Chase asks staff if they are ‘ally of LGBT community,’ focuses on their PRIDE network
Chase Bank has not been a quiet supporter of the LGBT community, but a new employee survey called in question their employees’ allegiances to the movement.
The unnamed employee reported to Professor Robert George of Princeton, who runs a law blog, that this year’s company survey — which is distributed to employees annually as a means of gauging work satisfaction asked the following:
Are you:
1) A person with disabilities;
2) A person with children with disabilities;
3) A person with a spouse/domestic partner with disabilities;
4) A member of the LGBT community.
5) An ally of the LGBT community, but not personally identifying as LGBT.
The employee told Mr. George in a written statement that he worried about his future with Chase, saying that “this survey wasn’t anonymous,” Breitbart reported.
“You had to enter your employee ID. With the way things are going and the fact that LGBT rights are being viewed as pretty much tantamount to the civil rights movement of the mid ‘50s to late ‘60s, not selecting that option is essentially saying, ‘I’m not an ally of civil rights,’ which is a vague way to say, ‘I’m a bigot.’ The worry among many of us is that those who didn’t select that poorly placed, irrelevant option will be placed on the ‘you can fire these people first’ list,” he said.
Mr. George posted the statement on his law blog, Mirror of Justice, and shortly after received confirmation from another Chase employee that the survey did in fact include the LGBT query.
This second source, who requested anonymity to protect his job, told Mr. George: “I just wanted to confirm the Chase employee survey. It did have the last two options about being an LGBT ally. I have wired for Chase for [a number of] years and was blown away by this question. I have no idea what they were thinking when they asked that. If this is posted, please spare my identity.”
J.P.Morgan Chase has an LGBT and ally employee group called PRIDE. From their site: J.P. Morgan is committed to helping our LGBT candidates succeed once they get here…When you join us, you will immediately start building your network. You can become a member of our firmwide LGBT business resource group, PRIDE, which engages allies, management and other business resource groups in promoting an inclusive environment within the firm. This consistently allows LGBT colleagues the opportunity to build successful careers and reach their greatest potential. It provides networking and development opportunities with both peers and senior management across products and functions, in a context that is enriching to your individual growth.
Below is one of their videos posted via their Facebook page.