PayPal on Tuesday announced that it has withdrawn plans to open an operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina, in reaction to the state’s new law that overturns local protections for LGBT individuals and limits employees’ ability to sue over workplace discrimination.
“Two weeks ago, PayPal announced plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte and employ over 400 people in skilled jobs. In the short time since then, legislation has been abruptly enacted by the State of North Carolina that invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and denies these members of our community equal rights under the law,” President and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman, said in a statement.
“The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture. As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte,” he continued.
Schulman (pictured above) wrote that while the company looks for a new location for its operations center, PayPal will “remain committed to working with the LGBT community in North Carolina to overturn this discriminatory legislation, alongside all those who are committed to equality.”
State Rep. Dan Bishop (R), one of the sponsor’s of the new law, blamed PayPal’s decision to pull out of Charlotte on the city’s mayor, Jennifer Roberts, for pushing the city’s the non-discrimination ordinance, which the new law has overturned.
“When I cautioned Mayor Roberts in January not to drive our community into this turmoil, this is the kind of thing I recognized would be a possibility,” Bishop told the Charlotte Observer. “It’s not about HB2 because PayPal does business in Saudi Arabia and China. It is instead about a frenzy that the mayor and her allies on city council have whipped up.”
“I think she might consider that she stop calling in airstrikes on her own position,” he added.
Since North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed the rushed legislation into law late last month, numerous companies have voiced their opposition to the law.
