New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, pictured with Public
Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, announces at the LGBT Center that he filed 24
resolutions with corporations for workplace protections. Photo: Marla S. Maritzer.
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By TRENTON STRAUBE
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
In recent weeks, New York City Comptroller William Thompson has pressured 24 major U.S. companies to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Six already agreed to do so.
Thompson, representing five pension funds that hold nearly $2.2 billion worth of shares in the companies targeted, filed resolutions that ask businesses to revise their policies to include LGBT protections. Last year, he filed half that amount.
This marks the second year that resolutions have included gender identity and expression.
The measures have been filed with some of the largest corporations in the country. “Most are within the Fortune 500; all are within the Fortune 1,000,” Thompson said. “They are leaders in energy, financial services and communications. But to date, they are not leaders in protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers.”
Detractors brand the filings as investments in controversial social causes. To Thompson, they’re part of good business sense. “A company can’t reach its full potential if it doesn’t explicitly outlaw all forms of discrimination—whether it’s harassment, unequal pay or less opportunity for advancement,” he said during a press conference at The LGBT Center on 13th Street. “Our efforts help protect, in the long term, the investment and retirement benefits of hardworking employees.”
Resolutions were filed on behalf of the New York City Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS), New York City Police Pension Fund, New York City Fire Department Pension Fund, New York City Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and New York City Board of Education Retirement System.
Transgender Protections
Three years ago, Thompson was speaking at a combined meeting of the Stonewall Democratic Club and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID) when transgender activist Melissa Sklarz asked the comptroller why the city’s pension fund resolutions included sexual orientation protections but not gender identity. Thompson admitted Sklarz had a point and, as a result, added the protections to the future resolutions.
If workplace gender equality is that new in Gotham, imagine the possible confusion, say, in Tennessee, Arkansas or Texas, where many of the targeted companies are headquartered.
“These companies do need an education,” said Patrick Doherty, director, Corporate Social Responsibility at City of New York, who works with the comptroller’s office and the pension funds to begin a dialogue with companies before filing a resolution.
Companies want to know whether they’ll have to pay for gender reassignment surgeries or be forced to operate co-ed bathrooms, he said. To educate the companies and raise their comfort level, Doherty e-mails them the policies of corporations that have detailed workplace protections. Doherty lists American Airlines and Chevron as shining examples.
“It’s a necessary step,” he said. “It’s the transgender workers who are most open to discrimination and are most in need of protections.”
Sklarz praised Thompson for his leadership on trans rights. “In 2007, our friends in Congress decided workplace protections for transgender employees was too dangerous to bring to the people of America,” Sklarz said, referring to the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was stripped of transgender rights last fall during House debate.
“We turn to Bill Thompson to show them what courage and leadership can do, that real people have real needs, that Congress was wrong, that Rep. Barney Frank was wrong and that Bill Thompson was right,” Sklarz said. “He knows what I know, and that’s that LGBT discrimination is bad for business.”
Currently, resolutions are sent to corporations that offer neither sexual orientation nor gender identity protections. “We’re not going back to ones with only sexual orientation—unless there’s a scenario like at Toys ’R’ Us,” Doherty clarified.
2 Famous Wins, 1 Infamous Loser
Doherty was referring to a Christmas incident in 2000, when Toys ’R’ Us employees chased three transgender women out of a Brooklyn store with bats. Today, thanks to the efforts of the comptroller’s office, the Wayne, N.J. based company now offers anti-discrimination policies for employees and shoppers.
The city comptroller’s first major victory came back in 2002, when the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. But the win took 10 solid years of pressure, beginning with former comptrollers Elizabeth Holzman and Alan Hevesi.
Thompson stated that similar pressure would one day triumph over ExxonMobile. The behemoth is perched at No. 2 on the Fortune 500 (after Wal-Mart) but remains the only business in the top 75 that doesn’t explicitly express its commitment to equality in a written policy. (The Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which rates companies on LGBT issues, gave ExxonMobile a big fat zero. The average rating was 81 out of 100.)
Not that the comptroller hasn’t reached out to ExxonMobile. This year marks the eighth time his office has contacted the Texas-based giant. Each year, the number of shareholders backing the resolution increases, from 5.9 percent the first year, to 37.7 percent in 2007.
“We never go away,” Thompson said of his efforts. “There’s a better chance that Exxon mobile will go away before we do.”
The six companies that already agreed this year to ban workplace discrimination include:
Erie Indemnity
SPX Corp.
The Brink’s Company
Synovus Financial Corp.
AK Steel Corp.
Marshall & Ilsley Corp.
The Comptrollers office and the City Pension funds sent resolutions for LGBT equality during the current proxy season to these 24 companies:
HCC Insurance Holdings of Houston, Texas
Timken Company of Canton, Ohio
Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas
AK Steel Corp. of Middletown, Ohio
Fidelity National Financial, Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla.
Brink’s Company of Richmond, Va.
Liberty Global, Inc. of Englewood, Colo.
Lyondell Chemical Company of Houston, Texas
Eastman Chemical Co. of Kingsport, Tenn.
Tesoro Corp. of San Antonio, Texas
Apache Corp. of Houston, Texas
Murphy Oil Corp. of El Dorado, Ark.
Kelly Services, Inc. of Troy, Mich.
EchoStar Communications Corp. of Englewood, Colo.
Huntsman Corp. of Salt Lake City, Utah
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee, Wis.
Frontier Oil Corp. of Houston, Texas
Borg Warner. Inc. of Auburn Hills, Mich
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. of The Woodlands, Texas
Synovus Financial Corp. of Columbus, Ga.
Erie Indemnity Company (Erie Insurance) of Erie, Pa.
SPX Corporation of Charlotte, N.C.
American Financial Group, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio
Leggett & Pratt, Inc. of Carthage, Mo.
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