Molson Coors has joined the growing list of large consumer-facing companies to disavow their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, according to Bloomberg.
Recently announced changes include the termination of Molson Coors’ program to connect executive pay with employee representation, the company’s system of promoting diversity among its suppliers and its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index, on which it received a perfect 100 score in 2023.
Conservative social media influencer Robby Starbuck took credit for the change, calling it “another win.” Starbuck said he engaged in “a little back and forth with them” and told Molson Coors he was “investigating for a story.” Last month, Starbuck touted a near identical situation with Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman, which rolled back similar DEI-adjacent policies.
According to Starbuck, Molson Coors is ceasing DEI trainings and converting its employee resource groups – support groups for employees from underrepresented communities, such as the LGBTQ+ community – to business resource groups “that are open to all employees,” he said.
However, the reasoning behind some changes does not appear to be ideological. In the case of the end of DEI trainings, all eligible employees had finished them, according to the memo.
“With all U.S. employees having participated in our previous DEI-based training programs, these programs have been completed,” the executive leadership team wrote. “We are now in the process of developing the next evolution of our company trainings, focused on growth for our business and a strong workplace where everyone can thrive.”
Similarly, the business resource groups have been renamed to “provide clarity” that they focus on “business objectives, consumer dynamics and career development,” the memo said.
Several public-facing, diversity-related pages on Molson Coors’ website have been deleted and scrubbed from existence.
Molson Coors has revisited its philanthropic work to ensure that donations “are strategically focused on supporting our hometown communities and our core business goals, such as alcohol responsibility, disaster relief efforts, and promoting access to higher education and job training for positions in our industry,” the memo said.
The status of the Tenth & Blake Brewing Education Scholarship Fund is unknown. The fund was created in 2020 following the death of George Floyd to support students of color in pursuit of brewing and fermentation degrees at universities near some Tenth & Blake breweries. However, last month, Tilray announced it would buy nearly all the breweries in the department, effectively ending Tenth & Blake.
Although Molson Coors leaders told employees in the memo they plan to cease participating in “any voluntary ‘best of’ third-party company rankings in the U.S., including the HRC corporate equality index,” the company does not anticipate changing any employee benefits. Those benefits – such as offering “equivalency in same- and different-sex spousal and partner medical and soft benefits” and “equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care,” according to the HRC – will not be changed, leadership said.
“This will not impact the benefits we provide our employees, nor will it change or diminish our commitment to fostering a strong culture where every one of our employees knows they are welcome at our bar,” the memo read.
CEO Gavin Hattersley was slated to discuss the company’s recent performance and strategy at the Barclays Global Consumer Staple Conference on Wednesday, but his appearance was canceled, which Molson Coors said was due to a scheduling conflict.
Molson Coors’ decision to change its DEI policies somewhat echoes the conservative-led boycott of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (A-B) Bud Light that began in April 2023 following the brand’s partnership with social media content creator Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman. Outrage toward A-B and Bud Light bubbled up in conservative corners of the internet and led to significant sales declines.
Molson Coors, particularly its Coors half, has had an uneasy relationship with DEI principles, even before the acronym was part of the country’s public lexicon.
The Coors Brewing Company was the object of a decades-long boycott beginning in the 1960s that united a broad coalition of groups. Boycotts began in 1966 with the Hispanic community in Colorado, who protested the company’s allegedly poor treatment of its few Mexican-American employees, according to Colorado Public Radio (CPR).
The AFL-CIO called for another boycott against Coors from its member unions over the company’s alleged unfair hiring and union-busting practices in 1977 that lasted for 10-plus years, according to CPR. Allegedly among those hiring practices were screening questions to weed out LGBTQ candidates.
Allegations of workplace racism at Molson Coors’ Milwaukee brewery surfaced during an investigation into the February 2020 mass shooting that claimed the lives of six employees, including the shooter. Workers described a “hostile, racist environment” to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Anthony Ferrill, a Black man who worked as a staff electrician at the brewery, killed five co-workers and then himself. Ferrill had filed complaints about racist remarks made to him to HR and an unknown person left a noose on or in his locker.
However, police ultimately concluded that racism was not a driving factor in the mass shooting.