Bank Ends Gay Employee Program
by James McCarten, Canadian Press from 365Gay.com October 19, 2004
Toronto, Ontario -- RBC Financial Group which operates banks and investment companies in the US and Canada has abandoned a voluntary effort to encourage some of its workers to display rainbow stickers at their desks and cubicles to promote a safe work environment for gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
The Rainbow Space campaign was organized by the "diversity council" within a department of the bank and targeted 2,000 employees at a Royal Bank center in Toronto, as well as smaller offices in Mississauga and Guelph, Ontario.
But the project raised the ire of the Canada Family Action Coalition, a right-wing Christian group which threatened to boycott the bank amid fears the program would brand those who refused to participate as homophobes.
"Homophobia is a horrible label to be placed on anyone, especially on someone due to their specific beliefs in morality," said coalition president Charles McVety.
"We thought the Royal Bank should stay out of the morality business."
Bank spokesman David Moorcroft said the bank cancelled the sticker component of the program after the coalition, employees and others expressed concerns about its potential ramifications.
"There was one area everyone seemed to say didn't fit the objective of the program, didn't support what it was trying to do, and that was the sticker thing," Moorcroft said.
"The program is supposed to make everyone feel included, particularly gays and lesbians ...
and yet the sticker component was causing a few people to say, 'I don't think this is
working.' "
The three-month pilot project was designed after the so-called "safe space" programs that are widely used in the United States to promote gay pride at colleges and other workplaces.
The coalition took issue with a newsletter detailing the program and distributed to 2,000 employees which said displaying the sticker would send a message to "unsupportive" co-workers.
"Voluntarily displaying this sticker shows gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered co-workers that they can feel safe with you, and shows unsupportive co-workers that you won't tolerate homophobia," the newsletter said.
That effectively brands anyone not displaying the sticker as homophobic, said McVety, whose group became aware of the program after a complaint from a bank employee.
"(For) people of faith, people of morality that do not agree with homosexuality, it is very onerous for them to be required or requested to display a sticker," said McVety, who's also president of Canada Christian College.
"Their program made it very clear that anyone who did not display a sticker would be labeled unsupportive."
The program, launched earlier this month, was employee-driven and not part of company policy, Moorcroft said.
The bank's 45,000 employees at locations across Canada were not asked to participate.
Moorcroft said the sticker wasn't a central component of the program, which is designed to make gays and lesbians feel safe in the workplace.
"What it was saying to some people was, 'I know it's voluntary ... but if I don't put a sticker up, will people think I'm homophobic?' " Moorcroft said.
"Even some gay people were saying, 'I think it's wonderful that you want us to feel safe and secure and welcome in the workplace, but will this make us feel more welcome or will it create some
divisiveness?' "
|
