vause@ncrcae.UUCP (Sam Vause) (11/29/84)
This article is reprinted from the November 26, 1984 issue of BUSINESS WEEK magazine, under the Social Issues category. I recommend that you read it! ******************************************************************************** JOB RIGHTS FOR GAYS: THE PRICE TAG GETS HIGHER Companies are being sued as homosexuals press for `spouse benefits' and stronger antibias policies. Late in 1981, Larry Brinkin's longtime homosexual lover committed suicide. Brinkin, an executive secretary at Southern Pacific Transportation Co., took three days off to attend the funeral and get over the first wave of grief. When he claimed his absence as a bereavement leave, provided in the line's contract with the Brotherhood of Railway, Airline & Steamship Clerks, the company turned him down because the list of those whose deaths justified such leaves did not include lovers. Brinkin sued the company and the union. After complex legal maneuvers, the case should get to trial in California Superior Court in San Francisco next summer. The Brinkin case typifies the issues management faces as the drive for equal employment rights for gays enters its second phase. For the general public, the first-phase issue of forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation remains highly controversial: When given a chance, voters usually refuse to cover gays under antibias laws. Over the past decade, however, much of the business community has accepted the idea that prohibitions against hiring homosexuals make neither economic nor social sense. NEW CLOUT. Ninty-eight of the countries biggest companies appear on the National Gay Task Force's list of corporations whose policies ban discrimi- nation against homosexuals, including Standard Oil of California, Citicorp, Union Carbide, Penn Mutual Life Insurance, and American Motors. But now more complicated issues--including the potentially costly one of extending medical and other benefits to homosexual partners--are plunging companies into disputes they never considered when they expanded internal antibias rules to include gays Employers stress that they have few problems obeying corporate job rules or the antibias ordinances passed by many big cities and some smaller towns. "It's not an issue," says David G. Nelson, director of staffing and systems for Honeywell Incorporated in Minneapolis, one of the cities with antibias laws. "We don't know what our employees' sexual preferences are, and we don't want to know." But now the campaign to extend antibias policies is beginning to draw blood. Gays in Washington blocked a municipal bond issue to finance construction at Georgetown University because the school refuses to recognize a gay student group. Students at Temple University in Philadelphia argue that the city's gay rights ordinance should bar on-campus recruiting by employers who discrim- inate against the country's estimated 17 million [note: I think this is low!] homosexuals. INTO THE FRAY. The most important conflict involves homosexuals who have con- tinuing relationships with people the law does not want them to marry. They want company benefit plans to treat such partners as their legal spouses. The perks demanded range from the university library cards given to families of faculty members--a case being pressed by through internal channels by a gay professor at the University of California--to full health-insurance coverage. This is the area "where things are going to be shaping up for the next gener- ation," says Leonard Graff, legal director of National Gay Rights Advocates, a San Francisco law firm. To arm activists for the fray, the Lesbian Rights Project is preparing a booklet that tells homosexuals how to use the collective bargaining process to get part- ner coverage. The Madison Institute for Social Legislation in Wisconsin (the only state with a gay antibias law) is drawing up model language for use in con- tract proposals. Wisconsin locals of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees are polling their members to find out whether they are interested in such coverage. A Madison nurses' union has already persuaded one hospital to change its bereavement-leave policy to one that honors any "reason- able" request. Collective bargaining aside, lawyers for gays insist that the right to benefits already exists in antibias laws and policies. That is what Brinkin claims in his suit, brought under the San Francisco ordinance. A similar case--involving the inclusion of lovers in the dental insurance plan for California state employees--is pending in the Court of Appeals there. The plaintiffs lost at the trial court, where the judge ruled that fringe benefits were too peripheral to be covered by antibias rules. A MATTER OF LAW. So far, private employers have tended to duck the issue. It has twice come up at American Telephone & Telegraph Co., where the corporation has taken the position that employees who want coverage for their partners should go to the legislators, not the company. If a jurisdiction recognizes the relationship between gay lovers as legally binding, then the company will treat them like spouses for fringe benefits, says Barbara P. Jacob, personnel staff manager for AT&T. Together with the fight to extend job rights goes a second campaign: an effort to force companies to erase what gays see as a homophobic atmosphere in the workplace. Gay spokespeople say that its effects range from outright harass- ment to the expectation that gay employees will stay late to handle emergencies because they have no families to go home to. Graff's group is discussing a settlement of a bias suit against Pacific Telegraph & Telephone Co., now called Pacific Bell, that is likely to include a company promise to give mangers gay- sensitivity training courses. A stereotyped image of gays is more than an inconvience, says Don Tombe, execu- tive director of Lambda Institute, a San Francisco firm that sells such sensi- tivity courses. It hurts those who want to move up the corporate ladder. Tombe says that an executive considering whom to promote may think: "Oh, a gay person wouldn't want that job, it would interfere with his partying." And when gays make clear that they do want high-level jobs, they are often turned down because of fears about how they will handle the social aspects of high-level corporate life--management conferences that include husbands and wives, for instance. Although no litigation has been files on this issue, lawyer Roberta Achtenberg of the Lesbian Rights Project says that it figures in informal discussions with employers who seek to avoid lawsuits. TO THE HIGHEST COURT. But litigation seems inevitable as increasing numbers of homosexuals come out of the closet. "Staying in the closet has a lot of costs people are becoming aware of," says Matthew A. Coles, Brinkin's lawyer. Under California law, he advise clients, "you have more job protection if you come out." California state courts consider advocacy of gay rights to be political activity, and state laws forbid firing for political activity. California is not the only place where homosexuals are taking their grievances to court. Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, a gay rights litigation group, had one job case on its monthly listing a year ago compared with five today-- including the case of Samuel F. Dorr, who resigned his vice-presidency at the First National Bank of Louisvill under management pressure in 1981, when he became the president of a group of Catholic and Episcopal gays. Dorr charges religious discrimination in a suit now before an appellate court. Indeed, gay rights litigation has moved as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has accepted for review this term a challange to an Oklahoma law that permits school districts to fire teachers for "public homosexual activity," a phrase that covers "advocating, soliciting, imposing, encouraging, or promoting public or private homosexual activity." The gay rights movement, which had convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver that the law was unconstitutional, did not want the high court to take up the controversy because, although the issue has nothing to do with private employers, a victory for Oklahoma could stall efforts for gay antibias ordinances. But Graff, who is handling the case, says that the Supreme Court ruling will have another effect: It will show that the movement has the ability to fight long legal battles. That means business can expect more suits like the one against Southern Pacific. --By Daniel B. Moskowitz in Washington
rick@uwmacc.UUCP (the absurdist) (11/30/84)
[ This bug does not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference ]
< Very long original article, not reproduced here >
The 1st case mentioned in this article is that of David Brinkin,
who was unable to take leave following the death of his male lover
(nor for his lover's funeral). The reason (as stated in the original
posting) is that "lovers" are not on the list of people for whose
funerals you may be granted compassionate leave, under the terms of
the agreement between his union and his employer.
ASSUMING that this is the correct interpretation (i.e., that he
would have been denied leave whether his lover was male or female),
this is not primarily a gay rights issue. In general, I think it
is reasonable to give a different set of rights under the law to
married vs. unmarried people. (Consider the idea of palimony to
have been flamed: FLAME!!!. There.)
Later in the article, AT&T is mentioned; their position is summarized
as if the legislature recognizes someone as a legal spouse, they will
grant the usual benefits without regard to spouses being motos or motss.
This seems reasonable enough.
HOWEVER, it is not possible to dismiss this as a gay rights issue entirely,
since even if it is possible for a gay couple to marry (often not legal)
there are often considerable social costs to marriage.
THEREFORE, a question: can someone think of a reasonable legality
(need not be actually legal in all states, just a form that could
be adopted) to let a gay couple apply for legal recognition of their
union? This would mean accepting the RESPONSIBILITIES for one's partner
(possibility of alimony and all the rest) as well as deriving
the various benefits (family health plans at work, for example).
Besides marriage, that is. (How about adopting each other?)
--
"But Dinsdale...Dinsdale used <pause> sarcasm!"
we all know where this quote came from, don't we?
Rick Keir -- MicroComputer Information Center, MACC
1210 West Dayton St/U Wisconsin Madison/Mad WI 53706
{allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!rick