Paul Smith / Featureflash
The brief filed by the major companies, many of which technology-based companies, cites studies that show positive economic outcomes, including better productivity and maintaining diversity on staff. Such measures could help companies take advantage of the “$900 billion” in buying power estimated among the LGBT community in the United States. Other companies that signed the brief included Dropbox Inc., Ben & Jerry’s, Edelman, Kickstarter and Levi Strauss & Co.
The companies’ amicus brief noted that in a survey of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and the top 50 federal government contractors, the majority of the companies connect policies prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination with a better bottom line. It also argued that a patchwork of state and local regulations around the country puts some companies in a difficult position. Clarity on a federal level would be helpful for business, lawyers for the companies argued.
“The failure of nondiscrimination protections to include LGBT employees takes a heavy toll on businesses’ bottom lines and, in the aggregate, hurts economic growth,” Quinn Emanuel’s Todd Anten wrote in the brief. “The U.S. economy could save as much as $8.9 billion by protecting and welcoming LGBT employees in the workplace—more than any other country.”
The Human Rights Campaign, which provides an equality index to examine whether employers protect LGBT workers, shows in its annual reports that most Fortune 100 companies adopted policies to provide equal protections for gay and lesbian workers.
The 2017 report saw the largest increase in businesses in the history of the survey, 515 employers, earning perfect scores. Businesses offering transgender inclusive health care coverage also jumped from 511 to 647 companies over the year.
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