AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — According to a report released by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Chrysler Group LLC was one of a select group of leading employers to achieve a perfect score of 100 percent on HRC’s 2015 Corporate Equality Index (CEI).
The annual CEI report rates employers on their LGBT workplace policies and benefits. A perfect score indicates a company provides full parity for domestic partner benefits, not only in basic medical coverage, but in dependent care, retirement and other benefits that affect the financial and medical well-being of families. Chrysler Group’s 100 percent rating also signifies coverage for transgender individuals for medically necessary care — a community the HRC notes has historically been overlooked.
The HRC, the largest civil rights organization in the U.S., rated nearly 1,000 employers for the 2015 report, including the entire Fortune 500. The top rated businesses span nearly every industry and major geography of the U.S.
The company has achieved this benchmark nine times since it was established in 2002 and, until recent years, Chrysler Group was the only automaker to consistently achieve a perfect CEI rating.
“Chrysler Group is very proud of our longstanding support of our LGBT employees, customers and communities,” said Georgette Borrego Dulworth, Director, Talent Acquisition & Diversity, Chrysler Group LLC. “Our consistent record of providing an inclusive work culture and benefit parity for our LGBT employees represents our core belief in the talents and potential of our people. These are not things you do because you have to, but because they are the right things to do.”
“Chrysler Group’s consistent record of creating and sustaining a supportive work culture continues to be a source of pride for all employees, especially the Company’s LGBT employee community,” said Gregory Hawkins, an engineer at the Company who serves as president of GALA, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Chrysler Group.
GALA is one of six Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at the Company, which enable employees to celebrate multicultural differences and bring value to the larger community through volunteer and charitable activities. The group’s objectives include promoting a positive awareness of LGBT people and issues within Chrysler Group and to ensure that the Company’s products and services are desired by and tailored to diverse people.
According to the report: “Corporate America has long recognized the imperative of LGBT inclusion by implementing their own LGBT-friendly policies ahead of lawmakers. We are at the front of a new era in which major businesses are not only meeting ever-higher new bars for workplace fairness, they are exceeding them by becoming social and public policy change agents in the process. They recognize equality is not just the right thing to do, it is sound business practice.”Chrysler Group is proud to be a longtime supporter of LGBT employees, communities and issues. Chrysler Group was a leader among U.S. employers in providing domestic partner benefits to its employees in 2000. Chrysler Group also is a member of the Michigan Competitive Workforce Coalition.
The 2015 Corporate Equality Index report is available at www.hrc.org/cei.
