Companies Offering Gay Benefits Increase

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 25 -- More employers are offering health insurancecoverage to the partners of homosexual employees — a total thatincludes just over 100 of the Fortune 500 companies — according toa report released today by a gay rights group.

The study, by the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, foundthat a total of 3,572 companies, colleges and states and localgovernments offered or had announced they would offer healthinsurance to their employees’ domestic partners. This was up 25percent from a year ago, when 2,856 employers extended suchbenefits.

The findings were included in the group’s annual “State of theWorkplace for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Americans.”

“Domestic partner benefits are increasingly becoming a standardbusiness practice in corporate America,” said Kim I. Mills,education director of the Human Rights Campaign. “Employers havediscovered that these benefits help attract and keep the bestworkers, a critical consideration in the current tight jobmarket.”

Landmark Move for Big Three

The report called a “landmark move” the announcement in Juneby Big Three domestic automakers — DaimlerChrysler, General Motorsand Ford — and the United Auto Workers that domestic-partnerbenefits would be offered to their more than 400,000 employees.

“This marked the first time that virtually an entire sector ofAmerican commerce, along with its leading union, decidedcollectively to provide domestic partner benefits,” the reportsaid.

Fortune 500 companies offering or planning to offer domesticpartner benefits increased from 70 in August 1999 to 102 lastmonth, an increase of 46 percent. In addition, 41 of the top 50companies in America prohibit discrimination based on sexualorientation, the report said.

“All the signs point to private and public employers continuingto institute nondiscrimination policies and domestic partnerbenefits,” the study said. However, it noted that there is nofederal law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation,nor is there one in 39 states, although President Clinton issued anexecutive order in 1998 prohibiting such discrimination in thefederal civilian work force.