Top Auto Firms to Offer Benefits to Gay Partners

The nation’s three largest auto makers announced Thursday that they will extend health-care coverage to same-sex domestic partners of their U.S. employees, a watershed endorsement by American business of gay rights.

DaimlerChrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. said medical, dental and other health-care benefits for same-sex partners will become available to 465,000 employees around the country on Aug. 1.

Although a growing number of U.S. companies provide domestic-partner benefits, the practice remains out of the mainstream and frequently encounters opposition from religious conservatives. More than 400 of the Fortune 500 companies do not offer such benefits.

The Big Three car manufacturers said they made the decision to offer domestic-partner benefits to nearly all their U.S. employees as part of their commitment to diversity in the workplace and to keep pace with other progressive employers.

Although the agreement applies to blue- and white-collar workers, various operations tied to the big auto makers are excluded. Among those left out are employees at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, plant in Fremont, Calif., a joint venture between GM and Toyota.

In addition, DaimlerChrysler’s program will cover only its Chrysler employees, not the workers in its Mercedes-Benz or Freightliner Corp. trucking units. Employees outside the United States will not be included in the program.

Still, the auto makers called the program evidence of their commitment to diversity in the workplace.

“This was a missing piece,” said Ed Miller, a Ford spokesman. “We want America to know we value a diverse work force and that we want a welcoming type of atmosphere.”

Gay-rights advocates hailed the move.

“This is a landmark announcement,” said Kim I. Mills, education director with the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay-rights lobbying group.

“Never before have we seen virtually an entire industry, along with its leading union, announce domestic-partner benefits simultaneously,” Mills said. “And the fact that these are three of the largest companies in America, with hundreds of thousands of employees, demonstrates that domestic-partner benefits are becoming a standard business practice.”

Specifics of the coverage and administration of the plans vary slightly by company, but all three will exclude employees’ opposite-sex domestic partners on the theory that they have the option of coverage through marriage.

In addition to the three auto makers, at least 94 other Fortune 500 companies provide domestic-partner benefits, Mills said. At least 12 have announced these programs since January.

Companies that provide benefits to unmarried partners include Times Mirror Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times, Boeing Co., Walt Disney Co., IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Chevron Corp. Exxon Mobil Corp. generated significant controversy in December when it ended benefits for domestic partners of Mobil Corp.’s employees following the November merger with Exxon Corp., which had no such policy.

Steve Spurgeon, communications director for the Los Angeles office of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said the group is “always delighted when another company makes a decision to respect all of its employees, which is what this really represents.”

Cindy Clardy, a representative of a company-sanctioned group for gay, lesbian and bisexual employees known as Ford GLOBE, said one of the main justifications for the program is fairness. With the extension of benefits to people in same-sex relationships, employees “are getting equal pay for equal work,” she said.

In addition, Clardy said, “There’s a strong business case for including domestic-partner benefits as a way of attracting, retaining and being able to develop the best and brightest employees.” Ford GLOBE has been working for six years to win domestic-partner benefits.

A Chrysler spokeswoman, Megan Giles, also emphasized the public relations benefits of the program, saying it might broaden the company’s base of customers. “We think it makes a good statement, and it’s an intentional statement.”

Consultant Jan Salisbury, who specializes in workplace diversity and organizational development, said these sorts of programs are particularly important in attracting and keeping young workers.

“Let’s face it, they’re not recruiting 50-year-old white guys,” said the Boise, Idaho-based consultant.

The auto makers’ domestic-partner programs could turn out to be mainly symbolic. The companies said that, based on the experience of other large companies, they expect no more than 1% of their work forces to seek the same-sex domestic-partner benefits.

But it is a potent symbol.

“Because they are such large companies, other companies that are smaller will look to them for leadership,” Salisbury said. “They’re going to say, maybe if they can make a business case then we should look at it too.”

To receive benefits, employees will be required to sign affidavits attesting that their domestic-partner relationships meet a variety of criteria. Among the requirements: Employees and their partners must have shared “a continuous committed relationship with each other for at least six months, intend to do so indefinitely and they have no such relationship with any other person.”

In addition, participants must live in the same home and be “jointly responsible for each other’s financial obligations.”

The program also makes allowances for the possibility that states will recognize same-sex marriages or other unions. In April, Vermont became the first state to enact laws allowing gay couples to form “civil unions” with the same benefits and rights as marriage.

As such, the auto makers’ programs provide that those receiving benefits “must reside in a state where marriage between persons of the same sex is not recognized as a valid marriage, or, if residing in a state which recognizes same-sex unions, enter into such union as recognized by the state.”

The programs only apply to health-care benefits. Other valued programs, such as discounts on new-car purchases for family members, are not included. In addition, pension benefits are excluded from the program; company officials explained that U.S. tax law discourages extending pension benefits to non-family members.

Benefits experts said that under current federal law, it remains unclear whether domestic partners can be treated as spouses under pension plans.

“We feel that health care is the core benefit, and while we’re not ruling out changes later, we thought this is where we should start,” said Ford’s Miller.

Although all of the companies vowed that employees seeking the benefits would be assured of confidentiality, it’s apparent that not all of the privacy safeguards have been worked out. “We’re not in a position to discuss that,” said GM spokesman Tom Wickham.

Miller, however, said: “It’s as confidential as any other medical information. No one can access my records without authorization. We know this is very much on the minds of people who will be applying for benefits.”