UPDATE, 11:46 a.m.: ExxonMobil shareholders meeting in Dallas have voted against the proposed nondiscrimination policy. The Dallas Voice reports that 81 percent of shareholders voted to reject the resolution.
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Just a week after the Boy Scouts of America decided to stop discriminating against gay youth (but kept the ban on gay scout leaders), some shareholders of Texas-based ExxonMobil are trying once again to get their company to ban discrimination against LGBT employees. From Associated Press:
A retirement fund for New York state employees is proposing that Exxon ban bias based on sexual orientation. The Exxon board opposes the measure, saying that the company already prohibits all types of discrimination and doesn’t need to add language regarding gays.
Last year, shareholders rejected a similar anti-bias measure and another on climate change.
This week’s shareholders meeting comes as ExxonMobil faces the possibility of a novel awsuit in Illinois alleging that the company has demonstrated a preference for hiring less-qualified heterosexual applicants over qualified applicants identified as gay or lesbian. Texas and the federal government do not have laws barring anti-gay job discrimination.
Before merging with Exxon in 1999, Mobil had a nondiscrimination policy that included sexual orientation. The company also offered benefits to domestic partners of employees. ExxonMobil dumped both policies after the merger.
AP also reports that ExxonMobil “shareholders will vote on another resolution proposed by a religious group from Caldwell, N.J., to set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Exxon products and operations.”
Sounds like time to turn up the heat through the media as well as some boycotts.