Everyone loves talking shit about their boss.
So when I put a call out on social media asking folks if their employers had sent them “a mealy-mouthed email about how to remain productive during these troubled times or some other example of non-committal, faux-concerned corporate-speak,” the responses I got were many, immediate, and… let’s just say, intemperate.
My inbox was stuffed with dozens of messages with subject headers like “Email from a boss who doesn’t give a shit about ICE” or “MN employer emails about … something.” The neglect that people felt was palpable, the sense that their situation was simply not being acknowledged or was even being minimized had them seething.
Many of us already felt that way when the CEOs of 60 companies based in Minnesota put out an ineffectual email a few weeks ago. “With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the open letter reads.
The “tragic news” was the Border Patrol killing of Alex Pretti, which came two weeks after the killing of Renee Good. No blame is cast. No solutions are offered. While ordinary folks were out on the street fighting to protect their neighbors and depleting their bank accounts for mutual aid, Minnesota’s “corporate citizens” were hedging their bets and looking out for the bottom line.
MPR News also reached out to several major companies with requests for comment but received no response from UnitedHealth, Best Buy, Ecolab, 3M, General Mills, U.S. Bancorp and Hormel. Target, at whose stores ICE agents have been patrolling store lots, also did not respond to a request for comment.
But companies were doing something: sending emails to their employees reminding them that there was work to do. I’ve read through a lot of these emails now. They ranged from inept and well-meaning to politically vague to drastic misreads of their employees’ personal needs. But they all contained one message: You still have to work.
Every respondent here has been kept anonymous, and some of the companies they work for have not been identified, because we live in a country where most people can be fired for expressing an opinion about their employer. (One person who responded told me he actually was fired for questioning his company’s response to the ICE onslaught.)
Communications have been paraphrased when necessary, and every effort has been made so that employers cannot trace these back to the source.
“Events” Are “Uncertain” and “Stressful”
The first step in communicating with your employees about a crisis is to avoid telling them what the crisis is. Here are some ways that corporate communications described the ICE occupation of Minnesota, which I have arranged into a little poem that I call…
Events in Minnesota
The situation in the MSP metro area
The ongoing situation in Minnesota
The ongoing, turbulent situation in Minneapolis
Situations like this
A series of events that happened very near our offices
Recent events that may be affecting many of you, particularly those in Minneapolis
Recent events related to immigration enforcement that may be causing stress and uncertainty
Uncertain, stressful, and volatile times
This heavy and painful moment our communities across Minnesota are experiencing
What is unfolding in our Minneapolis community
The unfortunate circumstances unfolding in Minnesota
The difficult events unfolding in our community
An extraordinarily difficult time
The current environment
Euphemisms All the Way Down
Sometimes, those euphemisms were the only acknowledgment of current events that employees received. “This heavy and painful moment,” a Fairview employee told me, was tacked on to a long message that focused on extensive details about M Health Fairview’s partnership with the University of Minnesota.
Another employer’s sole communication on the matter was that the company would be open on Friday, January 23—the day of the general strike—but that people could take PTO “for important causes.”
The doubletalk didn’t stop there. A message from a suburban public school district begins: “As we move into the third quarter, we are taking steps to move differently, and we are being intentional about what additional supports are needed for our students and staff in light of the current environment.”
The teacher who passed it along said that staff had been asking for a response from the superintendent for over a month, during which there had been multiple lockdowns, before they received an email saying essentially nothing.
Then there were emails that said more than they needed to. Take the CEO who both-sidesed the matter so aggressively his true feelings showed through:
We have seen an increase in ICE activity in our local areas, businesses, and communities. Some people view this activity as overly aggressive and unnecessary. There are others who support the actions and view them as simply an attempt to enforce Federal Immigration Law.
The CEO then expresses his disappointment in Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz, as well as President Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, “who issued immediate condemnations for people involved.” He lectures employees to avoid “obstruction, violence, or any other form of unlawful behavior” and assures them that “the investigation will take its course and we have to trust the process.”
Another respondent, who works remotely for a solar company, wrote to say that when he expressed safety concerns, he was taken aback by a response his boss probably thought was generous.
“He suggested that the company could fly me out to one of our corporate offices,” the employee wrote. “I wish I had the courage to say what I felt—that it was fucking insulting idea. Rather than recognizing that my home was under assault and asking what I needed, his instinct was that I should leave the Cities until the occupation is over.”
Reading Between the Lines
After you’ve scanned a half-dozen or so corporate emails about “recent events,” the euphemisms all start to blur together. So I was grateful to hear from employees who were attuned enough to their own company’s brand of blather that they could interpret the wish-wash for me.
One respondent noted that the instructions —"As you work and interact with colleagues, please remain supportive, respectful, and understanding of our diversity of experiences and needs during this period"—was his med tech bosses’ way of saying “Some people support ICE, so don’t talk about this stuff.”
One health insurer made a similar statement, saying it “respects and supports all of our employees' right to hold their own views, beliefs, and perspectives. Our workforce is made up of individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and that diversity of thought is something we value.”
The same company “does not take a stance on political issues outside of core topics that are central to what we think should drive the direction of U.S. healthcare.”
A member of the faculty of Minneapolis Community & Technical College, which Alex Pretti attended, called out a “bullshit email sent from our MCTC President, a NURSE, about our fallen comrade and graduate Alex Pretti. Cares a lot more about staying safe and not rocking the boat and her 300K salary than supporting faculty/an incredibly vulnerable student population.”
Her summary of the email: “No real economic support for hybrid/remote classes, no real systemic accommodations on offer or safety improvements for campus. Just a moment of reflection in the T Plaza. Hot garbage.”
A Hennepin County employee pointed out that an email from the County Administrator went out of its way to “recognize and appreciate our Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and our County Security teams.” The email continued, “Your work has kept people safe and helped thousands of Minnesotans peacefully exercise their rights, even as tensions rose.”
That county employee added, “The Sheriff’s Office have been the ones allowing ICE to walk in and roam freely into HCMC, the Government Center, and county libraries to harass and arrest patients and patrons but not the county workers who work every day at those locations.”
Other respondents brought up their employers’ financial relationship with ICE.
“Most emails I receive from UMN I consider morally void with ICE agents staying at the Graduate Hotel on campus. Haven't gotten an email about that though!” one wrote.
A corporate email from Thomson Reuters sidestepped a question about whether the company “would reconsider” its $5 million contract with Homeland Security. Said the company:
We cannot comment on specific government contracts, however, various agencies within DHS engage Thomson Reuters to support their investigations, such as to address child exploitation, human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, national security and public safety cases, organized crime, and transnational gang activity.
So, Thomson is only working with Homeland Security on the good things it does, not the bad things.
That seems unlikely, as Thomson licenses its Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) platform to ICE. As In These Times notes, “CLEAR creates individual profiles of people by aggregating and connecting thousands of datasets full of typically hard-to-find information, such as court records, business filings, driving records and social media, along with proprietary databases. [It] has become central to the U.S. surveillance apparatus and deportation machine.”
EAPs to the Rescue
These messages were peppered with repeated assurances that companies were “committed to employee safety” and had “established policies and procedures” to ensure that commitment. “We have existing systems and policies that are applicable to our current situation,” one state agency assured its employees.
As one person who works for a downtown Minneapolis corporation put it, “They keep saying that our building is safe and secure and unaffected—which, yes, we have security, but we don't actually live in the building. We have to commute through the city to get here, many of us by public transit.”
Another state agency employee was frustrated with the lack of guidance that came with these assurances.
Staff who are immigrants and POC have quite reasonably asked what protections they have from federal law enforcement at work or on their commutes. They're told that there will be no general guidance given and everyone has to take it up individually with their supervisor.
Staff who work in public-facing locations have asked how they can make it clear what spaces are public and where they can refuse entry. No general guidance, take it up with your building coordinator. We have existing policies. Use those.
Can communications staff compile applicable policies and procedures into guides to help coworkers? No. In emergencies, we are directed to call 911. If you get detained? Well, we understand this may not be possible, but please try to let your supervisor know.
Almost every email I received mentioned Flextime, allowing workers to adjust their schedules (as long as they still worked a full day) and punted mental health problems off to EAPs. If you’re fortunate enough to have never worked in corporate America, that stands for Employee Assistance Program, a program that supplies a half-dozen or so free meetings with a therapist through the employer..
Honest human resources professionals acknowledge the limitations of EAPs while also insisting that they can help in certain circumstances. Here’s what someone in corporate communications told me:
I think EAPs provide a valuable stopgap solution for smaller issues, work stressors, family issues, having a person to talk to about general anxiety about a society gone awry, that sort of thing.
It offloads any responsibility for the employer to really address systemic issues. They can say, well if you're bothered by something, be it an issue with your boss or you feel overworked and underpaid, you can just go talk about it here—and that can be helpful but it's not a solution.
From a comms perspective, whenever something happens, like a shooting or a big news story that is upsetting, it's like well, let's get out a message about our EAP.
But hey, at least one employer offered an additional mental health benefit: “Look for details on our planned March mindfulness session with a focus on caring for your mental wellbeing,” they suggested.
Did “corporate America” fail to rise to the challenge of the ICE invasion? Or was rising to the challenge never a possibility. Businesses exist to make money. Calamities like the one we’ve endured in Minnesota create personal needs that threaten that goal.
Yet the folks in corporate will always be searching for a nicer way to phrase that.
