Common Assignment

Lululemon, a popular athleisure brand, has faced ethical and legal issues despite its reputation. The brand emphasizes sustainability and environmental friendliness, but former employees have revealed that it fails to follow basic ethical standards. Lululemon uses a decentralized leadership strategy, allowing individual stores to operate independently, which can lead to misconduct and legal problems. Employees of color have reported discrimination and being sidelined. Lululemon established an inclusion department, but it seems to be a front for unethical practices. Specific acts include unfair wages, extensive interviewing, and segregating employees of color. The Hyde Park Store in Chicago received numerous racial discrimination claims before being shut down. The store manager wanted an all-black staff, but Lululemon insisted on a predominantly white and Asian staff. Consumers must hold Lululemon accountable by refusing to support their unethical behavior and demanding change. Without Hello, my name is Olivia Le Penchon and welcome to my podcast. On this week's podcast, I will be covering the ethical and legal issues of Lululemon. So we all know Lululemon as the world's middle-high class go-to athleisure wear. I personally am very guilty of wearing their clothes daily because of the comfort and sustainability. As a Division 1 athlete, they are a very reliable go-to for everyday practice wear. One thing that people can't take away from this brand is the reputable name it has made for itself over the years within the clothing industry. Lululemon made $8.84 billion within July 2022 to July 2023. In just one year, they had a 25.17 increase year over year. Lululemon is in 18 countries around the world with 665 stores, with the majority being in the U.S. The name Lululemon has made for themselves has made it very easy for them to continuously hide their ethical issues they perform within their employees and hiring process. So now I'm going to be introducing some of their legal and ethical issues that they display as a company. So chances are if you're listening to this podcast, you either own an item from Lululemon or know many people that do. One of the main reasons Lululemon has so much support is because of their branding of being a green brand and being environmentally friendly. Being environmentally friendly is such a sought-out idea for consumers as we have been seeing over time the negative impacts on the planet we have made. These values have made the brand very appealing to consumers. These values have also made the brand very appealing to shareholders and managed to abide by the interests of their owners, which is a key factor for companies within free market ethics. Through the use of these values, they are focusing on increasing shareholder value. This proves how Lululemon has been posing well for many years and why they are able to continue these practices without facing any repercussions. Although what consumers, what customers are starting to understand and former employees are starting to surface is that the brand does not even follow the moral minimum. The moral minimum is a standard business practice that is rightly set for businesses to follow. It states that the minimum degree of ethical behavior is expected of a business firm, of a business firm, which is usually defined as compliance with law. This is where Lululemon lacks their focus. So Lululemon uses a decentralized leadership strategy within their stores. A decentralized leadership strategy is where decision-making is delegated by the top-level management to individuals within the company. Companies do this to allow more time for top management to focus on making large decisions for the company. Lululemon uses this specifically by having each store run their stores as their own individual small business. Unlike other stores, Lululemon's stores are not micromanaged by corporate. This idea that Lululemon runs each store on its own leaves lots of room for bad habits to be obtained and legal problems hidden within the stores. The brand has faced lots of backlash from their employees of color. There have been many, there have been claims made that the employees of color at Lululemon face regular stereotyping and are often sidelined. In 2020, Lululemon began an inclusion, diversity, equality, and action department. This department was supposed to align Lululemon with the triple bottom line, which is defined as the idea that investors and others should not focus on profits, should not only focus on profits, but also the corporation's impact on people and the planet. These are obviously very important ideas to follow, especially as a company, that you're not just focused on profit. I think a lot of companies nowadays get lost a lot in the idea of profiting. Unfortunately, if anything, this gave Lululemon a department to hide behind while still performing their unethical practices. The specific acts Lululemon performs is unfair wages, extensive interviewing while hiring, and putting employees of color in specific locations. One of the biggest focuses for these claims is the Hyde Park Store in Chicago. This store, like many other Lululemon stores, was praised for its customer service sales, yet it was shut down in August of 2023. This shutdown led to a flood of racial discrimination claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The store's manager, Michael Collins, encouraged the store to open the Hyde location with an all-black staff, as this store would be located in a predominantly black business district. We've seen recently in the news a lot of promoting for the black businesses and making it more streamlined with today's world, and just making it all equal for everyone within the business and business opportunities. Unfortunately, this was instantly vetoed by Lululemon. Instead, Lululemon wanted the staff to be made up of mainly white and Asian staff, as it was by a college. They thought that this would do best for this store. This store ultimately ended up closing. Collins stated he wanted to offer the brand a different point of view. Although Collins had extensive experience within the athletic wear industry, including time at Champion Clothing, he still had to navigate through eight interviews to be hired. This was weird, because he states in articles that the other management positions that were being filled only had one or two interviews most, but he unfortunately had to go in eight interviews, along with an extensive background check. Managing this location allowed Collins to see all the discrimination within Lululemon. He experienced black employees told they would be a better fit in the Hyde location, which was the location that Collins ran. Collins then went to the company's DEI lead with these issues. He had an extensive conversation on the issues that he had been facing, the other employees had been facing, and what it looked like to the community. The DEI told him, that's unfortunate. I hope it gets better. Collins felt very dismissed after this. I think anyone would. I think that it reflects very poorly onto Lululemon and really shows their outlook on this issue. Now I really want to talk about how listeners and us as consumers can change this, because talking about it only does so much. As consumers, we have to start the change in business ethics. Social responsibility is something that we must fulfill. Our social responsibility is to ensure companies are maintaining their corporate social responsibilities. Corporate social responsibilities is the idea that a corporation should act ethically and be accountable to society for their actions. As a society, we can understand that Lululemon is not upholding these responsibilities. Lululemon is clearly displaying employee discrimination, unequal treatment of employees or job applicants on the basis of color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability status. While this discrimination is unethical, it is also illegal. While these allegations against Lululemon continue to continue, the people must back the unethical and illegal treatment that was happening to these employees and fight for a change to this corporation. As a society, we must stop supporting this behavior and not financially support these actions. If Lululemon does not suffer financial precautions, this cycle may never stop. I'm sure we have all been punished for an action in our life we have committed or suffered consequences from that action. Without any punishment or consequences, we may not have stopped performing that action because we never had a loss or lost anything. So why would we see a real harm in stopping or a real desire to stop? We must treat these companies the same way. If no one holds these companies accountable, these practices may never stop.