Just before nationwide demonstrations, Chrysler's CEO promised to include sexual orientation in the company's non-discrimination policy. However it took a shareholder resolution based on the gay Equality Principles to get the CEO to put that in writing - and to not only include sexual orientation in the company's diversity training but to finally start diversity training at Chrysler.

This latest example demonstrates the growing power of the Equality Principles. Just as the Sullivan Principles brought investor pressure to bear in South Africa, the Equality Principles are getting support from giant pension funds, are spearheading shareholder resolutions, and are laying the foundation for grass-roots action across the world.

In a similar shareholder resolution based on the Principles a year earlier, Johnson & Johnson also agreed to adopt a written policy banning discrimination against lesbians and gay men for all of its 80,000 employees and to include sexual orientation in its diversity training.

Research

The Equality Principles for Sexual Orientation were developed by the Wall Street Project (WSP), a program of New York's Community Lesbian and Gay Rights Institute (CLGRI). The WSP periodically conducts a census of the Fortune 1000, and now the NASDAQ 100, with over 400 respondents, of which 134 companies now have written sexual orientation policies - triple the number in 1990.

Finding out what companies say and what they actually do is crucial to achieving equality at the workplace. The more specific the research, the more targeted our action.

Principles

What do the principles call for?

1. Anti-discrimination policies include a written statement against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
   
2. If employee groups are generally recognized or encouraged, employee groups based on sexual orientation are given equal standing.
   
3. Diversity training includes sexual orientation issues.
   
4. Spousal benefits equal to those of married employees are offered to domestic partners regardless of sexual orientation.
   
5. Prejudice and negative stereotypes, based on sexual orientation, are barred in advertising.
   
6. The company does not discriminate in the sale and purchase of goods and services on the basis of sexual orientation.
   
7. Accommodation is made for employees facing life-threatening or disabling illness, including those who are HIV positive.
   
8. Written non-discrimination policies on sexual orientation are distributed throughout the company. A senior official monitors compliance throughout the organization.

The Problem

Between 16% and 44% of gay men & lesbians in 20 cities have experienced some form of workplace harassment or discrimination related to their sexual orientation according to a National Gay & Lesbian Task Force study. Gays are harassed, denied employment, passed over for promotion, excluded from networking, and are often downsized.

These are pocket-book issues of great import to gays - whose solution ironically costs employers little. That's why the solution is often simply coming out on all sides and getting management's attention.

Often employers are simply waiting for an employee initiative. This happened at BellSouth when the gay employee group pointed out that the company did business with Atlanta - which has a policy non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. Several weeks later the change was made.

Stakeholder Power

The Principles give workplace rights the deterrent power of the shareholder resolution since most employers will change to avoid possible litigation. For progressive companies the Principles give a blueprint for action. For employees they give a concrete vision of new career opportunities.

Like the Sullivan Principles the Equality Principles set out a concrete agenda for gays and their allies to take action as organizational stakeholders in our individual roles as investors, employees, customers, managers, directors, and neighbors, and in our corporate roles in the media, pension funds, regulatory agencies, public authorities, recruiters, and suppliers.

Gay business and employee groups are finding far more subtle ways to make progress at the workplace before having to resort to shareholder resolutions. Let's take a look at how the gay groups in Boston are setting out to make the workplace gay-friendly.

Boston

Boston's gay business and professional groups recently merged and formed a workplace project called ACE - Achieving Corporate Equality. ACE found the Equality Principles to be useful in setting its workplace agenda and in providing the potent power of the shareholder resolution.

With emerging gay employee groups ACE has targeted key Boston-area industries and allies in getting corporations to embrace and implement the Principles.

Very likely ACE is going to start at home - with its own gay business members - to build credibility, to provide increasing numbers of corporate sponsors, and to put the Principles into practice on the home front first.

Corporate action seems to go hand-in-hand with coming out at the workplace. Recently Boston Magazine not only wrote up but publicized an article on gay workplace power-brokers - including many members of the Greater Boston Business Coalition (GBBC).

Although the Principles call for gay-neutral treatment of suppliers, ACE and other business groups see opportunities where corporate behavior can be influenced through supplier relationships. The most startling example of this was seen recently in San Francisco where the city required city contractors to adopt gay-friendly practices - facing down such major employers as UAL, Bank of America, and the Catholic Church.

Straight CEO corporate allies have come forward to spearhead the company-by-company campaign which will have its focus on Boston's financial, high-tech, healthcare, and educational institutions. ACE's mission statement "envisions a workplace environment in which all people, regardless of sexual orientation, are accorded respect and dignity. ACE will help employers create such an environment through the adoption and practice of the Equality Principles."

Why the workplace?

It is often easier to create a level playing field at the workplace before getting protections in society at large. More than 70% of the public already thinks worksite discrimination is illegal, according to a survey by Mellman Lazarus and Lake in 1994. The time may be ripe. Gallup polls have consistently found that more than 75% of all Americans support equal rights in the workplace for gay men, lesbians & bisexuals - but not elsewhere. Attitudes change faster when issues have a human face instead of being a moralistic arms-length political issue. Let's start working these issues at work.

Only 9 states and 200 local governments have adopted gay rights laws. Companies don't care about morals; they care about effective workforces and receptive markets. Economic arguments are often easier to win than political arguments.

Many organizations, especially educational institutions, have adopted non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation. Roughly forty publicly-traded companies now have domestic partnership benefits. Twenty-three major firms, including AT&T and Bethlehem Steel have now endorsed the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would ban sexual orientation discrimination nationwide. The fact that it's hard to keep these figures up to date augurs well for our progress.

Why now?

In the rapidly changing markets of the 90s, faced with record-low unemployment rates and record-high labor shortages, more businesses are adopting a workforce model based on diversity - in contrast to old personnel philosophies of a "corporate family." A business based on a diverse workforce wants the diversity of its employees to match its increasingly diverse customers, to respond rapidly to widely different market opportunities, and to recruit the talent it needs - whatever its sexual orientation.

Recent advances in computer technology enable today's corporations to make diversity practical. Employers can increasingly embrace "cafeteria style" benefit programs which can literally tailor benefit choices to individual preferences. Employers no longer have to force individuals into benefits molded around inflexible models of an obsolete family unit organized around a legally married spouse and 2.5 children. This means employees can be individually motivated through benefits and personnel policies tailored to them as real people.

Corporate action may be the most effective to advance gay protections worldwide - through the subsidiaries of forward-acting US firms. It's often far more acceptable and doable for an American subsidiary to spearhead equal opportunity for gays - setting a competitive example for local firms to follow.

Why? $$$

Discrimination in the form of unequal benefits is simply bad business and the internal costs of tolerating harassment are high: turnover, turnoff, turndowns, disloyalty, absenteeism, inefficiency, apathy, and unrest. Dissatisfaction makes people now willing to launch costly lawsuits. Discrimination keeps the corporate focus inward - away from the marketplace. External costs may be even higher, depending on the importance of gays & lesbians in the company's markets, image, and sales. Companies listen to facts like this.

Action!

What's exciting about the Principles is they work at all levels - from pension fund endorsements and corporate-wide action to grass-roots action by individuals. The shareholder resolution may be most effective as a deterrent; the real action takes place day-to-day, face-to-face. There are a host of other safer, easier, more immediate actions.

As stakeholders we can act on many fronts - as investors, employees, customers, managers, directors, and neighbors and through the media, pension funds, regulatory agencies, public authorities, recruiters, and suppliers. This is one boat we can all row together.

Start by asking employers to reply to the WSP questionnaire if they haven't. Write CEOs about corporate policy and advocate that the Principles should be a corporate standard. Ask direct questions, address each principle separately, be specific, cite examples, ask yes or no questions, suggest concrete actions. Spell out specifically why the organization should act; stress bottom line reasons not political correctness. Require written answers.

Investors should cite specifically how much stock they have. Mobilize investment club action to carry extra weight. And vote in favor of shareholder resolutions on the Principles when they come up.

The Principles can be a concrete way to mobilize support from friends and family for joint activism. Since the stakeholders in any organization are so diverse, virtually anyone is a potential ally.

The Principles offer a unifying goal for students to use with university administrations and endowments - much as happened with South Africa. Students should ask administrators if endowments invest in companies lacking the standards the Principles advocate. Students can likewise challenge recruiters from companies which do not respect these standards - much as they have challenged military recruiters. Likewise, foundations should be asked to use their endowments for progressive action - starting with gay community foundations. Elected public pension fund officials, sensitive to community pressure, can add substance and credibility to these initiatives. Even appointed fund boards usually have elected officials as members.

Look for opportunities to talk about specific Principles in gay and business media to get beyond vague assurances. The problem in straight America is that people don't think there's a problem; the problem in gay America is people aren't aware of the many solutions now available.

Get gay media to focus on gay pocketbook issues and to disseminate useful information on workplace issues. If your employer adopts a policy or implements the Principles publicize it and send a copy to the WSP. Report incidents of discrimination; don't let them go unchallenged. Let employers that adopt the Principles know of your support. Remind them of other companies who have taken similar actions and applaud their approach.

Look at the Principles as the common prow of a new icebreaker to break through organizational practice frozen in age-old discrimination. The key is putting behind that prow a strong ship of concerted action, lining up the organization's stakeholders, securing employee initiative, and mobilizing expert resources.

Gay businesses need to be the first to adopt the Principles to explore ways they influence their own stakeholders and suppliers to follow suit - by promoting and publicizing positive action and by patronizing those who put them into action.

What's next?

Business studies have shown for years that security and social needs must be met before employees can achieve and actualize themselves. The Principles can bring together the stakeholders of any organization, region, or industry in new ways to move both individuals and organizations forward.

The immediate rewards of implementing the Equality Principles are job security, income parity, promotion potential, advancement opportunity - and truly creative work. The broader rewards are commensurate: respect, freedom, spontaneity, uniqueness - plus playing fully and sleeping soundly after a good day's work.

To express oneself as a full human being takes work. This is no pale, thin concept we're working for; these are the rewards of a full, rich - and gay - work life.