Asshat of the Week: ExxonMobil

Last week President Obama announced that he will soon issue an executive order extending essential workplace protections to the LGBT employees of federal contractors, and suddenly everyone was eyeing ExxonMobil Corporation — a Fortune 100 corporation and one of the nation’s largest federal contractors.

See, ExxonMobil has — for the last nearly twenty years — resisted instituting non-discrimination protections for its LGBT employees, even though most other Fortune 500 companies treat these kinds of protections—like not being fired just because you’re an L, a G, a B, or a T — as a rule of thumb. So, folks were wondering what ExxonMobil was going to do in the face of Obama’s announcement and it turns out that they’ve decided to lie.

In a statement ExxonMobil is now claiming it has “a longstanding policy that strictly prohibits any form of discrimination by or toward employees, contractors, suppliers and customers in any ExxonMobil workplace. Our global, zero-tolerance policy applies to all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Lie.Lie.Lie.

Human Rights Campaign [HRC] Vice President for Communications Fred Sainz:

“Put bluntly, this statement is a lie. ExxonMobil’s Equal Employment and Opportunity Policy has clearly and consistently omitted enumerated LGBT non-discrimination protections for its personnel. Though their statement sounds like it’s taking a very progressive stand, it is in fact a master class in doublespeak — crafted, no doubt, by a team of well-paid lawyers. Until a nondiscrimination policy is enumerated, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” 

Let’s go back to facts, something ExxonMobil thinks they can hide: in the last 17 years, ExxonMobil’s shareholders have voted 17 times to kill non-discrimination protections for ExxonMobil’s LGBT personnel — and did it again last month.

And let’s go back further, because when Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999, the newly formed company immediately rescinded domestic partner benefits that had previously been offered to Mobil’s LGBT employees.

In fact, ExxonMobil’s blatant disregard for its LGBT employees has earned it the only negative score in the 12 year history of HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. 

Asshats trying to rewrite history, to rewrite lies. I mean, rather than, say, oh I dunno, change their minds after all these years, they’re simply going to lie about policies they do not have in place.

ExxonMobil does not now, nor has it since merging ion 1999, given a rat’s ass about the LGBT community and I think, if you don’t already, we should return the favor.

source: HRC