More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the U.S. military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies.
The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded.
But the scorecard itself has come under attack in recent months by conservative activists who targeted businesses as part of a broader pushback against diversity initiatives. Ford, Harley- Davidson and Lowe’s are among the companies that announced they would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index.
Are there any better alternatives? Ace hardware doesn’t participate in the Coporate Equality Index either, and TrueValue only has a score of 50 while Home Depot is 45.
I tend to favor Ace, just because I have one close by and they’re all franchise stores (which means local ownership of the individual store, at least, which softens the blow of shitty corporate practices).
Menard’s is another option, but I have no idea if they’re any better on this issue than Home Depot or True Value.
I’m not sure tbh. There’s Menards if you want the big conglomorate. For most things there are still the local hardware stores but they may not be close.
A lot of companies are dropping their DEI programs now because they don’t have to do them anymore.
Id memory serves the owner of Menard’s is a dick head and the company has gotten in trouble for worker and environmental violations. No idea about political leanings, but there really aren’t too many places one can go that isn’t directly supporting the erosion of our standard of living and basic rights.
https://www.sbsalaska.com/ and other “small” brands