The USA Network doesn’t promote human rights at the local level.
Our 2024 Communication on Engagement to the United Nations Global Compact.
June 19, 2024 - Juneteenth
H.E. António Guterres Secretary-General
United Nations
New York, NY 10017 USA
SUB: The USA Network doesn’t promote human rights at the local level.
Dear Mr. Secretary General,
I am pleased to submit our fifth Communication on Engagement (COE) in celebration of the 10 years that the Empathy Surplus Project Foundation, doing business as the Empathy Surplus Network USA (Empathy Surplus), has been a member of the UN Global Compact (UNGC). We strongly support the UNGC's Ten Principles, which focus on human rights, living/work leisure, and anti-corruption of government for the sake of climate survival.
OUR MISSION IS TO RECRUIT AND EDUCATE PRO-EMPATHY FREEDOM VOTERS IN AND OUT OF OFFICE.
Empathy is the soul of democracy and ethical business. Empathy Surplus’s mission is to recruit and educate pro-empathy freedom voters in and out of public service as members of our human rights empathy education collective. Specifically, we want members from the ranks of state legislators, their aides, candidates, ethical businesses, news media, 501c3 trustees, and other constituents who are committed to making empathy central to constant public discourse. We use Four Empathy Activities:
We inwardly digest and reframe daily caring conversations with the Pro-Empathy Freedom Framing Guide from books by cognitive scientist George Lakoff (pictured here with me at the Berkeley, CA Rotary Club) to change common sense with progressive human rights empathy education.
We invest collaborative time and money into occasional Zoom forums to apply Dr. Lakoff’s insights to propose model legislation aligned around progressive human rights empathy.
We implement the proposed model legislation through human rights empathy education partnerships with ethical businesses, effective government task forces, and other civil society organizations.
We invite others to join Empathy Surplus at https://proempathy.us/join to build a common human rights empathy narrative that promotes the progressive measures of a caring society.
ETHICAL BUSINESS HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES MUST EMBRACE PROGRESSIVISM
Anyone committed to the UNGC Ten Principles must commit to progressivism and be committed to empathy for and responsibility to humanity as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). UNGC's ten principles under the heading of human rights state:
Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights and
Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
The USA Network doesn’t promote them. The Preamble of the UDHR says:
“Now, therefore, The General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”
Putin wing of the GOP intimidates the USA Network.
Empathy Surplus fears the USA Network fails to protect its wealth creators by failing to exercise its duty of care for Principles 1 and 2. If you care about your wealth creators, e.g., business employees, customers, and neighbors, your government relations efforts protect them from harm and treat them fairly so they can live fulfilling lives. Ethical businessmen and women do so by protecting and empowering public government, which the UNGC Principle 10 is meant to address: “Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.”
Empathy Surplus fears that the Putin wing of the GOP threatens wealth creator freedoms, opportunities, and broad prosperity in America and our allies. The USA Network, through its silence on protecting our republic and its democratic institutions and principles, has utterly failed to encourage its members to protect themselves from a convicted felon and their allies. Where is the progressive version of 2025 that could implement the SDGs? Empathy Surplus also fears that Putin-inspired immoral actors are capturing the UNGC for their own immoral Orwellian purposes.
USA NETWORK OF UNGC FAILS TO IMPLEMENT “PROGRESSIVE MEASURES” TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS WITH THE RULE OF LAW
In the words of our mentor, cognitive scientist, linguist, and progressive advocate
Dr. George Lakoff, in his Forward to our newly branded pdf of the Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said, “US human rights advocates have failed to protect human rights treaties with the rule of law for more than seventy-five years. Progressives must acknowledge that the ‘progressive measures’ of the UDHR Preamble have not included tried-and-true scientific methods of mass communication, prevalent in billionaire-backed extreme conservative think tanks. Progressives have failed to make our core moral value of empathy, the soul of democracy and human rights, central to constant national public discourse on every human rights issue with our neighbors. Nevertheless, we persevere.”
In the context of perseverance in “progressive measures,” Empathy Surplus continues to express our support for the UNGC in advancing the ten principles. We continue to state this commitment clearly to our stakeholders and the general public. Empathy Surplus invites our stakeholders and the general public to engage and challenge major business members of the UNGC to engage their government relations departments to demand state and federal governments protect human rights with the rule of law.
USA NETWORK BUSINESS MEMBERS IGNORE US AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
Empathy Surplus acknowledges that submitting this COE, which describes our organization's efforts to engage with the USA Network, fulfills a key requirement for participation in the UNGC. We have attempted to partner with USA Network members at the local level.
USA Network member employees are bewildered by our requests to partner around human rights. They have never heard of their company’s commitment to the UNGC or the Ten Principles. We have participated in and engaged with Ohio members of the UNGC to advance our mutual duty of care in the following ways:
Engaged in recruiting efforts of caring state legislators, their aides, candidates, ethical businesses, journalists, 501c3 trustees, and other constituents to join our human rights empathy education collective, which focuses on applying cognitive scientist, linguist, and progressive activist George Lakoff to make empathy central to constant public debate about climate survival with little success.
Invited business and non-business members of the UNGC to partner with our Empathy for Ukraine fundraiser for humanitarian aid with little success.
Invited business and non-business members of the UNGC to partner to make [a] cultivating empathy and [b] learning about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) mandatory for students in grades K-12 with little success.
Requested permission to use the UNGC logo, which has been routine in the past ten years but has prompted a disturbing and ongoing internal conversation that I am making public about the defense of human rights and whether anti-corruption applies to the public sector.
EMPATHY IS THE SOUL OF ETHICAL BUSINESS. WHERE IS THE USA NETWORK’S EMPATHY?
The simple truth is the USA Network business members don’t care about human rights. Billionaires and their USA Network business members continue to run and ruin the lives of millions of Americans. The UDHR's “progressive measures” mentioned in the Preamble include the commitment that “every individual and every organ of society” must govern our lives with empathy for and responsibility to humanity and teach its citizens about human rights.
Failure by USA Network business members to apply progressive measures in business, i.e., failure to exercise its duty of care, has
captured all branches of the US government and kept the United States from enabling five of 18 human rights treaties ratified,
led to the capture of the GOP and too many state governments by its zero empathy Putin wing and
threatened the UNGC mission to promote the duty of care.
USA NETWORK BUSINESS MEMBERS COULD PROPOSE CARE EDUCATION MODEL LEGISLATION.
CARE is an acronym for CULTIVATE ALL RIGHTS EMPATHY Education. Proposers of this model legislation link their particular human rights passion to the need to require students in grades K-12 to learn to cultivate empathy and learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Proposers can sign up at https://proempathy.us/care.
USA NETWORK NON-BUSINESS MEMBERS COULD PROPOSE CARE EDUCATION TO ADVANCE THEIR PARTICULAR CAUSE.
Empathy Surplus proposed CARE Education model legislation as a tool for potential partners to make empathy central to constant public discourse in the service of THEIR mission.
Everyone suffers from hypcognition—not knowing what we don’t know. But progressives, especially outside of business, are not embracing science-based communication fast enough. They still operate on a false notion that reason is completely conscious, literal (it applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal, and unemotional. However, reason is 98% unconscious, metaphorical, individual, experiential, and emotional.
Facts are important but secondary and must be framed from one’s morality, in this case, the duty of care, to be understood. Non-business members’ misunderstanding of reason leads to communication mistakes, such as offering unframed facts as arguments instead of linking facts to their vision and values of the Ten Principles—a commitment to empathy for and responsibility to humanity.
ANTI-CORRUPTION MUST MEAN DEFENSE OF THE LEGAL DUTY OF CARE TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS WITH THE RULE OF LAW.
Recently, Empathy Surplus submitted a routine request for the UNGC logo to be used in our newly branded illustrated UDHR, which was denied because we characterized the Ten Principles differently, offering a shortened synopsis other than “human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.”
That logo request denial launched an internal dialogue between Empathy Surplus and UNGC that we are making public. The dialogue speaks to a weak commitment within the UNGC logo request department to the vision and values of the human rights that the Ten Principles seek to promote. It’s not enough to say one cares for humanity if there is no will to act on that care to protect and empower humanity.
EMPATHY SURPLUS FRAMING HAS BEEN CONSISTENT.
Beginning in our 2016 UNGC Communication on Engagement (COE), we have been engaging the UNGC itself about the weak framing of its commitment to the values of the UDHR—empathy for and responsibility to humanity.
Empathy Surplus reframed the description of our mutual Ten Principles beginning in our 2018 COE, and no UNGC official has suggested that we stop. That reframed commitment appears in the first paragraph and second sentence of this COE.
“We strongly support the UNGC's Ten Principles, which focus on human rights, living/work leisure, and anti-corruption of government for the sake of climate survival.”
We do not alter the Ten Principles themselves because we are committed to them. However, when engaging our stakeholders, we reframe the description of the Ten Principles to align with our [a] vision of a world full of strong, diverse communities of nurturing families caring for each other and [b] our commitment to shrinking earth’s carbon pollution blanket. We believe our vision and commitment to climate survival align with the UN’s vision. We strive to link our description of the Ten Principles to their weblink on the UNGC website.
EMPATHY SURPLUS REPEATEDLY COMMUNICATES OUR COMMITMENT TO HUMAN RIGHTS EMPATHY TO STAKEHOLDERS.
Empathy Surplus is not sure how this internal conversation will turn out. We’re hoping for a compromise that will allow us to say, “Since 2014.” However, suffice it to say that we are content not to use the logo. We seem to have come to the same conclusion as others. We couldn’t find the logo on the Wilson Sporting Goods website, which joined in 2024, or the Starbucks website, which joined in 2004.
However, Empathy Surplus wants to discuss the internal dialogue between Empathy Surplus and the UNGC staff that handles logo requests and administers the UNGC Brand Guidelines. Here was the first language of the first denial:
“Hello, thank you for your request. We apologize for the delay. Could you please change the text accompanying your use of the "We Support" Endorser logo? It should reference our Ten Principles in the principles in the areas of "human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.” The UN Global Compact is not dedicated to leisure, focuses on anti-corruption in the context of business practices, not in the public sector, and has never used the term "carbon pollution blanket."
LEISURE IS A HUMAN RIGHT DESPITE WHAT THE UNGC LOGO REQUEST DEPARTMENT SAYS.
Everyone has a right to leisure. The UDHR obligates “every individual and every organ of society” to use “progressive measures” to protect “human rights” with “the rule of law.” This means human rights advocates, especially people in this UN initiative, are supposed to be progressive advocates of the rule of law, which includes the duty of care. This obligation includes protecting and empowering Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” However, the logo request department told us that “The UN Global Compact is not dedicated to leisure.”
LOCAL USA NETWORK MEMBER PRIVATEERS CONSISTENTLY SEEK TO ENSLAVE AND IMPOVERISH LEGALLY.
We characterize the third through the sixth principles of the UNGC Ten Principles as “living work/leisure” principles because the UDHR expects all human beings to have work that provides living wages and ample leisure for adults with no child labor or slavery permitted. No Chambers of Commerce promotes these principles locally. Local representatives of USA Network members join these organizations but do not invite these associations to [a] join the UNGC or [b] partner to promote human rights.
For example, Empathy Surplus is headquartered in Ohio, where unethical privateers run and ruin our lives through local Chambers of Commerce and local and state government. In June 2024, two of our members attended a Southwest Ohio rural Chamber of Commerce affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce. The agenda included meeting candidates who would help local unethical businesses remove legal public protections, a form of privateering, that principles 3-6 prohibit. The incumbent State House representative was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which opposes the UNGC Ten Principles.
Our mentor, Dr. Lakoff, says, “Privateering is a special case of privatization in which the capacity of government to carry out critical moral missions is systematically destroyed from within the government itself, which public funds are used to provide capital for private corporations to take over those critical functions of government and charge the public a great deal for doing so while avoiding all accountability.”
Apparently, at least, the person Empathy Surplus is dealing with in the logo request department has not read the UDHR. Or, at worst, s/he is an accomplice of an unethical privateer who has infiltrated the UNGC logo request department.
Members of Empathy Surplus have reported meeting six individuals in Southwest Ohio who had [a] never heard of the UDHR, e.g., four high school students and [b] had heard of human rights but had never actually seen the document of the UDHR, i.e.g., a librarian and a computer programmer. This is just one example of how the USA Network has failed to promote the Ten Principles effectively.
ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROGRESSIVES
It is clear to Empathy Surplus that the USA Network of the UNGC is not committed to human rights education at a local level in the USA. This lack of commitment offers non-business UNGC members and progressives an engagement opportunity to call out UNGC member businesses for their complicity in not protecting and empowering human rights in the USA with the rule of law.
For example, the UNGC logo request administrator wrote, “The UN Global Compact … focuses on anti-corruption in the context of business
practices, not in the public sector. There are other organizations that exist that focus on areas such as leisure and anti-corruption in government. ” This internal lack of understanding of the duty of care makes the UNGC complicit in human rights violations and the distortion of the Ten Principles.
This internal logo request denial was totally absurd on its face. Empathy Surplus believes that education on basic human rights is needed in all of UNGC support staff, including a refresher with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Every major company in America has a public government relations department, and smaller companies are members of business associations that engage with public government. All too often, these departments and associations corrupt the rule and spirit of the duty of care to undermine human rights and democracy specifically. Such intentional behavior has contributed to our national polarization and attack on our republic and its democratic institutions.
GEORGE KELL, THE FIRST UNGC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WARNED US.
Here’s an excerpt from the June 23, 2015, UN News Centre-Interview with Georg Kell, Executive Director, UN Global Compact. Kell’s words are prophetic:
“Corruption is the biggest cancer in the world, and it’s everywhere…it enriches those who are already rich, and it’s always at the expense of the disadvantaged.
“The third reason (social responsibility is good for business) is natural resource scarcity and the blurred line between what is public and what is private. Twenty years ago, for business, it was enough to have just one good relationship with one government where they were headquartered. This government would give them protection, a license to operate, and they could manage the regulatory interface. Today, as business has gone global or is connected through the value chain, this doesn’t work anymore. Today, what used to be strictly public has a private character and vice versa... so for all these reasons, what used to be external to the firm now has material relevance for the firm itself and there’s a real incentive to find solutions on these issues.”
“The bottom line is if you want to be successful in the long term, you can no longer avoid this agenda. Environmental, social, and governance issues matter. They matter not only in a public goods sense but increasingly, they also matter in a material sense. We call this internally, the moral imperative.”
MORE MEMBERS ARE NEEDED TO ADVANCE OUR MISSION TO MAKE EMPATHY CENTRAL TO CONSTANT PUBLIC DISCOURSE.
Empathy Surplus appreciates Mr. Kell’s focus on “the moral imperative.” We also agree with Dr. Lakoff that progressive college students seeking to change the world are not being trained in science-based communications like business majors and should be. Empathy Surplus promotes science-based communication focused on “the moral imperative” of empathy as central to constant public discourse.
However, we need more members to help us engage the UNGC businesses in our communities and demand that they live up to their commitment to the values of empathy for and responsibility to humanity found in the Ten Principles.
Since our last COE in 2022, Empathy Surplus members have averaged 30,000 to 35,000 emails, social media posts, and blog posts annually, promoting empathy as central to constant public human rights conversations. We’d like to think we’ve made a difference.
We see empathy being increasingly promoted as key to public policy. Nevertheless, our hope to save our republic and its democratic institutions in the short term and especially our human species in the long term is challenged daily.
EMPATHY FRAMING PROJECTS
The following projects were offered to both UNGC members and non-members since our last COE.
Empathy for Ukraine's Human Rights Fundraiser
Empathy Surplus is headquartered in Wilmington, Ohio, home of the Sister City to three Ukrainian Cities in the Kharkiv state. After Russia invaded Ukraine, we launched a fundraising effort hoping to partner with local UNGC members in offering peer-to-peer Ukrainian humanitarian aid fundraising to their employees. We reached out to the following UNGC business members who did not respond:
AARP
AT&T
Case Western Reserve University
CVS Pharmacy
Fifth Third Bank
Ford
General Motors
Nestle Purina Petcare Company
Pepsico
University of Dayton Human Rights Center
Verizon
Whirlpool
Xavier University Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Potential fundraising partners failed to respond. Consequently, we stopped receiving funds and now promote a link that goes directly to our Empathy for Ukraine humanitarian aid donation partner at https://empathysurplus.com/contact. Also, the founder joins local residents each Saturday at noon, standing up by the City’s Mural commemorating our Ukrainian Sister Cities.
Open Houses, Framing Workshops, Weekly Radio Addresses, and Lit Sharing
Empathy Surplus founders in Ohio offer weekly online radio addresses, 2-hour framing workshops, and weekly recruiting open houses. Empathy Surplus trustees in New York share our Pro-Empathy Freedom Framing Toolkit at Advocacy Fairs.
Going Forward
Thank you for your continued commitment to empathy for and responsibility to humanity. Pro-empathy freedom voters in and out of office are the solution to building a caring society.
Sincerely,
Charles M. Watts
Founder and CEO
NOTES: For footnotes, go to https://proempathy.us/ungcesn.