Article 25: Right to an adequate standard of living, security in sickness and old age, and special care for motherhood and childhood
Pivotal
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Since most Americans get health coverage and any sick pay through their job, employer decisions on wages, benefits and drug costs go a long way toward determining whether a family can actually afford food, housing and medical care, alongside government safety-net programs. Investors have acted on this directly. In 2023, faith-based and impact investors engaged 13 large employers on paid sick leave and filed nine formal shareholder proposals. The companies included Amazon, CVS, FedEx, Target, TJX and Norfolk Southern. Separately, investors have repeatedly asked large pharmaceutical companies including AbbVie, Amgen, Eli Lilly and Pfizer to tie executive pay to responsible drug pricing. But the strongest and most consequential corporate political story here is defensive. Restaurant and retail trade groups, working through the American Legislative Exchange Council, coordinated state laws that wiped out local paid sick leave ordinances in several cities and states. Those laws prevented workers from getting a right that local governments had already voted to give them.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Employer wages, health benefits, paid sick leave and drug-pricing decisions materially determine whether low-wage workers can afford food, housing and medical care. Government programs (Medicaid, SNAP, housing subsidies) and drug-price regulation set much of the rest, so corporate conduct is necessary but shares the outcome with the state.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, the National Restaurant Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and member companies including Yum! Brands and Darden Restaurants ran a coordinated, self-described 'kill shot' campaign of state preemption bills that overturned or blocked local paid sick leave laws in multiple states, a documented, primary obstacle to workers having any legally guaranteed sick pay.
2 and 2, higher of the two, gives Pivotal
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch (Center for Media and Democracy), 2013-04-12
- Paid Sick Leave, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2023 (accessed 2026-09)
- Norfolk Southern gives some workers paid sick days after crash, CBS News, 2023-02-23
- Shareholders renew their campaign to curb escalating drug prices at U.S. drug makers, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2019-11
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Distributed a Wisconsin bill preempting local paid sick leave ordinances as a model for other states, coordinating with member companies and trade groups.
Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch, 2013-04-12
Gave ALEC a target list and map of state and local paid sick leave policies and lobbied against sick-day measures in Wisconsin, Seattle, Portland and Philadelphia.
Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch, 2013-04-12
Co-chaired the ALEC subcommittee that reviewed and advanced the Wisconsin paid-sick-leave preemption bill.
Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch, 2013-04-12
Worked with the Florida Chamber of Commerce to delay an Orange County, Florida paid-sick-leave ballot measure.
Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch, 2013-04-12
Filed the 2022 Norfolk Southern shareholder proposal on paid sick leave, ahead of the company's February 2023 decision to grant paid personal days to unionized track workers.
Led shareholder engagement and filed drug-pricing-related executive-compensation proposals at Amgen and Eli Lilly.
3 campaigns on record
Adopt or expand paid sick leave policies.
Result: Not itemized by company in the source reviewed.
We found no documented, company-by-company outcome beyond the Norfolk Southern change above; ICCR's own summary does not report vote percentages or confirmed policy changes for the other companies.
Paid Sick Leave, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Assess and report whether drug-pricing risk is reflected in executive compensation design.
With United Church Funds
Result: Filed November 2019 for the 2020 proxy season.
We found no documented vote result or company policy change in the source reviewed; the article reports only that investor interest in the issue was growing.
Pass state laws preempting cities and counties from requiring employers to provide paid sick leave.
With National Restaurant Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Yum! Brands, Darden Restaurants
Result: Wisconsin enacted a statewide preemption law; similar efforts targeted Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia and Orange County, Florida.
Confirmed policy change: local paid sick leave ordinances were nullified or delayed in the targeted jurisdictions, documented contemporaneously by PR Watch.
Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC, PR Watch
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Universal Declaration of Human Rights's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.