Strengthening Discourse
We created this page to provide customers, investors, policymakers, employees, and others with our views on certain issues. While our positions are carefully considered and deeply held, there is much room for healthy debate and differing opinions. We hope being clear about our positions is helpful.
The federal minimum wage in the U.S. is too low and should be raised. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and has not increased since 2009. Raising the minimum wage would have a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of individuals and families across the nation and help address growing income inequality. We pay a starting wage of at least $15 an hour to all full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal employees across the U.S., with an average of $19 across the country. This is on top of industry-leading, comprehensive benefits for employees.
Human-induced climate change is real and serious, and action is needed from the public and private sectors. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that human activities have been contributing to climate-warming trends over the past century. Most leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.
The energy industry should have access to the same technologies as other industries. We will continue to provide support to companies in the energy industry to make their legacy businesses less carbon-intensive and help them accelerate the development of renewable energy businesses. We support sustainability programs for our own business, and we work with partners to reduce their demand for carbon fuel sources.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are good for business—and more fundamentally, they're right. Customers represent a wide array of genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, ages, religions, sexual orientations, military status, backgrounds, and political views. It’s critical that COS employees are also diverse and that we foster a culture where inclusion is the norm. COS prioritizes equal pay — with that women have earned between 99.8 and 100.0 cents for every dollar that men have earned in the same jobs. We also believe it's critical that we increase opportunity for underrepresented groups to enter the research workforce. It's not only that diversity, equity, and inclusion are good for business—it's more fundamental than that. It's simply right.
The inequitable treatment of Black people is unacceptable. We stand in solidarity with our Black employees, customers, and partners, and we are committed to helping build a country and a world where everyone can live with dignity and free from fear. We support legislation to combat misconduct and racial bias in policing, efforts to protect and expand voting rights, and initiatives that provide better health and educational outcomes for Black people.
The rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected. We will always support and continue to support marriage equality and will continue to advocate for protection and equal rights for transgender people. We stand together with the LGBTQ community and are working at the U.S. federal and state level on legislation, including supporting the passage of the Equality Act.
We strongly support the rights of immigrants and immigration reform. COS believes the U.S. should welcome the best and the brightest talent worldwide. It's imperative for our country's competitiveness. COS employees across the U.S. come from all backgrounds and are dedicated to researching for and serving our customers. We support and lobby for immigration reform, including a legal pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and reforms to the green card and high-skilled visa programs.
All people should have access to housing they can afford. Low-income and minority families are disproportionately affected by an affordable housing shortage in the U.S. While only local, state, and federal governments can implement more effective housing policies, we believe the private and public sectors can work together to address this challenge.
Governments at all levels—federal, state, and local—should have access to the best technology. Harnessing the capabilities of advanced research and technology, such as the cloud and machine learning, is important to the ongoing safety and security of the country, its citizens, our communities, and the world. We will continue our mission to advance the health and well-being of patients. And that U.S. government and public safety agencies have access to the most advanced research, technology and other innovations.
Consumer data privacy should be protected under federal law. We have built privacy into our services from the ground up, and we never sell our customers' personal data. Many core features of the customer and patient experience at COS depend on us using data responsibly and transparently. Our patient-centric approach has led us to follow privacy-by-design principles since our founding. We disclose in our privacy notice the types of data we collect and the limited circumstances in which we share customer data with third parties. We support U.S. federal privacy legislation that requires transparency, access to one's own personal information, and the ability to delete personal information, and prohibits the sale of personal data without consent. In the absence of congressional action, we support well-crafted state laws that protect consumers' privacy, while continuing to allow for innovation.
Corporate tax codes in any country should incentivize investment in the economy and job creation. In addition, tax codes, particularly between countries, should be coordinated to have neither loopholes that permit artificially lower tax rates, nor overlaps that cause higher tax rates or redundant taxation. Both distort company behavior in ways that don't benefit consumers or the economy. We support the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and its work with global governments to review the international tax system and secure consensus on these points.