Companies Rated on Their GLBT Policies

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Companies Rated on Their GLBT Policies

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Twenty-one companies received a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign for their treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers, almost doubling the number of companies with the same distinction last year. "What we see this year is improvement in every category measured, from written nondiscrimination policies to domestic partner health insurance benefits and beyond. Corporate America continues to be a leader in the quest for GLBT civil rights," says HRC Education Director Kim I. Mills, who oversees HRC WorkNet, the organization's workplace project. "The bottom line is that successful businesses are increasingly recognizing that equality works."

The 21 companies that scored 100 percent are:

Aetna Inc.	American Airlines	Apple Computer Inc.
Avaya Inc.	Bank One Corp.	Capital One Financial Corp.
Eastman Kodak Co.	Hewlett-Packard Co.	IBM Corp.
Intel Corp.	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Levi Strauss & Co.	Lucent Technologies Inc	MetLife Inc.
NCR Corp.	Nike Inc.	PG&E Corp.
Prudential Financial Inc.	S.C. Johnson	Xerox Corp.

No companies received a score of zero in 2003. The five lowest-scoring companies, all of which rated 14 percent, were: Aramark Corp.; Domino's Inc.; ExxonMobil Corp.; Meijer Inc.; and National Gypsum.

Lockheed Martin Corp. was the most-improved company in the analysis, going from zero percent in 2002 to 71 percent in 2003. Lockheed added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy and also added domestic partner benefits, according to HRC.

The analysis covers 250 companies from either the Fortune 500 or the Forbes 200 largest privately held businesses for which the HRC Foundation was able to gather data.

The group rated companies on a scale of 0 percent to 100 percent on seven factors, including whether the companies:

Have a written nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation;

Have a written nondiscrimination policy covering gender identity and/or expression

Offer health insurance coverage to their employees' same-sex domestic partners;

Offer diversity training; Have GLBT employee groups;

Engage in appropriate and respectful advertising to the GLBT community; provide financial contributions to GLBT community organizations;

Decline to engage in any activities that would undermine the goal of equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Eighty companies improved their score in 2003 from 2002. The median score for 2003 was 71 percent, compared with 57 percent in 2002.

Almost all of the companies rated - 238, or 95 percent - include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination polices. The next most common factor was diversity training, which 184 of the analyzed companies have. This is a change from 2003, when domestic partner health insurance benefits were the second most common criterion met by companies in the analysis.

The criterion met by the fewest of the analyzed companies was gender identity in their nondiscrimination policy. Only 23 of Fortune or Forbes companies had such a policy, up from 13 companies a year earlier.

Meanwhile, state and local governments have decided to include gender identity in their nondiscrimination laws. Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Mexico and California have passed legislation specifically prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. This may prompt more companies to include gender identity in their nondiscrmination policies.

A copy of the report and all ratings can be found at http://www.hrc.org/worknet/cei/.