in motivating Kodak to pay out
$13 million to 2,000 of its minority and female employees. [See part 2 of our Kodak story: $13 Million
Non-Settlement.]
Kodak Support for Quotas and
Preferences:
Eastman Kodak strongly supported the University of Michigan's racist student admission
policies which granted 20 bonus points (out of a possible total of 120 points) for any
student applicant who was the "right, non-white, non-Asian" color.
In a fractured and weak decision, on June 23, 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
Michigan and, by extension, other colleges and universities, can continue to discriminate
against student applicants based on their skin color. [See especially University of Michigan Quotas (opens a new window in your browser).]
It remains to be seen whether Kodak will supply funds to oppose the Michigan Civil Rights
Initiative, a ballot referendum for the 2004 elections which will allow Michigan voters to
essentially overturn the Supreme Court ruling within their own state. [See also Michigan
Civil Rights Initiative. Opens new window in your browser.]
Forced Diversity is NOT Profitable: Neither Kodak nor any of the other
large, corporate cheerleaders supporting this special brand of racial discrimination have
been able to show a positive, bottom-line impact of hiring and promoting by racial quota.
In fact, the only hard evidence of the "profitability of racial quotas" is
decidedly negative. The following excerpt from Chronwatch.Com (June 2002) documents the
stock performance of Forcibly Diverse corporations such as Eastman Kodak.
| Quoted
from Chronwatch.Com June 2002:
The new "diversity" regime, never the impolite "affirmative action"
policy, was supposed to unleash creativity, new markets, an infusion of new ideas, and of
course, profits. All this of course was encouraged by a "diversity" friendly
press, which infected by its own politically correct shenanagins in the newsroom as
documented by William McGowan in Coloring the News, saw this as a win-win and was an
incessant cheerleader.
Tell that to the shareholders of
Xerox, Ford, and Eastman Kodak. Take Xerox, which tied a portion of managers' bonuses to
how well they promoted diversity efforts at the company, traded in 1999 at about $63 a
share. It now trades about $8, or in percentage terms, a loss of 73 percent. If you were
to put that in dollars, well, you would have lost more $50,000 over the past two years.
Take Eastman Kodak, which this May
[2002] was named as one of the top companies for minorities by DiversityInc., plunged from
a 1998 high of $78 a share to a low last November of $24, a loss of 69 percent. Wall
Street analysts, who until very recently were paid to be bullish on stocks, have rated a
Kodak a "hold" or a "sell," the former a Street euphemism for run
screaming to the exits.
Or Ford, the second largest
automaker which recently settled hundred of suits by white male managers saying they were
discriminated against by a evaluation system cooked up by disgraced CEO Jacques Nasser to
eliminate white males over 40 and bring in more minorities, which has seen its shares from
$37 a share to $16, a loss of more than 56 percent.
Or JP Morgan, which bragged
recently that half of its new hires were minority or female, whose stock has fallen from
$67 to $33 in the past two years.
[See Note 3] |
Summary:
 Kodak dominates all Rochester, NY politics and economics. |
Few American
corporations exercise the degree of control over their employees' behavior and their very
thoughts than the Eastman Kodak Company. [See
Kodak story, part 4: Kodak's Intolerance.] Few
American corporations are as ruthless as Eastman Kodak in purging non-minorities --
especially non-minority males -- from their ranks.
Most other American corporations, however, do have a Supplier Diversity Program
very much like Kodak's, which excludes non-minority-owned suppliers and contractors from
doing business with Kodak. [See Kodak story,
part 5: Kodak Supplier Diversity
Program.] |
And most American corporations also have blue ribbon Diversity Panels like
Kodak's which are universally headed by liberal, pro-quota refugees from the first two
Clinton administrations. Where possible the chairpersons of these Diversity
Panels are black, Hispanic or Native American. If no blacks, Hispanics or
Native Americans are available for the job then pro-quota companies such as Kodak will at
least appoint a non-minority female to head their Diversity Panel. Whatever
the specific facts and circumstances, the chairpersons of these Diversity Panels
are always liberal, pro-quota diversiphiles. However, there is no
diversity of viewpoints or politics on these panels.
Notes,
References and Links:
Send Us Your
Comments:
If you have specific, additional information about Kodak's racial preferences programs,
please send your confidential comments to editor@adversity.net
END
Kodak Case 35: (1)
Introduction and Background |
