Celebrating a Dynamic Workplace
Greg Papadopolous, Sun's CTO and EVP of Research and Development, Karen Rohde, Sun's SVP of HR and Chief Talent Officer, explain why diversity and equality are important to Sun's business.
Blazing the Trail for LGBT Workplace Equality
Sun has always been a progressive company and encouraged employees to be innovative technologically and socially. For 27 years, Sun has had an employee resource group for its LGBT workers and recently enabled them to voluntarily identify themselves as LGBT on the employee surveys. In the 1980s, Sun's non-discrimination clause was expanded to include sexual orientation, and in 1992, Sun began to offer domestic partnership benefits.
In the last ten years, Sun has also added gender identity protections and health benefits for gender reassignment, including transition guidelines and SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) coverage. Sun endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 2007, a bill that would create a federal law that makes discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal.
Last year Sun created a corporate initiative policy in response to California's Proposition 8, which restricts marriage to opposite-sex couples. And for the last five years, Sun has earned a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign in its Corporate Equality Index.
The Pursuit of Courage
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO and President, talks with other key executives about the ethical behavior that creates Sun's culture of courage and equality.
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“ Sun Microsystems has long been a leader in workplace equality. When Sun was first approached in April 2007, 11 employers supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Sun publicly endorsed this important legislation for workplace equality. Upon Sun's endorsement, ENDA had 30 corporate sponsors, and just over two years later, ENDA boasts 62 leading and 56 small business endorsements. The early leadership of Sun Microsystems helped set the stage for future progress and now leaves us poised for a victory in Congress
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Eric Bloem, Associate Editor, Workplace Project, Human Rights Campaign.
Winning an "Outie" Award
Out & Equal announced Sun's Workplace Excellence Award at its annual Workplace Summit on October 8 in Orlando, Florida. The Workplace Excellence Award recognizes employers that have an "historic and ongoing commitment to pursuing and executing workplace equality for LGBT employees" and that have "a history of continually raising the bar of workplace equality for others to follow." In addition to Sun, 2009's finalists were Google, Mitchell Gold - Bob Williams, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Dow Chemical Company.
Out & Equal recognizes organizations as well as individuals each year for the leadership in advancing equality for LGBT employees across America. Sun's Howard Solomon, regional software alliances manager and president of the GLAF employee resource group, was a finalist for the Trailblazer Award, which recognizes an LGBT person who has "made a significant contribution to advancing workplace equality."
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