In 2012, and again in 2013, the Human Rights Campaign gave Exxon Mobil a negative 25 out of 100 possible points on its annual Corporate Equality Index. It is the lowest score ever received by any corporation. No other company has ever received a negative score. On the contrary, in 2013, the HRC found nearly 90% of Fortune 500 companies had adopted written nondiscrimination policies prohibiting harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation, as had 94% of Fortune 100 companies. With the exception of Exxon, all of the Fortune 10 companies have adopted such policies, as have Exxon’s largest oil company competitors. Over 62% of Fortune 500 companies had domestic partner health benefits. Over 70% of the Fortune 100 prohibited discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
Exxon not only failed to meet a single one of these or the other HRC criteria for an LGBT-inclusive workplace, it has also actively worked for 15 years against annual shareholder resolutions calling for such inclusion. And Exxon isn’t simply stuck in the early ’90s—it has actually erased nondiscriminatory and partner benefit policies in place in companies it has purchased: Mobil Oil Corporation, in 1999, and XTO Energy, in 2010. It is the only company known to have ever permanently done so.
“It was a slap in the face,” says Tom Allen of the reversal of Mobil’s LGBT policies. “We worked so hard to get them, and this took us back 30 years.” Allen went to work at Mobil when he was 23 years old and stayed with the company through the Exxon merger until his retirement in 2010, after 35 years of service. “I find myself embarrassed today that I have to defend where I work,” Allen continues. “And the bigger slap in the face is that it just keeps going. Every single year at that [expletive] stockholders’ meeting, they slap us in the face again.”
A gay former employee of XTO Energy and Exxon who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, says of the change in policy, “I feel that [Exxon is like that] racist old aunt, that racist grandfather figure, that person completely out of touch with the times. I don’t see the upside to the company for continuing [the discriminatory policies]. Someone must think there’s an upside. I don’t know what it is…. So, now I’m like, ‘OK, how much longer are you going to be out of step with the rest of us?’”
“Exxon is just such a rogue outfit,” says Congressman Alan Lowenthal of California, a cosponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the sponsor of an amendment barring Exxon from winning future government oil and gas leases until it changes its LGBT policies. “You don’t have to be progressive just to join the rest of the human race and not discriminate. I don’t get it.”
President Barack Obama indicated as a candidate in 2008 that he would sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Exxon is a leading recipient of government contracts and would be heavily impacted by such an order. Even more impactful, of course, would be passage of ENDA.
But Exxon rarely sits by and waits for government action to affect it. More often than not, it is Exxon instead that changes government policy. Since 2008, Exxon has spent nearly $90 million lobbying the federal government and almost $6 million in federal campaign contributions. CEO Rex Tillerson has personally visited the White House a minimum of 13 times since 2009.
Exxon’s publicly available disclosure forms do not indicate that its lobbyists have addressed LGBT-related employment issues with the federal government. Tillerson, however, is not a registered lobbyist and does not have to disclose the contents of his meetings. In an email, White House spokesman Shin Inouye writes, “Regarding Mr. Tillerson’s visits to the White House, we routinely meet with a wide range of stakeholders, including business leaders, on a variety of issues.” The Advocate has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the details of those visits.
Read The Advocate’s full cover story and essays now at:
http://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2013/09/03/whats-wrong-exxon
