At today’s meeting in Texas, Exxon Mobil shareholders voted by a huge margin to continue to allow anti-LGBT discrimination in the $467 billion oil and gas giant. 80 percent of shareholders voting chose to continue anti-gay practices, denying LGBT people basic protections, like the right to not be fired for being LGBT.
“ExxonMobil continues to dig in its heels to prove that it is one of the most ardent proponents of LGBT discrimination in the country,” Heather Cronk, GetEQUAL co-director said via a statement:
While ExxonMobil rakes in billions of dollars in federal contracts each year — paid for with taxpayer money — it’s stunning that the company is so actively and blatantly out of step with the three-quarters of the American public who support LGBT workplace protections.”
ExxonMobil (XOM) has considered similar resolutions for 14 years in a row, since Exxon and Mobil merged and Exxon withdrew the LGBT workplace protections that Mobil already had in place. Year after year, ExxonMobil has defied the conventions of other Big Oil companies and has insisted on actively discriminating against LGBT applicants and employees. This year, the shareholder resolution was brought by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. It was defeated by a vote of 81% to 19%.
ExxonMobil is one of the largest federal contractors in the country, having been awarded billions of dollars in federal contracts since 2000. Those federal contracts are paid for with taxpayer dollars, thereby supporting ExxonMobil’s discriminatory practices with public funds. There is currently no federal law making workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 (H.R. 1755 and S. 815) was recently introduced in Congress, and faces an uphill battle for passage.
In the meantime, President Barack Obama holds enormous power to stem this tide of discrimination by signing an Executive Order that would bar federal contractors like ExxonMobil from discriminating against LGBT applicants or employees. Executive Orders exactly like this have been issued previously and have never been rescinded by future presidents — especially important was E.O. 11246, which barred federal contractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and also requires federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”
And HRC weighed in as well:
“No company has proven itself a worse corporate citizen by betraying its LGBT employees time and again than ExxonMobil,†said HRC President Chad Griffin. “By failing once more to do the right thing, ExxonMobil places itself firmly on the wrong side of history. Fair-minded consumers should take their business elsewhere.â€
Prior to the 1999 merger of Mobil Corp. and Exxon Corp., Mobil prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and offered health benefits to domestic partners of its employees. When Exxon acquired Mobil, the non-discrimination policy was removed and the domestic partner benefits program was closed to new employees. Since 1999, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation along with other groups such as the New York City Pension Funds, has filed a resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories in the company’s EEO policy. In 2011, the shareholder proposal garnered significant support, receiving votes representing over 500 million shares with a market value of more than $42.4 billion.
This year, the resolution to add sexual orientation and gender identity to ExxonMobil’s EEO policy was again sponsored by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. This is the fourth year DiNapoli has sponsored the resolution. In past years, the SEC rejected requests to block the shareholder resolution.
On HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, ExxonMobil received a score of -25. In contrast, oil and gas companies such as Chevron, BP, Shell, and Spectra received scores of 85 or higher. More information on the HRC Corporate Equality Index is available at www.hrc.org/cei.
“Exxon shareholders once again rejected a measure that would simply provide all Americans a fair shot to hold a job no matter who they are or who they love,” Tico Almeida, President, Freedom to Work said in a statement:
Every day, more and more Americans realize that the Golden Rule of treating others as we would like to be treated applies to gay and transgender people too. Exxon remains on the wrong side of history for its business, for its workers and for the American people.
Exxon might make money from fossil fuels but it’s lagging behind most other Fortune 500 companies with Exxon’s fossilized workplace policies.
Now is the time for President Obama to act decisively and make clear that doing business with the American government and the American taxpayer means adhering to the American people’s sense of fairness. President Obama can and should sign an executive order today that bars federal contracts for companies that don’t prohibit discrimination against LGBT Americans. He made this a written campaign promise five years ago, and there are no good excuses for delaying fairness any longer.â€
Image by Freedom To Work via Facebook