Pension Fund Bars Gay Discrimination

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. on behalf of the fund this week began filing shareholder proposals to force the issue onto the agenda of the annual shareholder meetings of ten companies that the NYC pension fund invests in.

CSX Corporation of Jacksonville, Florida, the first one notified that the fund was going to publicly push for gay rights at the company`s next annual meeting immediately announced it was amending its policy to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The other companies being targeted are Lear Corporation of Southfield, Michigan; AES Corporation of Arlington, Virginia; Smurfit Stone Container of Chicago, Illinois; the Altell Corporation of Hazelwood, North Carolina; Centrepoint Energy of Houston, Texas; Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio; HCA Inc. (Health Care Company) of Nashville, Tennessee; Waste Management, Inc. of Houston, Texas; and the Southern Company of Atlanta, Georgia.

"It is important that we send a message to companies that once we file shareholder proposals, we`re not going to go away until they do the right thing," Thompson said. "We will not give up until all of these companies amend their policies to provide equal treatment for all."

"This is a wake up to call to corporate America," said Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director at the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state`s biggest LGBT civil rights organization.

"We expect the companies in which we invest City pension funds to hire and promote employees based on their qualifications and performance," said New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark, who is Chair of the Boards of Trustees of NYCERS and the Teachers` Retirement System. "It`s good policy and good business. We call on these companies to prohibit discrimination and once and for all resolve doubts about their commitment to equal employment opportunity."

Thompson additionally renewed his call for ExxonMobil to amend its non-discrimination policy to prohibit such discrimination and filed notice that the fund will seek to have a discrimination motion on the agenda at the next shareholder meeting.

NYCERS currently holds 11.9 million shares worth approximately $446 million in the company.

This is the fourth time that NYCERS has submitted the resolution with ExxonMobil. Last year, 27.3 percent of ExxonMobil shares were voted in support of the resolution, which calls 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."

New York`s pension funds have a long history of activism on behalf of social causes, including gay rights. Under Thompson and his predecessors, the funds were part of a decade-long battle to get CBRL Group Inc., the parent company of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain, to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. CBRL, which reportedly fired at least 11 gay workers in the 1990s, agreed to change its policy in November 2002 after a resolution garnered 58 percent of the vote.

Last year, Thompson`s office backed shareholder resolutions related to sexual orientation at a dozen Fortune 500 companies. At one of them, J.C. Penney Co., the resolution won 93 percent of the vote after the company announced that it supported the proposal.

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