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Coalition of Groups Joins New York City Pension Fund Protest Exxon Mobil's Backsliding on Employee Equality |
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Compiled By GayToday
Washington, D.C.-- The nation's two leading gay rights organizations
urged their constituencies to mobilize in support of the New York City
Employee Retirement System's (NYCERS) stockholder proposal at
ExxonMobil Corporation yesterday. The proposal calls upon the company to
adopt an explicit policy barring discrimination based on a sexual
orientation.
NYCERS, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are urging supporters of gay rights to contact their mutual and pension fund managers to lobby them to vote in favor of the proposal. The mobilization is being coordinated by the Equality Project, a non-profit group with a successful track record in using stockholder proposals to advance sexual orientation nondiscrimination proposals at Fortune 500 companies. The Equality Project's web site ( www.equalityproject.org ) provides complete contact information for reaching the investment managers of ExxonMobil's largest institutional investors, as well as the trustees of all 50 states' public pension funds. ExxonMobil angered the lesbian and gay community in December when, following Exxon's merger with Mobil, it rescinded the former Mobil Corp.'s non-discrimination policy that specifically included sexual orientation and chose not to extend Mobil's domestic partner benefits policy to employees of the new company. The company was flooded with angry phone calls, faxes, e-mails, and protests outside its Houston, Texas facility, which prompted managers to close their offices early on January 28. "ExxonMobil inaccurately argues that as a global company it would be impractical to include specific bases of discrimination, such as sexual orientation, in its employment policies," said the NYCERS trustees.
"We're urging three forms of action. First, individual stockholders should vote in support of the proposal. Second, mutual fund shareowners and pension fund contributors should contact their fund managers, and urge them to vote in favor of this proposal. Third, people who are not shareholders in ExxonMobil can play an important role by urging any institutional investors they are affiliated with -- such as unions, churches, state and local pension funds, and universities -- to support the proposal." Bratcher continued: "Our web site posts contact information for ExxonMobil's largest mutual and pension fund investors. This is the first time that the Internet has been used so extensively to empower small stockholders to band together and influence a proxy voting contest." Co-filing the proposal with NYCERS are Equality Project stockholders Dr. Ellen Birenbaum, Marianne Weil, Steven Strauss, and other individual shareholders represented by Trillium Asset Management, a socially responsible investment firm. Shelley Alpern, Assistant Vice President at Trillium, said her firm was "flabbergasted that ExxonMobil would dump best-practices policies for ones that simply can't compete with its peers. Chevron, BP Amoco, Sunoco, Shell and Texaco ban discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation, and BP Amoco, Shell and Chevron offer same-sex domestic partnership benefits. Sooner or later, this will impact share value." ExxonMobil has failed to change its policies despite separate meetings with the shareholder coalition and the Human Rights Campaign. "More than 2/3 of the Fortune 100 have nondiscrimination policies covering sexual orientation, which places ExxonMobil well outside the mainstream on this issue," said Kim I. Mills, education director of the Human Rights Campaign. "Unlike these fair-minded employers, ExxonMobil has declined to protect all its tens of thousands of employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation -- real or perceived." The Human Rights Campaign is the nation's largest lesbian and gay political organization. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the oldest national political organization for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, has urged leaders of major corporations to adopt anti-discrimination and domestic partnership benefits policies for over two decades. "There are major companies in virtually every industry that have offered non-discrimination policies for years, and it hasn't hurt the bottom line one bit," said Virginia M. Apuzzo, NGLTF spokesperson and first holder of the Virginia Apuzzo Chair for Leadership in Public Policy at the NGLTF Policy Institute. "As a matter of fact, companies that establish fair workplace policies face a competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining highly qualified employees." Earlier this year, both organizations rallied their supporters to protest ExxonMobil's policy changes since they were announced late last year. A similar resolution by the Equality Project received the support of 5.9% of votes cast at last year's stockholder meeting. This year's meeting will be held at 10:00 a.m. on May 31 at the Myerson Sympony Center, 2301 Flora Drive in Dallas, Texas. Useful web contacts: www.equalityproject.org -- Complete information about the proposal; text of proposal. www.hrc.org/worknet -- A full list of employers that include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies and that offer domestic partner benefits is available from the Human Rights Campaign's WorkNet. www.ngltf.org -- The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's website features relevant public opinion data and an organizing manual for employee domestic partner benefits. |
