Sometimes
the private sector has to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with
federal laws. But sometimes corporations are a step ahead of
Washington.
That may be the case when it comes to hiring and promoting
homosexual employees. At a time when 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies have
gay-inclusive policies, Reps. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and Tammy Baldwin,
D-Wisconsin, have introduced a bill that would ban employment discrimination
based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The lawmakers have been joined by Republican colleagues
Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, and Christopher Shays, R-Connecticut, to create a
bipartisan push to expand federal law to protect gays, lesbians and bisexual and
transsexual persons.
Frank says he has a commitment from House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-California, to have a floor vote later this year on the legislation,
the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
In the absence of a federal law, advances toward welcoming
workplaces have been accomplished through a combination of corporate
self-interest and moral persuasion.
“The leading-edge companies in America
understand they need the best people,” says Frank, chairman of the House
Financial Services Committee. “They’re not doing this for merit
badges.”
But he says there’s a wider swath of employers who are “less
sophisticated.”
“There are still vast sectors of the American economy where
[discrimination based on sexual orientation] is a problem,” Frank
says.
The insurance company Nationwide supports the Frank bill
because it “would simply and fairly extend the fundamental right to be judged on
one’s own merits without placing excessive burdens on employers,” Stephen Keyes,
vice president of compensation, benefits and human resource policy, said at a
Capitol Hill press conference.
Nationwide’s diversity increases employee productivity,
according to Keyes.
“Our culture puts us at an advantage—our associates have an
environment that allows them to do their best work, without worry or threat of
discrimination,” he says.
The insurer inculcates openness by making it part of
engagement evaluations for managers. If employees believe a superior is
demonstrating a bias, they can take their complaint to other authorities within
the company.
Hewlett-Packard also backs the Frank bill and has implemented
its own nondiscrimination policy.
“We feel it’s an appropriate-cost solution which enables us
to be more competitive in the workplace and have a more diverse employee basis,”
says Kristy Skupa Sternhell, HP director of congressional
affairs.
Even employment lawyers offer no resistance. Tyler Brown,
managing partner of the Jackson Lewis office in Washington, says that companies are already
practicing what the Frank bill preaches.
“We see very few of these cases,” he says. “It’s one of the
least often seen charges of discrimination. Corporate America
is already on board with this.”
Employer experience in California seems to bear out that assessment.
Three years ago, the state strengthened a prohibition on sexual-orientation
discrimination by moving it out of the labor code and into the Fair Employment
and Housing Act to give it more teeth.
Stuart Miller, an employment partner in the San Francisco office of
Davis Wright Tremaine, says his clients aren’t having a problem with the
law.
“I haven’t heard any reasonable basis for opposing a
nationwide ban with penalties,” he says.
—Mark
Schoeff Jr.
Related Stories:
Man Decides to Become Woman, Gets Fired
Transsexual's
Sex Bias Claim Allowed
The
Gay Decade? Not at Work
= Member Only
