287
submitted 2 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the U.S. military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies.

The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded.

But the scorecard itself has come under attack in recent months by conservative activists who targeted businesses as part of a broader pushback against diversity initiatives. Ford, Harley- Davidson and Lowe’s are among the companies that announced they would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Can I ask a sensitive question? This question is for LGBTQ+ people who actually work or worked at a company when it adopted or dropped participating in the program. Does the CEI actually have an effect on the company's workplace tolerance or it is just something they do for appearances? Has a company that decided to drop participating become more intolerant or did they maintain the practices, but maybe considered the program itself an unnecessary expense?

Edit: One more question. If you're a LGBTQ+ person who works or worked at a company with a good score. Did/does your experience match company's score?

[-] sudoshakes@reddthat.com 9 points 2 months ago

Worked at a major company you would instantly know the name of.

They were a large corporation but were not public ally traded. Trillions of dollars in assets with more than 60k people employed.

DEI was a MAJOR push, with not just required corporate training but also sessions held often for minority groups of all types to speak their minds in forums about how to connect with them etc.

DEI initiatives and campaigns were a thing, VP of DEI was hired and they had a whole subsection under HR. Corporate events, entertainment, whole virtual bands playing to the theme of inclusion.

This same company did nothing when facing the burning obvious culture of being yes men to their bosses. They did nothing different than most any other massive rich company for how they treated workers, tracking their activity, location, and even physical assess login to buildings for reviews or as excuse to fire.

In an large address by a major leader in the organization I personally gave virtual written innocuous feedback, that they asked for, only to have that be met within minutes with being told never to do that again. The message wasn’t even seen by the speaker. It was just purely culturally unacceptable to offer any constructive criticism of any kind to people in high enough authority.

More than half a dozen people messaged me to tell me they appreciated I gave it public ally and it needed saying. I didn’t know any of them.

So if people are so important and we value voices being heard equally so much, why would you have people desperate to be treated like people and any such statement be met with greats of reprisal?

Yeah. DEI is fan fare in the same way the office cafeteria and gym were. They are designed to entice talent to come or stay while costing the company minimal amounts to do so.

[-] femtech@midwest.social 6 points 2 months ago

I work gov side and was in the military. It helped in both places if it was supported by the bosses. Gay jokes stopped in my unit when someone got an instant public talking to when he used the gay f word as a term for the enemy team during an exercise. It made people realize that being ok with gay jokes bread a hostile workplace.

Same reason the military implemented the same training to curb rape and violence against women. If you cultivate an environment that stomps out the small/passive hate, it will show the people that commit hateful acts that they are not welcome.

Now that I work on the civilian side it helps so that the work we do is not hampered by a white male only experience. Others are not afraid to speak up on how decisions, settings, or tech effects people differently.

this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
287 points (99.3% liked)

News

23424 readers
1546 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS