EEO Info on Women and Minorities Not Fully Disclosed

In a news release, SIRAN said that while some companies, including Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and Merck, voluntarily make such disclosure to investors, other firms, including Altria, Cisco and Walt Disney, fail to fully disclose the extent to which they are or are not achieving EEO progress.

SIRAN looked at the track record of America’s largest companies on disclosing theirpractices related to the advancement of women and minorities in the workplace by reviewing the voluntary disclosure of federal EEO-1 reports by companies in the US S&P 100 Index.  Of the 97 surveyed companies, 46 responded, with six (13%) providing full public disclosure, 19 (41%) indicating that they make EEO information to investment analysts only upon request, six (13%) providing partial
public disclosure and 15 (33%) refusing to make public any EEO data.

SIRAN said in its report that, “Given SIRAN’s belief that companies choosing not to respond are less likely to voluntarily disclose, the true EEO disclosure rate among America’s largest corporations is likely to be at the lower end of the observed range of 25-50 percent.” 

In the release, SIRAN noted that a decade ago the bipartisan Federal Glass Ceiling Commission was convened with a mandate to study EEO issues and propose strategies to eliminate artificial barriers to advancement faced by minorities and women in the US workforce.  In the Commission’s 1995 report, the phenomenon of the glass ceiling – significant under-representation of women and minorities within senior management—was affirmed to be a pervasive problem in corporate America.   The Commission concluded

Walden Asset Management, the social investment division of Boston Trust &Investment Management Company prepared the report for SIRAN.  The SIRAN Web site is www.siran.org .