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June 07, 2000
ExxonMobil Shareholders Vote on Gay Rights
A shareholder resolution on sexual orientation non-discrimination suggests that the oil giant is in
denial on more than global warming.
SocialFunds.com --
ExxonMobil stands out even among oil companies for its environmental record, including the Alaskan
oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, and its stalwart challenge of the validity of global warming. But a
shareholder resolution at the company's recent annual meeting draws attention to lagging standards
in another area, employment policies for gays and lesbians.
 A sexual orientation non-descrimination
proposal was one of seven social or environmental shareholder resolutions voted on at the
ExxonMobil annual meeting in Dallas last week. The resolution, which called for adding sexual
orientation to the company's written non-discrimination policy, garnered 8.2 percent support from
shareholders, the highest of all of the resolutions and enough to bring the issue before
stockholders again next year.
"This vote shows shareholders with millions of dollars of
ExxonMobil stock are concerned about ExxonMobil's substandard equal employment opportunity
policies," said Diane Bratcher, chair of the Equality Project, a coalition of lesbian and gay
shareholders. "ExxonMobil is falling behind the Fortune 500 and its oil industry peers by not
barring sexual orientation discrimination."
The principal sponsor of the measure was the
New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), aided by the Equality Project, Trillium Asset
Management, and the Unitarian Universalist Association. A similar resolution sponsored by the
Equality Project last year received 5.9 percent support from shareholders.
ExxonMobil
shocked Mobil employees and civil rights groups in December when, following Exxon's merger with
Mobil Corp., it rescinded the former Mobil non-discrimination policy that specifically included
sexual orientation. ExxonMobil is the first company ever to remove protection against sexual
orientation discrimination from its equal employment opportunity policy.
Many other major
corporations, including General Electric, McDonald's, American Home Products, and Johnson & Johnson
have introduced sexual orientation clauses in their policies the last few years. ExxonMobil's
competitors, Chevron, BP Amoco, Sunoco, Shell, and Texaco all ban discrimination and harassment
based on sexual orientation, and BP Amoco, Shell, and Chevron even offer same-sex domestic
partnership benefits.
"ExxonMobil has gone on record as opposing innovation in this area
and letting the government set the pace and agenda of change," said investment analyst Shelley
Alpern of Trillium Asset Management Corp., a co-sponsor of the proposal. "That's a fine strategy
for letting your competitors get out ahead of you."
Kim Mills, Education Director of the
Human Rights Campaign, a shareholder that supported the resolution, put it even more bluntly: "Not
only does ExxonMobil deal in fossil fuels, it is becoming a fossil with respect to its employment
policies."
Other resolutions considered by ExxonMobil shareholders last week included
issues of executive compensation, term limits for outside directors, and board diversity. But
shareholders also addressed perennial environmental problems, including the promotion of renewable
energy sources, a review of the notorious Chad-Cameroon pipeline, and drilling plans for the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.
The latter three resolutions were supported by Campaign
ExxonMobil, a coalition of shareholders and consumers concerned about ExxonMobil's irresponsible
corporate behavior. The group includes religious shareholders, environmental groups, and socially
responsible investors such as Trillium Asset Management of Boston.
The arctic drilling
resolution, which was filed by Trillium and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), drew
attention particularly given ExxonMobil's checkered history in Alaska. Calling on their company to
start making amends for the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, 5.3 percent of ExxonMobil
shareholders voted in support of a resolution to cancel drilling plans in the Arctic Refuge.
"Eleven years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in US history,
ExxonMobil shareholders called on their company today to start acting like a responsible corporate
citizen in Alaska," said Athan Manuel, director of the U.S. PIRG Arctic Wilderness Campaign.
With the combined exploratory and production resources of two world-class oil companies,
ExxonMobil stands to make annual revenues of over $165 billion, according to Campaign ExxonMobil,
and be the number one corporate emitter of greenhouse gases. Only time will tell if this
foot-dragging oil giant will bend to the will of shareholders calling for corporate responsibility.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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