Backward Step for Exxon-Mobil

A special report from GLB News


Merged Exxon-Mobil Corporation ends domestic partner benefits and policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Regressive Move Is Bad for Business, Will Hurt Workers, Says HRC

WASHINGTON - The newly merged Exxon-Mobil Corp. has taken a big retrograde step by ending domestic partner benefits and Mobil`s policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. In doing so, they may have become the first major US employer to roll back a non-discrimination policy and the second to end domestic partner benefits, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

"This move could become their Exxon Valdez of the new millennium," said HRC communication director David Smith. "Exxon clearly hasn`t learned from past experience that creating a toxic mess is a lot easier than cleaning up the resulting damage. We urge Exxon to re-evaluate their actions and pledge to treat all workers equally, with dignity and respect."

A source inside the newly merged company told HRC that people currently enrolled in the domestic partner benefits program can continue to receive the benefits but no one else may join the plan - even employees who were previously eligible at Mobil Corp.

"The new company clearly does not believe in equal pay for equal work - because that`s what these benefits are," said HRC education director Kim Mills, who oversees WorkNet, HRC`s workplace project. "This move is bad for business, it`s bad for employee morale and it demonstrates that Exxon Mobil`s human resources policies are mired in the past."

Preceding last week`s $81 billion merger, Mobil Corp. had offered domestic partner benefits since 1998 and Exxon did not. The decision to end the benefits affects 121,000 employees.

Exxon has also come under fire from its own shareholders recently for refusing to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy. In May, advocates led by the Equality Project in New York mounted a proxy initiative that led to a vote by shareholders on Exxon`s non-discrimination policy. The measure garnered 6 percent of the vote. The Equality Project will introduce a resolution this week to bring up a vote at the shareholders’ meeting expected to take place in spring 2000.

In April 1998, the Human Rights Campaign learned that Texas billionaire Ross Perot had cut off domestic partner benefits at Texas-based Perot Systems Inc. HRC criticised Perot publicly but he has never backed down from that ill-considered decision, according to Mills.

"These two companies have placed themselves way outside the mainstream of American business," Mills said, noting that almost 3,000 U.S. employers currently offer domestic partner insurance benefits including more than 80 Fortune 500 companies.

Some of the most successful and fastest-growing companies in the nation have taken this step, including Shell Oil, Amoco, Walt Disney Company, IBM, Kodak and Microsoft. (A complete list of employers offering domestic partner benefits is available at http://www.hrc.org/worknet.) Municipal governments have also become leaders in the drive for basic workplace equality as several major cities have passed ordinances requiring contractors to offer equal health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of their workers.

On Nov. 22, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed an equal benefits bill, sponsored by City Councilwoman Tina Podlodowski. On Nov. 17, Los Angeles passed a similar measure, sponsored by Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. Both bills were modelled after San Francisco`s landmark Equal Benefits Ordinance.

In 1996, San Francisco became the first city to pass a law requiring companies doing business with the city or county to provide the same benefits to workers with domestic partners as they give to married employees. Since the measure went into effect in 1997, more than 2,000 new
employers have instituted domestic partner benefits to come into compliance with that law.

The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organisation, with members throughout the US. It effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public to ensure that lesbian and gay Americans can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.

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