2005 HRC Corporate Equality Index

[bjarvis]

Our LGBT employee group co-ordinator at work circulated a PDF file of HRC's latest corporate equality index. My own employer has improved over last year but still earns less than a 100% rating.

Looking through the tables, I was surprised how low some major corporations rank still. I wasn't surprised that Daimler Chrysler, Ford and Toyota ranked 100%, but was shocked that Nissan was dragging at the bottom of the list with a score of only 29.

Almost a dozen large financial firms scored 100%, but Morningstar and Franklin Templeton don't even have nondiscrimination clauses in their policies.

Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer ranked 100, but Bayer only 29.

Retail firms Best Buy, Borders, Estee Lauder, Replacements, SC Johnson & Son, Sears, Walgreens and Staples all scored 100, but Radio Shack, Rite Aid and Meijer were all bottom-feeders. All that could be said about Meijer (score 14) in the report is that they weren't currently an active sponsor of anti-LGBT activities!

I find it slightly ironic that HRC offers an affinity Visa card via Providian Financial, an organization which scores only 86, admittedly an improvement over last year's 71.

More info at: http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Room&CONTENTID=28963&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

Comments

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

And further: some companies aren't included because responding to surveys from outside lobbying groups simply isn't a priority for their HR staff. Perfectly supportive firms may have been excluded by a lack of response, or were simply overlooked.

The item I tend to look for is offering domestic partner benefits. Anyone can write a policy of nondiscrimination but offering DP bennies makes it a budget item, the most tangible statement of a firm's priorities, intents & practices.