Automakers earn top ratings for embracing LGBT staff

DETROIT — The Detroit Three auto companies and their competitors now rank with Silicon Valley tech leaders in their very public embrace of gay employees, a position that Apple CEO Tim Cook has said is essential to recruiting top talent.

Apple and Amazon are accompanied by Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Tesla, Volkswagen and Subaru in earning a perfect score on the 2018 Corporate Equality Index. The evaluation, administered annually by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, is considered a benchmark analysis of corporate policies and practices related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer workplace equality.

“In the highly competitive automotive industry, employers know that innovation is spurred by a diverse and inclusive workforce,” said Beck Bailey, deputy director of the organization’s Workplace Equality Program. “That’s why we continue to see leadership across the sector.”

Of nearly 1,000 employers rated, 609 businesses scored 100 per cent — up 18 per cent from 517 in the 2017 report and the strongest compliance since the survey began 16 years ago. Perfect scores in the detailed 133-page report designate a Best Place to Work for LGBT employees.

Not too long ago, Ford was the target of a two-year boycott by a Tupelo, Miss.-based family values group advocating biblical decency in response to the automaker’s support of gay rights that included advertising directed at gay consumers.

Rebecca Lindland, executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book, noted that she grew up in a “very, very religious, strong Christian home” and simply cannot understand hostility based on sexual orientation or gender identity. She praised the auto industry’s performance and said, “Any discrimination is repulsive.”

“Ford remains committed to supporting an environment of diversity and inclusion because we believe it makes our company stronger,” said Meeta Huggins, chief diversity officer at Ford.

Auto companies provided examples to illustrate their commitment:

Toyota was among the first auto companies to provide comprehensive domestic partnership benefits back in 2002.

Fiat Chrysler has a Gay and Lesbian Alliance that helps promote issues within the company and ensure products and services are tailored to diverse customers.

GM, for more than a decade, has offered same-sex domestic partner benefits and extended samesex spousal benefits to married LGBT couples in 2012.