SHAREHOLDER VOTE SHOWS INCREASED SUPPORT FOR
FUND’S NON-DISCRIMINATION RESOLUTION

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New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), renewed the call for ExxonMobil to adopt policies that specifically bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. The action comes after 27.1 percent of ExxonMobil shares were voted in support of a resolution calling on the company to amend its non-discrimination policy – an increase of 15 percent over the previous year.

“I am pleased with the increased level of shareholder support our resolution garnered at this year’s annual shareholder meeting,” Comptroller Thompson said. “Last week, more than 1.83 billion shares representing approximately $66.7 billion dollars in holdings voted in support of this measure. That is significantly more than during the previous year, when more than $1.63 billion in shares worth $65.6 billion were voted in favor of the measure. We’ve clearly surpassed last year’s tally, demonstrating a positive momentum for this resolution.”

However, despite the increased level of support, the measure did not pass this year. The 2002 proposal garnered 23.9 percent of the votes, while this year’s proposal garnered 27.1 percent. The Comptroller hopes to resubmit the resolution on behalf of the pension fund next year.

The resolution called for ExxonMobil 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.”

“Employees are placed at serious risk when a company does not have formal non-discrimination policies in place,” Thompson said. “The City’s funds will continue to pursue this important human rights issue until ExxonMobil protects all of its employees from discrimination, no matter how long it takes.”

This was the third year that the City pension funds have filed the resolution at ExxonMobil. The resolution was triggered by ExxonMobil’s repeal of a policy that formally prohibited discrimination. Last year, ExxonMobil challenged the Comptroller’s non-discrimination resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC ruled that shareholders could vote on the measure.

Similar resolutions also were filed for the first time this year at American Electric Power, Dynegy Inc., CentrePoint Energy, JCPenney Company, Inc., TXU Corporation, and Ingram Micro. In direct response to the City funds’ efforts, JCPenney Company, TXU Corporation, Ingram Micro, American Electric Power, and Dynegy Inc. revised their equal employment opportunity and harassment policies to explicitly bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. The funds subsequently withdrew the resolutions.

In December 2002, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores and Logan’s Roadhouse Restaurants approved the NYCERS resolution that asked the company to implement non-discriminatory policies relating to sexual orientation and to add explicit prohibitions against such discrimination to its corporate employment policy statement. This came as the result of a lengthy campaign by the Comptroller’s Office and the trustees of several of the City's pension systems.

“I am encouraged by the fact that, as a result of our efforts, many of the companies where we filed this resolution decided to amend their non-discrimination policies,” Thompson said. “I am confident that ExxonMobil ultimately will appreciate the necessity of the policy change and adopt this resolution.”

Shelley Alpern, co-chair for shareholder activism at the Equality Project, a non-profit group that has coordinated many shareholder campaigns urging companies to change their policies to include sexual orientation, said: “In contrast to ExxonMobil's claims, its current written policies do not protect employees. The courts have stated time and again that sexual orientation-based discrimination is not prohibited unless specifically banned by name."

"Each year, ExxonMobil gets more and more marginalized as an increasing number of smart and successful companies add these policies," added Kim I. Mills, Education Director for the Human Rights Campaign. "Every ExxonMobil director comes from a company with such a policy. CEO Lee Raymond even sits on the board of one company that has such a policy — J.P. Morgan Chase. There is no logical reason for ExxonMobil to resist this very reasonable request."

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.

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, Executive Director of District Council 37, AFSCME; Roger Toussaint, President, TWU-Local 100; and, Carroll Haynes, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237.