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“TARGET FAILS WORKING FAMILIES” Plane Flies Over Target Annual Shareholder Meeting Demanding Paid Family Leave  

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR: Wednesday, June 13th, 7 AM – 9 AM (local time)
CONTACT: Yasmina Dardari | yasmina@unbendablemedia.com | (407) 922-8149

WEDNESDAY 7AM: “TARGET FAILS WORKING FAMILIES” Plane Flies Over Target Annual Shareholder Meeting Demanding Paid Family Leave 

Investors and Customers Call for Improved Parental Leave Policy in Advance of Company’s Annual Shareholder Meeting this Wednesday

Denver, CO – On Wednesday, June 13th, from 7AM – 9AM (local time), Target Corporation’s annual shareholder meeting will be met with a plane banner flyover—commissioned by women’s group UltraViolet in partnership with PL+US (Paid Leave for the United States) —pressuring the retail giant to change its inadequate and unequal paid family leave policy. Target employs over 360,000 people and provides only two weeks of paid parental leave (plus an additional 6-8 weeks of short-term disability pay for birthing moms). The policy excludes part-time employees.

Over 50,000 people (and rising) have signed petitions calling on the company to act.

The plane banner will read: TARGET FAILS WORKING FAMILIES

View the petition HERE: https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/target_paid_leave_2018/

“Target is falling behind its competitors—branding itself as a family-friendly company, yet giving employees so little paid time off to take care of a newborn or sick family member,” explained Shaunna Thomas, Co-founder of UltraViolet. “Even competing retail giants known for horrendous labor practices, like Walmart and Amazon, are evolving faster when it comes to paid family leave. That is why we’re flying a plane banner over the company’s shareholder meeting: to send Target executives the message that we are not fooled by their family-friendly branding.”

“Target is failing working families and falling behind the growing paid leave trend at the top US employers,” added Annie Sartor, PL+US Workplace Program Director. “They’re hearing this not only from their investors, but also their consumers and employees, and seeing this as they lose out on business and top talent to their competitors who have adopted expanded paid leave policies.”

Target’s policy now falls far short of companies like Walmart, Amazon, Ikea, Bank of America, and other companies in competition for talent and market share.

In addition to the petition a number of other stakeholders are voicing their concern about Target’s paid leave policy:

“Leaving my tiny two-week-old baby would have been extremely painful, and yet 1 in 4 women in this country have to go back to work within 2 weeks of giving birth because of inadequate policies like Target’s,” said Erika Robers a Target consumer who started a petition to get Target to expand its paid leave policy. “Being there and providing for those you love isn’t negotiable. As a customer, I’m calling on Target to expand its paid family leave policy to 12 weeks for all employees.”

“As investors in Target corporation, we are concerned that as the marketplace shifts, the company is losing out on the bottom line benefits of a competitive paid family leave policy,” said Maria Egan an investor at Reynders McVeigh a firm who manages stock in Target. “Further, its policy opens up the company to unnecessary litigation risk because it disproportionately impacts fathers and the LGBT community. It’s time for Target to adapt its employment benefits for the sake of the company and its investors.”  

For more information, or for interview with an UltraViolet or PL+US spokesperson, please contact Yasmina Dardari at (407) 922-8149 or by email at yasmina@unbendablemedia.com.

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UltraViolet is an online community of over 1,000,000 women and men who want to take collective action to expose and fight sexism in the public sector, private sector and the media. Find out more at weareultraviolet.org

PL+US (Paid Leave for the United States) is the nation’s leading nonprofit solely dedicated to fighting and winning paid family leave for everyone in the US. In the last year alone, the organization has won paid family leave for nearly 2 million, particularly low-wage working people, by expanding policies it at industry titans like Walmart, Starbucks, CVS, and more.  Learn more at: http://paidleave.us/

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