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Loading ...94 percent of Fortune 500 companies bar sexual orientation discrimination
08.27.2008 5:42pm EDT
(New York City) The list of Fortune 500 companies providing written workplace protections on the basis of sexual orientation has grown to 471 Equality Forum, an LGBT civil rights organization, said Wednesday.
The figure represents 94.2 percent of the companies listed in 2008.This year marks the fifth anniversary of Equality Forum’s Fortune 500 project, which is a collaboration with Louis Thomas of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Ian Ayres of Yale Law School.
“The Fortune 500 have overwhelmingly decided that including sexual orientation is in the best corporate interest and helps communicate corporate values to the estimated $660 billion annual domestic GLBT consumer market,” said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director, Equality Forum.
In 2003, when Equality Forum began contacting the Fortune 500 companies, 323 companies explicitly provided sexual orientation protection in their workplace policies.
Equality Forum reached out to the CEOs, Human Resource Directors and all members of the Boards of Directors of the 177 companies without this protection.
By the fall of 2004, the list of companies offering protection had grown to 405.
Equality Forum and Professors Thomas and Ayres communicated with 25 large institutional investors to solicit their support on proxy statements requesting sexual orientation nondiscrimination at companies not providing that protection.
Exxon Mobil is the largest of the Fortune 500 that does not specifically provide sexual orientation protection and resisted shareholder calls to amend the policy in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Among other major companies with protections are GMAC, Virgin Media, Celanese and Universal Health Services.
According to Gallup’s May 2008 Values and Beliefs Poll, 89 percent of U.S. citizens believe gays and lesbians should have equal rights in job opportunities.
Twenty states include sexual orientation nondiscrimination in their workplace statutes but there currently is no federal workplace protection based on sexual orientation.
Senator Obama favors and Senator McCain opposes including sexual orientation in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). In 2007, the House of Representatives voted 235 to 184 to amend ENDA to add sexual orientation. Thirty-five Republicans voted for the amendment. The legislation, however, would not provide protections for the transgendered.
As has been in the past, it is the people that are leaders and the government plays catch up. It’s stories like this that show us all how antiquated that the Democrats and Republicans are in fostering the most basic of rights.
I’m proud to say that I work for a company that not only supports it’s gay and lesbian employees but also donates to gay and lesbian causes.
Congratulations to all those on the list that know and understand the importance of being there for their gay and lesbian employees.
That statistic is utterly without significance.
For the most part the companies who’ve adopted those policies do so to cover their asses in case of lawsuits. For most employees of large and small companies passage of the original Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is essential, along with hard work of groups like Lambda Legal and the ACLU is their best bet. Relying on the vast majority of businesses to promote our rights is a fantasy. Barney Quisling took a hatchet to the original ENDA on behalf of bigoted managers and business owners represented by the Chamber of Commerce and if they like his version it’s automatically worthless.
The policy is a sham for all but a few companies. When it was introduced in the company I work for, which has about 55,000 employees management held meetings to explain it, telling the bigots in the audience not to worry; it was just a paper policy to have on hand in case something happened. Life in Bigotville USA returned to normal and our complaints about homophobia and on the job christer proselytizing and harassment fell on deaf ears. The bosses asses were covered and that’s all they care about.
It’s just like the situation in the DNC, which is controlled by anti-GLBT types like Leah Daughtry, an ordained pentecostal bigot.
We should all not buy gas, oil, or any products at Exxon Mobil establishments. Give our business to like minded corporations that promote equality.
I had a choice yesterday to buy Mobil brand motor oil vs. another brand. I choose another brand (which I hope is not owned by ExxonMobil) because I thought about ExxonMobil. I even avoid the Exxon station that happens to be in the heart of West Hollywood.
I avoid ExxonMobil like I formerly avoided Cracker Barrel restaurants in the south and midwest (I’ve been geographically diversified). (Cracker Barrel finally came around a few years ago and has repudiated its past antigay discrimination.)
2 Bill Perdue:
You are such a self-righteous bigot! Most Fortune 500 companies provide protection for gay employees even in absence of legislation against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in some states. You should be delighted that more and more business embrace diversity. But you don’t care about that because it doesn’t fit your anti-capitalist agenda. Your hatred towards capitalism is simply disgusting.
Al, I don’t see anything in Perdue’s post to support your claim of anti-capitalism.
Bill is pointing out the very real difference in HAVING an anti-discrimination policy versus ENFORCING it. I myself have worked at two so-called ‘enlightened’ companies that had a “no discrimination” policy for sexual orientation, but rampant anti-gay discrimination. If there aren’t people of conscience actually enforcing the policy, the words on paper mean nothing.