ExxonMobil Shareholders to Vote on Non-Discrimination Tomorrow Morning
May 26, 2009
Tomorrow morning, billions of shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) stock will be counted on items ranging from board membership to greenhouse gases. The company's directors oppose virtually all of these resolutions, but it is required to submit them to shareholders nonetheless. 
For the tenth year in a row, one of these items is a resolution to amend the company's equal employment opportunity policy to include "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." Ten years ago, before Mobil Corp. was acquired by Exxon Corp., Mobil prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and even offered health benefits to unmarried partners of its employees. Upon its 1999 merger with Exxon, the non-discrimination policy was removed and the domestic partner benefits program closed to new employees. Find out more about ExxonMobil's policies. Since 1999, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, in coordination with the New York City Comptroller and New York City Pension Funds, has filed this resolution, with an unprecedented 39.6% of shareholders representing billions of shares voting in favor in 2008. Once again, ExxonMobil's leadership has opposed fairness in the workplace. Although the company and its CEO, Rex Tillerson, have made promising statements that it won't discriminate based on sexual orientation, its formal EEO policy make no mention of sexual orientation or gender identity. See for yourself at http://bit.ly/exxonmobil-eeo It's not rocket science. A majority of the Fortune 100 (60%) now have fully-inclusive non-discrimination policies. In fact, ExxonMobil already employs people in the states where discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal (map). Look for an update tomorrow at noon from HRC Business Council co-chair Robb Puckett, who will represent HRC at tomorrow morning's annual meeting of ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas.
