The number of shareholder proposals about diversity at work has jumped back up this year to 29, after seeing just 16 filed at this point in 2019. Resolutions seek reports on diversity programs in general and on the perennial question of equal employment data disclosure and affirmative action. In addition, the effort begun last year to encourage diversity in the upper echelons of management continues. Furthermore, Trillium Asset Management has pressed seven companies to add gender identity provisions to their policies and withdrawn all the requests after the companies agreed to do so.

All of the proposals share a concern about discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender and support more disclosure and action to provide equal employment opportunities. All but two have been submitted at companies that have yet to consider such a proposal and few have been withdrawn as of mid-February, although more withdrawals seem quite likely given past agreements on employment discrimination in general. Also see proposals seeking executive pay links to diversity, p. 62.)

(Proposals about greater gender pay equity are covered in the Decent Work section above, p. 36. The Sustainable Governance section (p. 57), describes 49 other proposals seeking greater board diversity—focused on women but increasingly minorities; both are deeply underrepresented on corporate boards.)