New AFSCME-CAP Report on LGBT Discrimination in the Public Sector

by Kate Childs Graham  |  August 30, 2012

Bess Watts, a 15-year employee for Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y., and CSEA, Local 1000 member, speaks in plain terms about discrimination against LGBT workers: “The cost of discrimination in the workplace, in law is something you can’t quantify. It’s a bad business, and it is bad for business.”

A new report, “Gay and Transgender Discrimination in the Public Sector,” released by AFSCME and the Center for American Progress (CAP) shows just that. When lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) public workers experience on-the-job discrimination, it isn’t only the workers who suffer, but taxpayers, too.

Government employers who discriminate have a harder time recruiting and retaining the best workers. They suffer from diminished workplace productivity. They expose themselves to costly litigation. In short, discrimination against LGBT workers makes government inefficient, which, in the end, costs taxpayers.

In the report’s forward AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders and CAP Pres. Neera Tanden write: “In an economy that is struggling to make its way back on top, with cities, counties, and states facing severe budget shortfalls, we cannot afford bad business practices that cause inefficient use of precious taxpayer dollars. In a country that is rooted in the values of fairness and hard work, we must end practices that do not give every worker—regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity—a fair shot.”

This report reveals stunning statistics, such as:

• More than 57 percent of Americans working in state government do not have legal protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity
• One in five LGB public sector workers have experienced some form of discrimination based on sexual orientation
• Fifty-three percent of state and local workers with union representation have access to health care coverage for same-sex domestic partners, compared to only 17 percent of non-union state and local workers

Drawing from these facts, the report recommends that Congress should pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, to ensure that LGBT workers are afforded substantive legal protections from employment discrimination. The report also includes policy recommendations at the state, local and union levels.

“The discrimination that LGBT public sector workers still face is deplorable,” said Saunders, “No worker should be subjected to these high rates of harassment or be forced into unemployment, deprived of health insurance for themselves and for their families. This is a wrong that we need to right, right now.”

Read the report, and join AFSCME as we work to right this wrong.