Salesforce Said It Will Help Employees Leave Texas Due To Abortion Law

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In a Soft (JOB) message obtained by CNBC, the cloud computing company told its 56,000 employees that they “stand with all of our women at Salesforce and everywhere.”

“That being said, if you have concerns about accessing reproductive health care in your state, Salesforce will help relocate you and your immediate family members,” the Slack post said.

Salesforce took no position on Senate Bill 8 in the statement. The company has 16 sites in the United States, including one in Dallas.

Texas law, which prohibits abortion providers from performing abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, essentially banned the procedure from six weeks a pregnancy. (Under current federal law, the procedure is legal, but many states have restrictions such as waiting periods or a ban after a woman has been 20 weeks pregnant.)

The law came into effect on September 1 after the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeal refused to rule on the blocking attempts. It effectively bans at least 85% of sought-after abortions in the state, opponents say. It also punishes anyone, not just medical providers, who “aids or encourages” a restricted abortion. This would include healthcare providers, family and friends, or anyone transporting a person to or from an abortion clinic.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Texas on Thursday over the abortion law.

Friday night, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted, “Ohana, if you want to move, we’ll help you leave TX. Your choice.”

Benioff and Salesforce have long championed social causes and corporate responsibility.

Salesforce company acquired Slack in December for over $ 27 billion. Shares have since risen more than 6%.
Lyft General Counsel: Hope More US Businesses Take A Stand on Texas Abortion Law
“Businesses are the best platform for change. My role is to help CEOs see they can change,” Benioff said in an interview with CNN Business in December.
This isn’t the first time the company has criticized a controversial state law. Salesforce was one of the first corporate voices against sweeping election bills in Georgia, which critics said was a clear voter suppression. Atlanta is home to Salesforce Towers, the company’s regional headquarters, which employs 1,300 people.

“A person’s right to vote is the foundation of our democracy,” Salesforce tweeted in March after Georgia’s House of Representatives passed a bill that called for voter ID, less time to request ballots postal voting, severely limited access to early voting and even clarified. that no one can offer water to the voters who stand in line.

“Georgia HB 531 would limit reliable, safe and equal access to voting by restricting early voting and eliminating provisional ballots. That is why Salesforce opposes HB 531 as is,” the company said.

While U.S. businesses have taken public positions on last summer’s racial justice protests and restrictive voting laws filed or enacted in various states, U.S. businesses have largely remained silent on Texas abortion law. .

Exceptions include the private company Bumble and the Match group (MTCH) CEOs who both announced last week that they were creating relief funds for those affected by Texas’s abortion law.

“Bumble is founded and run by women, and from day one we have stood up for the most vulnerable. We will continue to fight regressive laws like # SB8,” the company said on Twitter.

Bumble and Match pledges to help those affected by Texas abortion law
And Elevator (ELEVATOR) CEO Logan Green tweeted that his company had created a legal defense fund to cover the legal costs of one of its drivers who are being prosecuted under SB8. Uber (UBER) then followed. The broad wording of the law could make drivers responsible for helping a person to have a restricted abortion while transporting them, even without knowing it.
No large company has announced its departure from Texas. Large Texas-based companies such as Hewlett Packard (HPQ) in Houston publicly spoke out against the state’s restrictive new electoral law, which came into effect on Sept. 7.

Other cities are capitalizing on controversial new state laws. The city of Chicago will run a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News listing the reasons Windy City is “a great place for business.” This ad refers to voting, abortion and Covid-19, all major political issues in Texas.

CNN’s Paul R. La Monica and Charles Riley contributed to this story.



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