How Did a Company That Offers Health Benefits For Gay Partners Wind Up on HRC’s List of Worst Companies?
Like GLAAD does for the media, the Human Rights Campaign charges itself, every year, with policing. For GLAAD, it’s the media; for HRC, it’s the American workplace. Which companies are LGBT friendly?, it asks, and then puts together a list of American businesses that provide things like health benefits for same-sex partners, anti-discrimination policies, have LGBT employee groups, and advertise to the gay market. It’s called the 2010 Corporate Equality Index, and some “305 businesses received top ratings.” Which also means some businesses received terrible ratings. But of the tens of thousands of giant companies out there, how did some of these firms — which actually do have ssome LGBT offerings — manage to end up bottoming for HRC?
Rightly so, there are companies like AutoZone, the auto parts store, appearing on HRC’s shitlist that even this website has gone after for hating on the gays.
But then there are firms like Avnet, the computer products distributor, which “tied for tenth-worst in the study with an index score of 30.” Except Avnet does, in fact, offer same-sex partner health insurance; it just doesn’t have a sexuality/gender identity anti-discrimination policy. Which means HRC’s survey of American businesses has placed this Pheonix-based company, with 12,000 employees, at the bottom of its list when it does, in fact, offer some LGBT-friendly employee perks?
Surely there are at least 10 firms in these United States that offer LGBT employees absolutely nothing? No shared health benefits, no anti-discrimination policies, and perhaps even a cubicle environment where words like “fag” get tossed around? Sounds like HRC’s methodology — or sample size — needs as much retooling as AutoZone’s employee handbook.
(NB: Avnet’s homepage does feature a pair of twinkling red slippers, which should up their HRC score by at least two points, no?)
Even with a budget of $50 million a year, HRC has no idea what it’s doing. Stop giving to HRC – it is a waste of money.
Obviously HRC asked them for money…and they laughed in their face….
The corporate equality index is a blatant example of single issue gay rights activism that ultimately harms many members of our own community. These companies profit from war, destroying the environment, and pedaling pharmaceuticals. The focus at Creating Change this year was about broadening our movement, recognizing the overlap of our struggles for justice. HRC must be challenged.
@StopHRC.com: Creating Change was a waste of time. There was nothing new. The socialists are trying to inflate the movement, but only 20% of people in the US support socialism. NGLTF trying to make us advocates for socialism only hurts us.
The only way to win equality is too send billions of emails to politicians. I’m trying to figure out how many emails we need to win, but we better get started.
The use of the term “Gay Friendly” is useless. People are either for us or against us. It’s like the supposed “gay friendly” churches that welcome us, but still teach that we are deviant.
Why beat up HRC? – If Avnet wants a higher rating – all they need to do is extend their benefits. I shop and spend my dollars based on the HRC ratings,because doing anything less only hurts us in the long run. I support this effort from HRC- it lets companies know where they stand or where they need to better themselves.
I’m not sure where to start, here. This post is just not factual.
First off, the HRC has no “list of worst companies.” It just has the Corporate Equality Index, which simply lists several hundred large employers and rates them on a few criteria that show their level of support for LGBT employees, such as nondiscrimination policies, benefits, and diversity programs. The HRC doesn’t label any companies as “worst”; it doesn’t even rank participating companies by their ratings.
The CEI doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive survey of all large employers. Here’s what the CEI says about its sample:
Because businesses participate willingly, it’s likely that the CEI’s sample self-selects for businesses that are relatively friendly toward LGBT people. Because of this, it would make no sense for the HRC to brand the lowest-rated businesses in their survey the “worst companies” in the country.
That’s why, in fact, the HRC does no such thing. The word “worst” doesn’t even appear a single time in the CEI. The CEI makes no special mention of Avnet. The only companies the CEI specifically mentions as bad examples are two companies with scores of 0 (Exxon Mobil and The Laclede Group) and two companies whose scores have gone down since last year (Verizon and Wal-Mart).
You apparently got the word “worst” from the Huffington Post. But that article is misleading, since the HRC has no list of “worst companies for LGBT workers.” The Huffington Post has superimposed that meaning onto the HRC’s data. But while Avnet may have the 10th lowest score in the CEI, the HRC has not called it a bad place to work or anything of the sort, much less branded it the 10th worst company in America.
Here is what the HRC has done here:
1. Invited Avnet, as Fortune 500 company, to participate in the CEI. Avnet accepted their invitation.
2. Sent Avnet a survey asking about various LGBT-related criteria, which Avnet filled out and sent back.
3. Reported Avnet’s policies as submitted by Avnet, both simply reporting whether or not Avnet met each criterion, and also giving it a weighted score.
That’s all. The HRC has not done wrong by Avnet. If Avnet has a problem (understandably) with being called one of the worst companies for LGBT workers in the country, it should blame the Huffington Post, which came up with that angle. (The Huffington Post also falsely reported Avnet’s policies, claiming that Avnet “lost points for not prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” when actually, according to the CEI, Avnet does prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, just not gender identity or expression.) But if Avnet has a problem with simply looking bad next to the LGBT-friendlier businesses in the CEI, it has two options: Stop voluntarily participating in the CEI, or improve its policies.
Look, I’m no HRC cheerleader. I often disagree with them, and sometimes they straight-up piss me off. But they’ve done nothing wrong here, and using false information to accuse them of having done so doesn’t help anybody with anything.
@emma: It has been said many times that this is the ONLY thing HRC does a decent job at. But, it’s not worth $50 million a year.
HRC is mostly useless and we should stop contributing.
No. 8 · Brian NYC
I’ll second that!
We’re disappointed that the HRC ranked Avnet low in their research. Avnet does indeed have a policy in place clearly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Our Code of Conduct includes the below statements and all employees must acknowledge understanding and compliance with the Avnet Code of Conduct each year:
Supporting Diversity
Treating each individual fairly is a component of our Integrity value statement. This includes how we recruit, select, train, promote, and compensate based on merit, experience, and other work-related criteria. We do not discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, marital status, religion, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other grounds prohibited by applicable local law. ….
Prohibiting Harassment in the Workplace
We will not tolerate harassment based upon a protected status such as race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, marital status, religion, age, sexual orientation, medical condition, or disability. We consider harassment to be a major offense that can result in immediate discharge of the offender.
***********
We will be working with the HRC to make sure we undertand their research and rating criteria and they have all the correct information.
Michelle Gorel
VP, Public Relations
Avnet, Inc.
Hurry up Michelle because HRC isn’t going to be in business much longer. They are a waste of LGBT resources.
Thank-you for posting your policies. I have a friend that is creating a website for all companies to post their policies. That will make HRC’s scoring obsolete.
HRC is worth 50 Million a YEAR?
Imagine how many VOTES FIR EQUALITY that could buy in Congress.
Not surprised. They don’t even celebrate Maritn Luhtre Knig Dya in Pheonix.
@Mark: Yes, email will work. E-mails are soooo powerful. All of those e-mail petitions have been soooo effective. And by the way the number of people who support socialism in the US actually closer to 37 percent according to recent polls.
@StopHRC.com: 2009 poll = 20% support socialism. It’s unfortunate that socialists have co-opted the LGBT Movement. Just look at Bilerico.com – it’s mostly Socialism and Trans, not much LGB.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....finds.html
Emails will work when we start sending billions of them, not just million. Politicians count the emails and then make decisions.
Looks like The Transgendered people have hijacked HRC. This Gay man is tired of it. And I’m tired of HRC.
So what HRC is saying is this..if you don’t make the Transpeople that pack our board happy, we could care less about Gay rights.
Lets start a Gay rights organization that focuses on passing
1) ENDA with or without the T
2) Not trading DADT repeal for T inclusion in ENDA (as I strongly think HRC is doing)
3) Passing the Uniting American Families Act with Gay couples included.
Sometimes Gay rights and Trans rights overlap. Sometimes they compete.
Would I like to have Trans rights included in everything? Sure. Do I want to end Bolivian Poverty? You betcha. Am I willing to wait another 20 years on Gay only ENDA because the T isn’t included? Nope.
@Tom in Lazybrook: Why stop there? More Americans would be comfortable passing legislation if it only applied to lesbians, so why not just cut gay men out of those bills?
Whether you like it or not, the structure of discrimination against gay men and women and the logic of discrimination against trans people is one and the same, which is why pegging anti-discrimination laws in that way makes sense.
@Mark: Your comment seems vaguely non-sensical. How does that statistic show that “socialists” have co-opted the movement? If anything, it shows that socialists are in a minority.
@Julien: edit: nonsensical
Want to know where your HRC contributions go? According to the most recently filed form 990, Joe Solomnese’s 2009 salary was $291,177.
emma is right. Most of this is from the Huffington Post article that used the HRC data and made their own interpretation.
@S: if HRC’s budget is $50 million, then Solomnese’s salary is just over .5%, not very major in PAC terms.
@Julien: The statistic was about how popular Socialism is – you’re correct, 20% is a minority. Earlier I had posted about a big segment of our movement being co-opted by the socialist-agenda – NGLTF is a good example. Bilerico.com is a good example. Many of the “direct-action” activists are socialists wearing rainbows.
Our movement is suffering from a lack of focus. Socialists are making it even worse.
@Stephen:
Joe Solmonese in ineffective.
HRC is ineffective.
Both are a complete waste of time and money.
@Julien:
You are perfectly welcome to make that analogy. That’s why I suggest that Gay men have their own organization.
But why not bring your analogy further and not pass ENDA until all of the other unrelated problems in the world are solved first. Lets make abortion, homelessness, poverty in Asia, taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgery, affordable housing in Chicago, an end to the War in Afghanistan, drivers license equality, immigration, genetic modified food, etc. prerequisites to the ENDA bill too? Lets just add a million impossible to pass on their own amendments to the bill while we’re at it.
Wow. What has happened to us?
I have to agree with Tom from Lazybrook. Don’t most Trans men/women identify as straight?
And to Ms. Gorel don’t give into HRC and pay any kind of donation/extortion.