Pride at Work Reacts to the Release of HRC's 2016 CEI

Washington - November 19, 2015 –The following is a statement from Pride at Work Executive Director Jerame Davis reacting to the release of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2016 Corporate Equality Index.

"We are disappointed that the HRC Corporate Equality Index (CEI) rewards big corporations for questionable employment practices without taking into consideration the lived experiences of the LGBTQ working people in those corporations. It is our position that any company that takes action to stall, stymie, or otherwise undermine the efforts of their workers to unionize is preventing LGBTQ working people from achieving the full non-discrimination protections federal – and most state - law currently doesn't provide. LGBTQ working people receive far more protection under an inclusive union contract than they do under any existing state law.

"We believe the CEI should take the lived experience of the workers who are subject to the policies these companies are being lauded for holding into consideration when scoring these companies and we've offered to help HRC in those efforts in every way we can. The gap between a policy's existence and its implementation is vast, which is one of the many reasons unions exist – to ensure a company adopts and adheres to appropriate labor policies and practices.

"Companies like Walmart and T-Mobile continue to receive high scores on the HRC CEI despite their treatment of workers overall and, in the specific case of Walmart, the treatment of LGBTQ workers. Despite multiple LGBTQ discrimination lawsuits against the company, many other documented incidents of anti-LGBTQ bias, and our own call for the company's score to be suspended, Walmart's rating remains inconceivably high.

"Our offer to assist HRC in making the CEI more reflective of the real world environment of these workplaces remains intact."


For more information on Pride at Work's position, please read the resolution passed by our members at our convention in August addressing the flaws of HRC's Corporate Equality Index.


Pride At Work is a nonprofit organization and an officially recognized constituency group of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations.) We organize mutual support between the organized Labor Movement and the LGBT Community for social and economic justice. In addition to national Pride at Work, more than 20 Chapters organize at the state and local level around the country.

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