HRC Equality Index 2010 Lists Worst Companies for LGBT Employees

The HRC runs a yearly assessment of over three hundred companies that employ over nine million people. It looks at the company’s policies regarding LGBT employees and determines those places that are safe and supportive. It also looks at the places that offer no protection to their LGBT employees. In these times, a focus on the bad companies is strategically smart. Economic downturns make boycotts scarier. So we need to be threatening this kind of negative action against discriminating companies.

The Human Rights Campaign, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lobbying group and political action committee, recently released the findings from its 2010 Corporate Equality Index.

In what the organization says has become "the premier benchmark for businesses to gauge their success on LGBT inclusion against competitors," the annual survey assesses corporate treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees at hundreds of the largest and most successful American companies. The major criteria included in the evaluation include whether discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited and whether same-sex partners are eligible for health insurance benefits. The index also considers diversity training, in-house LGBT resource groups and company advertising and marketing campaigns.

This year, the HRC says a record 305 businesses, representing over 9.3-million full-time employees, earned perfect scores in the index. But not all of the companies surveyed displayed a high level of fairness and inclusiveness, and some earned scores in the index that were downright dismal.