Amid a flurry of strongly worded tweets, PayPal on Tuesday became the first and only prominent tech company to commit to moving operations out of North Carolina, whose governor last week signed into law a bill that bars local governments from passing antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people.
Bay Area companies with operations in North Carolina and Mississippi have loudly condemned recently passed state laws that target lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
But few have put action behind their words. The electronic payments firm announced Tuesday it would scrap plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte, N.C., after committing to employ more than 400 people in skilled jobs in the state.
No other company has committed to taking steps to leave either North Carolina or Mississippi, which on Tuesday passed legislation that allows public employees, schools, hospitals, shelters, faith-based organizations and businesses to refuse service to LGBT people and families. The Mississippi bill also allows these organizations to refuse to acknowledge the gender identities of transgender people.
"Our decision is a clear and unambiguous one," wrote Dan Schulman, PayPal's president and chief executive, in a company blog post. "As a company that is committed to the principle that everyone deserves to live without fear of discrimination simply for being who they are, becoming an employer in North Carolina, where members of our teams will not have equal rights under the law, is simply untenable."
Microsoft, considered a "major supporter" of the Mississippi Economic Council, a pro-business lobbying group, declined to comment on whether the Mississippi bill would affect its business in or relationship with the state.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, took to Twitter to announce his disappointment in the Mississippi government: "These laws are bad for people, bad for business and bad for job growth," he wrote.
The Mississippi Economic Council condemned the legislation Monday -- a day before Gov. Phil Bryant signed it into law.
PayPal's move comes a week after similar pressure forced the hand of Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who vetoed a similar religious-freedom bill after Salesforce and Netflix said they would pull operations and relocate offices and staff outside of Georgia should the provision pass.
A slew of other companies with employees in the region condemned the legislation, but did not warn of further action.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said though actions like closing offices or facilities may have a starker impact on a state's economic vitality, public condemnation by globally recognized brands like Google, Facebook and Apple also go a long way to influence public opinion.
"It brings enormous visibility to the issue and helps enormously with public education," Minter said. "Public officials really care what businesses think about their state. It helps when businesses put up a united and powerful front."
Minter noted the business community in the Bay Area, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, had been instrumental and vocal supporters of same-sex marriage laws and many companies had written friend of the court briefs in support of extending the right to marry to gay couples when the issue was before the Supreme Court in 2014.
"These businesses are already connected and committed to standing with LGBT equality so it's much less of a heavy lift to get them to weigh in," he said. "They're already there."
San Francisco and several other cities have limited municipal employees' travel to states or municipalities with anti-LGBT laws.
Last week, Mayor Ed Lee said Bay Area businesses putting weight behind the issue was significant.
The city will "join with businesses and others to put economic and political pressure on these state governments that are doing the wrong thing," Lee said.
Assemblyman Evan Low, D-San Jose, introduced a bill last month that would ban state government workers from traveling to states with anti-LGBT laws. San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener has introduced a resolution to lend the city's support to Low's measure.
In 2015, when Indiana passed a law facilitating discrimination against LGBT individuals, Salesforce's Benioff canceled all of the company's events in the state. No tech company has yet followed suit in announcing employee travel bans or canceled events in North Carolina or Mississippi.
(c)2016 the San Francisco Chronicle