Lobbying For Domestic Partnership Policies p. 13

By: Mark Fitzgerald

FOLLOWING ARE SOME strategies for convincing newspapers to extend benefits to gay, lesbian and other unmarried couples, as suggested at the recent National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention:
u Emphasize loyalty.
"I found the tone to take is, 'I'm part of the company and I want to be able to do my best to be part of the team,' " said Sherry Boschert, San Francisco bureau chief of International Medical News Group. Boschert helped win domestic partnership benefits when the group was part of Capital Cities/ABC.
u Emphasize the fairness issue.
"Without being trite and simple, I think it comes down to a social justice issue," said Karen Louise Boothe, senior political reporter for Minnesota Public Radio. One caveat: Using a newspaper's liberal editorial policy to try to shame it into adopting domestic partnership benefits has been tried and failed at several newsrooms.
u Portray benefits as another way of ensuring a "safe" workplace environment.
According to this argument, newspapers should adopt domestic partnership benefits as a "welcoming" sign to a diverse newsroom in the same way the papers prohibit discrimination and sexual harassment.
u Emphasize the relatively small marginal cost of adding domestic partners to benefits programs.
Miami Herald human resources manager Barbara Ferranti said the number of employees who actually take advantage of domestic partnership benefits ? especially same-sex domestic partners ? is far lower than most employers think.
She noted that Montefiore Hospital in the Miami area spends about $26 million annually for health benefits ? and just $50,000 of that is spent on benefits which are for same-sex couples.
u Start small.
Lobby for extending some existing low-cost benefits to same-sex partners and other unmarried couples.
u A favorite starting place: bereavement leave.