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BOYCOTTS

Toyota to devote billions to Jackson diversity demands
By Steve MillerTHE WASHINGTON TIMES  August 9, 2001

Toyota Motor Sales USA, in response to boycott threats from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, will announce today a multibillion-dollar commitment to enhancing its diversity program.
"The discussions with Mr. Jackson have given us the opportunity to look at things more closely and comprehensively," said Toyota spokesman Mike Michels. "This will be a very broad plan, including dealer development, procurement advertising, all the issues that have been under discussion since May."
Last week, Mr. Jackson said that the Japanese automaker's U.S. arm was being unresponsive to his boycott threats, and that sanctions were imminent.
This week both parties will stand side by side to announce the reconciliation in a 30-minute press conference. The announcement will take place in Chicago at the annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition convention, which began yesterday. Mr. Jackson noted Toyota's pending announcement during his address to convention delegates yesterday morning.
Mr. Michels called the financial infusion into an already robust diversity program a "rededication" on the company's part to improve its ties with minorities.
Toyota, like virtually every other carmaker in the country, has donated money to Mr. Jackson's civil rights organizations. Sometimes the amount has been $20,000, with the largest being $100,000.
During negotiations with Mr. Jackson, Toyota's donations were halted at the civil rights leader's request. Mr. Jackson has been plagued by allegations that his economic boycott threats against several companies are linked to money being donated to his groups. Documented reports surfaced earlier this year connecting his support for certain corporations with donations to Jackson-piloted groups such as his nonprofit Citizenship Education Fund.
Mr. Michels insisted that Toyota's commitment to expanding its diversity program goes beyond simply an injection of money.
"This plan is much more broad than that," he said.
The conflict between the civil rights leader and the U.S. arm of Japan's largest automaker began with an ad campaign that ran for several weeks this spring. The ad, created by international agency Saatchi & Saatchi, showed a close-up of a black person's smile with a Gold Toyota RAV4 sport utility vehicle carved on a front tooth.
Mr. Jackson said the ad had racist overtones. "The only thing missing is the watermelon," he said to reporters after an hourlong conference with Toyota corporate leaders in May.
Toyota defended the ad, saying it was part of a "buzz" campaign, which relied on using postcards distributed to hip urban nightspots and coffee houses.
"The postcard was not directed at any ethnic group," Toyota stated on its Web site.
Mr. Jackson first organized small picket-line protests against the ad and Toyota's diversity practices in Detroit and Chicago.
Then he threatened a company boycott and sent a memo to Toyota demanding changes in its treatment of minorities.
His demands included the creation of a "3-5 year plan on parity, diversity and inclusion, including timetables and targets." Also, on Mr. Jackson's list were changes that would "empower minority employees."
Toyota, which saw its number of minority employees more than double between 1974 and 1992, maintained that it has always had a diverse workplace. Today's announcement will end the dispute, Mr. Michels said. In fact, the company never really wanted to defy Mr. Jackson.
"We aren't wired that way," the spokesman said. "It sounds cliche, but there is a continuous improvement mantra here. I really don't think it would be our way of looking at things."

July 31, 2001

Toyota faces Jackson's deadline
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Tomorrow is the deadline for Toyota Motor Sales USA to comply with the diversity demands of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who threatens a boycott of the Japanese automaker if his conditions are not met.

Toyota also is defending itself in a lawsuit brought by a friend of Mr. Jackson's, Greg Calhoun. The Alabama consultant and grocery mogul claims that Toyota's American office has failed to pay a $1 million service fee for the study of enhancing diversity at Toyota.
"We are quite surprised that the consulting firm chose to do this under these circumstances," said Mike Michels, a Toyota spokesman. "The boycott is still on the table, and we were simply unable to agree with Mr. Calhoun's proposal."
Mr. Jackson in May threatened to call for a boycott after he discovered a Toyota ad that showed a close-up of a black person's smile that featured a gold RAV4, a small sport utility vehicle, embossed on a front tooth. The ad was placed on giveaway postcards found on racks in trendy nightclubs, coffeehouses and restaurants.
"The only thing missing is the watermelon," Mr. Jackson said during a news conference that followed his first meeting with Toyota officials.
Toyota removed the ad on its own on May 14. But a week later, Mr. Jackson accused the company of racist advertising while excluding blacks among its dealers, board of directors and advertising agencies.
Mr. Jackson insisted that Toyota spend more of its $470 million annual advertising budget with black advertising firms and include more blacks on its staff. The company has installed what it calls an "internal diversity panel" and is reviewing advertising firms.
Toyota says it has moved fast enough to satisfy any demands that Mr. Jackson or others have made.
"We had hoped all of this was over after his first call," Mr. Michels said. "We had a meeting with him on June 20 and felt that we had installed some changes. But he's now raised other issues over our board of directors. Well, our board is in Japan, like many of our other management teams."
Mr. Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition have disseminated misinformation on the degree of minority participation in the corporation, Mr. Michels said.
He said Toyota was disappointed, for example, that Mr. Jackson attacked the percentage of the company's minority-owned dealerships. Sixty-three out of the 1,378 Toyota and Lexus dealerships in the United States are owned by minorities, a rate comparable to that of Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Jackson said the discussions with Toyota have been "fruitful" and that a boycott will be discussed at the Rainbow/PUSH convention Aug. 8 to 12. Such an action is a last resort, said Keanna Peyton.
"As of now, we've had open talks and promising results, but there have been some issues from the beginning I think one of the major concerns we have had was female representation among the leadership" at the company's U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif.
Since his fledgling days as a civil rights leader, Mr. Jackson has threatened companies with boycotts for perceived shortcomings in minority hiring. More recently, his "Wall Street Project" involved speaking to financial leaders and encouraging more hiring of minorities and working with minority-led firms.
Cypress Semiconductors chief T.J. Rodgers called the strategy a "shakedown" when Mr. Jackson accused his company of racist hiring policies and threatened sanctions.
Eric Dezenhall, a D.C.-based corporate consultant, said Mr. Jackson's modus operandi is more of a "protection racket rather than a shakedown, because he doesn't really make threats."
"Nowadays, a corporation would rather be accused of child molestation than racism," Mr. Dezenhall said. "I think Jackson's efforts have blown out of something very legitimate. When he started, there were these disparities. But now, there are black CEOs, and that's one reason Jackson hasn't been doing so well. They got to the top through hard work and taking risks."
But Mr. Jackson says he is just trying to level the playing field.
"Jackie Robinson just needed a chance, and that's what I am trying to get for people of color," he said during a February interview.
The lawsuit from Calhoun & Associates is rooted in an agreement for consulting services to prevent the boycott. Attorneys for Mr. Calhoun claimed Toyota representatives signed a contract to pay $1 million for services and verbally agreed to a five-year relationship.
Toyota denies it ever signed anything.
"There is a contract signed by Toyota representatives," said Larry Golston, one of Mr. Calhoun's attorneys. "It was $1 million for consulting. Right now, we're trying to figure out how Toyota can say that there is no money owed."
He said that while his client and Mr. Jackson "are acquainted with each other," the deal between Mr. Calhoun and Toyota was forged through the consultant's relationship with NASCAR.
"So Toyota brought him in to develop a diversity program as well as coming up with a plan that could appease Rainbow/PUSH so they wouldn't boycott them."
Mr. Calhoun is an Alabama supermarket tycoon with 14 stores, 600 employees and annual revenues of around $81 million. His grocery empire enabled him to expand, and he opened Calhoun & Associates in Chicago in 1998.
"We consult to major companies about minority issues," Mr. Calhoun explained in an interview that year. His clients have included the Coca-Cola and Pepsi companies, and NASCAR.
Mr. Calhoun was part of a contingent of civil rights activists and corporate leaders who accompanied President Clinton on the 1999 "poverty tour" of the South.

11 de febrero de 2000 en El Nuevo Herald

Exilio cubano cancela boicot a Procter & Gamble tras arreglo con la empresa

WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
El boicot proyectado por una coalición de agrupaciones cubanas del exilio contra los productos de la firma norteamericana Procter & Gamble, dio ayer rápida marcha atrás, con el beneplácito de ambas partes.

Cabarga calificó de ``efectivo'' el resultado del boicot, y anunció que el FPC considerará ahora nuevas campañas contra los productos de otras de las 80 firmas estadounidenses que estuvieron en la exposición de La Habana.

The Latin Quarter News