Justworks - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Justworks is Medium Risk.

Justworks often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. Justworks occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Lower Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	Medium Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	High Risk
Political Actions	Lower Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Justworks has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Justworks does not discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Justworks does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (1).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Justworks has sympathized with the BLM movement over a series of articles published that communicate the company’s response to racial injustice (1). Justworks initiatives included distributing anti-racism and bias trainings, hosting sessions for employees to share their experiences, waiving 12 months of admin fees for Black-owned Businesses, and forming partnerships to increase diverse hiring (2)(3).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Justworks covers employees abortion travel expenses (1). The company published a set of 10 Black Lives Matter commitments in 2020. The second commitment consisted of a ‘donation-matching campaign” that amounted to $157,000 to organizations such as BLM, Know Your Rights Camp, and Campaign Zero (2). The company has also made significant donation towards abortion access, donating $100,000 across multiple organizations including the National LGBTQ Task Force, and Sister Song (3). In 2021, the company announced its the formation of “Justworks.org.” This fund was created to “level the playing field for entrepreneurs who have historically faced inequities in opportunity along race, gender, sexual orientation, and other socioeconomic lines” (4). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of Justworks using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Justworks does not operate a PAC or engage in lobbying at this time (1)(2)(3).