Dive Brief:
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Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, a report that rates Fortune 500 workplaces on their treatment of LGBTQ workers, announced on Monday that 38 retail and consumer products companies received a perfect score, making it the third-highest ranking sector after law firms and banking and financial services.
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Some of those retailers include: Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy Co., Coach, Crate and Barrel/CB2, GameStop, Gap Inc., Home Depot., J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, Office Depot, Sears Holdings Corp., Staples, Starbucks, Target, TJX Companies, Toys ‘R’ Us, Walgreen Co. and Wal-Mart Stores.
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Meanwhile, e-commerce companies with a perfect score include eBay, Google, Groupon, PayPal Holdings, marketplace company WeddingWire and Amazon.
Dive Insight:
In a year when Target was buffeted by a boycott over its stance on allowing transgender people to use bathrooms and fitting rooms that correspond to their identity (a policy that flies in the face of North Carolina’s law banning that practice), the Human Rights Campaign says it’s nevertheless celebrating real progress that indicates a shift in public attitudes. The index this year logged the biggest jump in employers offering transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits.
“This past year, as an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ bills spread across the country, corporate champions state to state – from South Dakota and Mississippi, and North Carolina and Georgia — made their voices heard and stood firmly on the side of fairness and equality,” HRC Foundation President Chad Griffin wrote in the report. “The story behind this groundswell of public support for equality began within each business’s efforts to recognize their own LGBTQ employees and adopt inclusive policies, benefits and practices.”
While Target went out on a limb with its public declaration, Wal-Mart (which also received a perfect score on the index) stayed mum, and never returned Retail Dive’s calls for comment about its own bathroom and fitting room policies. Yet, Wal-Mart's newfound focus on employees has made meaningful progress over the last few years: Just five years ago the index gave it a dismal 40 points, and two years ago it scored 90 points.
The retail giant also made waves last week when it agreed to set aside $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit over its denial of same-sex spousal benefits from the time when its policy, revised in 2014, was to deny such couples health insurance. In the aftermath of that agreement, Wal-Mart now says it will “continue to not distinguish between same and opposite sex spouses when it comes to the benefits we offer under our health insurance plan,” Sally Welborn, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of global benefits, said in a statement released Friday.