Just this past May, Exxon Mobil shareholders overwhelmingly voted against a resolution barring discrimination against their LGBT employees. It marked the 17th effort in a row for this behemoth of a corporation to deny these protections for its workers.
Exxon's adamant refusal to add these protections came crashing down with a stroke of President Obama's pen this past Monday when he altered Executive Order 11246 to include sexual orientation and gender identity to the protection of workers of companies entering contracts with the federal government. Exxon Mobil now says it will comply with the law, according to the Associated Press.
Exxon, which according to government records won more than $480 million in federal contracts in 2013 and more than $8 billion since 2006, has long resisted pressure from civil rights groups and shareholders to enumerate such protections in its formal policy.
The world's biggest oil and gas company by market value will continue to "abide by the law," spokesman Alan Jeffers said Tuesday.
He wouldn't say if that meant changing the language in the company's formal equal employment opportunity policy, but stressed that Exxon prohibits "discrimination on any basis."
According to the Human Rights Campaign, which supports gay rights and gay marriage, 91 percent of Fortune 500 companies include anti-gay bias as an explicit part of their non-discrimination policies, and 61 percent explicitly protect against discrimination based on gender identity. Irving-based Fluor Corp. and the company formerly known as the Washington Post Co., now Graham Holdings Co., are the only other companies listed without explicit policies protecting workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation in Human Rights Campaign's 2014 corporate equality index.
Despite the gnashing of teeth that surely took place, Exxon clearly does not want to risk suckling at the teat of its government contracts. While they are being cagey about whether they will actually add this language to their own corporate discrimination policy, it probably matters little at this point whether they do or don't. Their hand is forced and they will comply.
Expect much wailing from the Religious Right in the coming days over the largest employer in Texas being forced by pen to treat all of its employees with dignity. Now if they would only be forced to show our planet the same respect.
Via Joe.My.God