New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of two of the city’s pension systems, is sponsoring first-time resolutions calling for shareholder votes on non-discrimination policies at eight Fortune 500 companies. The resolutions call for companies that have not already done so to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. The City’s effort has prompted one of the eight companies this week to rapidly amend its equal employment opportunity and harassment policies to provide protections for gays and lesbians.

“Discrimination in any form is unacceptable, and we must take whatever steps are necessary to eradicate bias,” Thompson said. “This is a human rights issue. We invest our funds in these companies, but these companies should be inclusive to all people.”

The resolutions, which were filed recently, focus on companies that had yet to formally adopt policies specifically barring discrimination. They were submitted for the first time to American Electric Power, El Paso Corporation, Reliant Energy, JCPenney Company, Inc., TXU Corporation, Georgia-Pacific, Ingram Micro, and Dynegy Inc. As well, New York City funds are again calling for a policy change in a resolution to the ExxonMobil Corporation.

“The fact that these companies do not have formal non-discrimination policies makes employees susceptible to discrimination, because victimized workers are not protected,” Thompson said. “But there are hopeful signs. This Wednesday, in direct response to our efforts, Dynegy Inc. revised its equal employment opportunity and harassment policies to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. We will now withdraw our resolution.”

Further, in December the board of directors of CBRL Group, Inc., the parent company of Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, voted unanimously to add sexual orientation to the company’s non-discrimination policy. The Comptroller’s Office had waged a decade-long campaign on behalf of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) to prompt a shareholder vote on the measure.

“This was a stunning victory, one I hope will have a significant, widespread impact across corporate America,” Thompson said. “Working together, we hope to continue to push additional companies to enact similar policies in the future.”

Last year, ExxonMobil challenged the Comptroller’s non-discrimination resolution, which was triggered by the company’s repeal of a policy formally prohibiting discrimination. The Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that shareholders could vote on the measure. At the corporation’s annual meeting in May 2002 in Dallas, more than 1 billion in shares representing $44 billion in holdings were voted in favor of the measure. That represented more than double the number of shareholders who supported the measure in 2001. However, the measure did not pass.

“The groundswell of support this measure spotlights the growing awareness across the nation that we must guarantee equal opportunity for all employees,” Thompson said.

The resolutions’ two sponsors – who call the resolutions important human and labor rights issues - are the NYCERS, which has more than $450.4 million in holdings in the nine companies, and the Teachers Retirement System (TRS), which has more than $276.4 million in holdings invested in them. In total, the city’s five pension funds have invested $982.7 million in the nine companies. The City’s five funds have more than $1.6 million in holdings in Dynegy.

"We applaud Comptroller Thompson and the City of New York for its leadership on this issue," said Kim I. Mills, director of education for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay and lesbian advocacy group, based in Washington. "By working within the system, New York City and other fair-minded shareholder advocates have convinced many leading U.S. corporations of the importance of non-discrimination policies that protect gay and lesbian employees." The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is a co-filer with NYCERS of the resolution this year at ExxonMobil.

Serving with Comptroller Thompson on the NYCERS board are Martha Stark, NYCERS Chairperson and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Finance; Betsy Gotbaum, Public Advocate; Borough Presidents C. Virginia Fields (Manhattan), Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn), Adolfo Carrion (Bronx), Helen Marshall (Queens), and James Molinaro (Staten Island); Lillian Roberts, Administrator of District Council 37, AFSCME; Roger Toussaint, President, TWU-Local 100; and, Carroll Haynes, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237. The TRS trustees are Thompson and Stark; Kathleen Grimm, Deputy Chancellor of the Department of Education; Philip A. Berry, Member of the Panel for Educational Policy; and teachers Melvyn Aaronson, Sandra March, and Mona Romain.

A 2000 study by Hewitt Associates, a compensation and management-consulting firm, found that 64 percent of large employers prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. According to a National Gay and Lesbian Task Force survey, 41 percent of gay and lesbian workers in the United States report facing some form of hostility or harassment on the job, and one out of every 10 gay or lesbian adults said they were fired or dismissed unfairly from a job or pressured to quit because of their sexual orientation.

The resolutions call for the companies to adopt a policy stating: “Employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation diminishes employee morale and productivity….Our company would benefit by a consistent, corporate-wide policy to enhance efforts to prevent discrimination, resolve complaints internally, and ensure a respectful and supportive atmosphere for all employees.”