lumière des étoiles

Like we need another reason to call them bastards
2006-06-01 2:57 p.m.

"Zieg Heil to the president gas-man..."
"Holiday", Green Day.

Mirrored from Diversity, Inc. (diversityinc.com):

ExxonMobil Under Fire for Gender Bias
By Carmen Cusido
© 2006 DiversityInc.com®
June 01, 2006

ExxonMobil, the first major U.S. company to eliminate domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples, now is under fire for gender discrimination.

At the annual shareholder's meeting yesterday, the oil giant came under sharp criticism for its sponsorship of the Masters Golf Tournament, held at Augusta National Golf Club. Augusta National bars women from membership.

Martha Burk, chair of the Corporate Accountability Project at the National Council on Women's Organizations (NCWO), and other concerned shareholders made their voices heard at the annual meeting in Dallas, Texas.

The NCWO—which represents about 200 women's organizations across the nation—and Responsible Wealth, a network of "affluent Americans concerned with income inequality," co-filed a resolution asking ExxonMobil to report, in detail, how much money it spends on sponsoring "venues that discriminate on the base of race and gender."

The Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which prepares reports for institutional investors, asked the company whether it would sponsor an event that barred blacks or Jews from membership. ExxonMobil answered it "probably would not sponsor an event barring African Americans or Jews," even if the event could help ExxonMobil promote its education message.

Burk said that in the way ExxonMobil answered the question, "they drew a distinction between religion or race and gender discrimination. We think it's outrageous."

The resolution asking the company not to sponsor the Masters or any organization that discriminated based on gender received 8.3 percent of the votes, double what Burk had anticipated. The company, of course, has not indicated any action on the resolution.

Women make up 23 percent of ExxonMobil's worldwide work force. By comparison, women comprise 51 percent of The DiversityInc 2006 Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Women are 11 percent of executive employees for ExxonMobil, compared with 42.5 percent of managers in the Top 50.