Amazon Corp. is FAR more democratic than SGI

From here - we're going to use this as a non-"Buddhist" case study to compare with the Internal Reassessment Group (IRG) which attempted to suggest changes within SGI-USA:

At Amazon, Lindsey Fowler was lucky to have a job she liked, as a senior manager of software development, and one with a paid leave policy in place when she had her first child in December of 2011. She took 10 weeks off, 8 of which were paid, before returning to work. “I would have liked to stay out longer, but we couldn’t afford for me to stay out,” she said.

Note: She was a leader at Amazon. Similarly, the IRG consisted mostly of SGI-USA line leaders.

But when she started thinking about having a second child, she spoke with her co-workers, who agreed that the paid leave Amazon offered was decent but could be better. So Fowler, a member of the Amazon Women in Engineering, or AWE, leadership team, convened a meeting with a half-dozen other women. One night in December 2014, in Fowler’s basement, over glasses of wine and chocolate caramels, they hammered out a vision of what the company’s improved parental leave plan could look like: more paid time off, easier transitions back to work, and leave options for moms and dads, birth parents and adoptive.

This was a grass-roots movement, initiated by the staff (membership) just like IRG was.

“We created a press release,” said Fowler. At Amazon, when an employee concocts an idea for a new product, she presents the concept to management and her colleagues in a press release. Fowler and her colleagues decided to present an idea for better employee benefits in the same way.

They framed their proposal in terms of a "press release" because that's what their corporate culture does. The IRG submitted "position papers".

In January 2015, the AWE leadership team presented their press release to Steve Winter, director of Amazon’s human resources and benefits, who was receptive to the suggestions and began the formal process of examining how well the current parental leave policy at Amazon was meeting employee needs.

Similarly, the IRG was encouraged by SGI-USA national leaders all the way up to then-General Director Fred Zaitsu, and then Danny Nagashima when he replaced Fred Zaitsu as SGI-USA General Director.

Notice that the Amazon team submitted its recommendations a scant MONTH after their initial meeting. The IRG

According to Winter, they heard from employees through focus groups that the previous policy wasn’t working for them.

Here the similarities end. SGI-USA never consulted the membership about what THEY wanted, though the IRG did. The SGI-USA national leaders, in obedience to the strict patriarchal authoritarian rulership of the Soka Gakkai in Japan, decided the IRG was setting a bad precedent. How dare members think they should have any rights to even suggest changes?? Obviously, President Ikeda had already defined exactly what the ideal organization was supposed to look like, so they should have been submitting and obeying instead of trying to think for themselves. Stupid SGI members.

Too many parents felt, like Fowler, that they had to return before they were ready to. Those that did come back to work felt overwhelmed by the transition of going from full-time caregiver to full-time Amazonian.

In October, Winter presented the new plan to CEO Jeff Bezos, complete with cost analysis and a communications rollout. Bezos signed off and the plan was implemented worldwide that November.

Notice that this entire process, from inception to implementation, took less than ONE CALENDAR YEAR O_O

And this from a multi-billion dollar corporation with hundreds of different offices and facilities and subsidiaries in multiple foreign countries!

Less than a year after Fowler and her co-workers met in her basement, a new leave plan, and one of the most forward-thinking in the country, became reality.

"Forward-thinking" instead of the conservative "we will never accept changes" - WOW!

Winter explained that Amazon wanted to reshape the employee experience, including for those who are not parents. “We want to attract great talent and we want to be relevant to the market so we don’t lose talent. This was something we wanted to do for employees, but [improved family leave] pays off in many ways, retention being a key one.” There’s extensive research to support Amazon’s thinking. Studies have shown that better family leave polices actually save money in the long term by lowering health care costs, cutting down on absenteeism and improving employee retention, particularly among women.

I guess SGI-USA does not want to attract great talent. That explains a lot...

Amazon’s benefits apply to all full-time employees, including more than 100,000 employees who work in customer service and at fulfillment centers.

Note that SGI-USA is now limping along at about 35,000 active members.

• In 1994, National SGI-USA leader Guy McCloskey noted that the number of subscriptions (an accurate proxy for active membership) was at just 20,000.

• In 1997, SGI-USA was acknowledging a mere 50,000 members (a figure that is no doubt exaggerated)

• In 1999, SGI-USA national leader Bill Aiken noted that SGI-USA had added a paltry 1,000/year on average between 1991 and 1999 (the first 8 years after Ikeda's excommunication). Looks like Ikeda wasn't NEARLY as appealing as he fancied himself to be!

So, if we take Guy McCloskey's unfortunately (for SGI) honest observation about the 20,000 active members, add 1,000 per year for 8 years (which is WAY more generous than we need to be, as most of those new recruits probably quit post-haste), and we get 28,000 active members by 1999. Yippee O_O

Now, nearly 20 years later, SGI-USA has around 35,000 active members (more or less), which no doubt includes children born since 1999 who are being forced by their parents to participate. Just wait until they turn 18 - they'll leave so fast they leave skid marks! SGI is dying.

Amazon now offers 20 weeks of parental leave for birth mothers (which includes up to four weeks pre-partum and 16 weeks after the baby is born), and six weeks for all other new parents. Only a few tech companies offer more, says Romy Newman, president and co-founder of Fairygodboss, a website that offers job reviews and benefit information. Amazon’s benefits apply to all full-time hourly and salaried employees, including more than 100,000 employees who work in customer service and at fulfillment centers. (Amazon defines full time as 30 or more hours a week.) Companies like Starbucks have taken heat for offering one set of paid leave benefits for corporate employees and another set for hourly employees. A spokesperson for Amazon reports that nearly three-quarters of employees who have taken advantage of the paid leave benefits are hourly, and 60 percent of them are men.

You can read the rest at the link up top. By way of comparison, the first IRG activities began in November 1997. Their first position paper was submitted June 3, 1998, so 7 months (compared to Amazon's 1 month). The first IRG "official" meeting convened on August 16, 1998; its first position paper was submitted on Nov. 18, 1998 - a year after the first IRG ideas began to solidify.

I'll get into some more comparison/contrast items in the comment section. Feel free to weigh in!