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WASHINGTON, DC -- Witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions today that Congress must act to prohibit employers from discriminating against their employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
“Like so many other gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender victims of workplace discrimination, I didn’t lose my job because I was lazy, incompetent or unprofessional," said Brooke Waits, a worker who has alleged employment discrimination in her 2006 firing as an inventory control manager at Cellular Sales of Texas. “In a single afternoon, I went from being a highly praised employee, to out of a job."
Thirty-one states permit employers to fire employees based solely on their sexual orientation; 39 states permit employers to fire employees based solely on their gender identity. Earlier this year, U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit employment discrimination, preferential treatment and retaliation on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with 15 or more employees.
“There is no question that discrimination based on sexual orientation is occurring in the workplace. Like all forms of discrimination, it is wrong and it is our goal today to examine a solution," said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), chairman of the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee. “ENDA is a bill about fairness and access to equal opportunity for employment to gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender and heterosexuals."
Michael Carney, a Springfield, Massachusetts police officer, told the committee that he was lucky to be from a state that protected him from employment discrimination.
“I have been honored and blessed to serve my department and the citizens of my community. I am a good cop," said Carney. “But I had to fight to get my job because I’m gay. And I never would have even been able to do that had I not lived in Massachusetts or in one of the handful of states that protect gay people from discrimination."
While some states have been slow to adopt laws to protect employees from workplace discrimination, many businesses have enacted nondiscrimination policies – both for civil rights reasons and to benefit their own competitiveness.
“Perhaps the best evidence that nondiscrimination policies are good for business comes from the fact that many companies have voluntarily adopted such a policy," said Lee Badgett, the research director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. “The most recent tally shows that 88 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have added sexual orientation to their nondiscrimination policies, and 25 percent have added gender identity."
Kelly Baker, vice president of diversity at General Mills, agreed. “In addition to promoting diversity because of its benefits to our business, we support the ENDA legislation because we believe it is a fundamental right of all American citizens to be treated fairly, with respect and dignity in the workplace, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity."
“In my twenty-six years running a business, I have learned that an inclusive workplace, which judges people on their merits, not on unrelated matters like sexual orientation or gender identity, is the key to success in a competitive, ever-changing marketplace," said Nancy Kramer, founder and CEO of Resource Interactive, a small business from Ohio.
Helen Norton, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, said that ENDA would “fill significant gaps in existing federal and state antidiscrimination law by clearly articulating, for the first time, a national commitment to equal employment opportunity regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity while accommodating concerns raised by religious institutions and other employers."
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tom Kiley / Rachel Racusen
2181 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-226-0853
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