In Massachusetts, the Boston Globe newspaper has told its gay and lesbian employees that:
An employee who currently covers a same-sex domestic partner as a dependent will have to marry his or her partner by Jan. 1 for the employee benefits coverage to continue at the employee rates to get married or lose their domestic partner benefits.
That's the right thing to do. As the rival Boston Herald reports, "Now that gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, companies that offer benefits to gay employees' partners risk hearing cries of discrimination from unmarried straight couples."
Corporate domestic-partner benefits are a stop-gap to provide a bit of fairness to employees in same-sex relationships until gays can get married. There is no reason to preserve them as a distinct benefit category after marriage (and, arguably, state-recognized civil unions) become available.
Domestic-partner benefits will continue for Globe employees who live in states where gay marriage is not recognized.
11 Comments for “No Bennies for Shacking Up.”
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Actually, it’s a step backwards. The Globe should provide DP benefits to the designated partners or some other designated person for EVERY employee, gay or straight.
Why should I, as a single person, not get access to the same benefits as someone who chooses to get married? I should be able to get those benefits for my mom, or roommate, or neighbor.
Of course, this is a private sector decision, but all government “marriage” law does is force people into arrangements which they may not want.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Quite a number of employers took this step last year, and I’m glad to see the Globe catching up. In Massachusetts, we’ve obtained what we asked for — marriage equality. Employers are free to elect whether or not to extend benefits to unmarried designated partners, and that can be determined by the marketplace. But whatever policy route chosen by an employer, policies should, in Massachusetts, apply to straight and gay/lesbian alike. Equal means equal.
While I’m at it, let me add my voice to the others who have noted that the keywords we type in to send a comment are almost impossible to read.
It usually takes me two to four tries to successfully post a comment, and when I get the wrong keyword, I have to go back through the post and eliminate the “” marks the XML filter adds for every quotation mark and apostrophe.
I’m about ready to hang it up.
I use word verification on my blogs, and I understand why word verification is necessary. But word the word verification tool used on this blog — which I have seen nowhere else — seems singularly designed to frustrate ANY comment.
posted by raj on
Tom Scharbach | July 11, 2006, 6:10am | is correct regarding the termination of DP benefits in Massachusetts: after same sex marriage became legal in MA in May 2004, it was expected that a number of companies that had introduced DP benefits for same-sex couples would terminate them for MA residents. That was because the extension of benefits to same-sex couples, but not to opposite-sex couples, was generally premised on the fact that same-sex couples could not marry. Now that same-sex couples residing in MA can marry, that argument doesn’t hold.
Some companies (maybe not in MA, but elsewhere) extend DP benefits to both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples, and presumably those would continue even in states in which same-sex couples can marry.
The Boston Herald article that Miller links to does state that Globe employees who are members of same-sex couples, who reside in RI, where SSM is not currently permitted, will continue to receive DP benefits.
Tom is also correct that the word verification used here is a pain. Using two different verification words doesn’t work very well when the computer monitor is incapable of providing the contrast necessary to distinguish between the “black” value and the “gray” value, and that is not atypical of more than a few laptops. It’s a bit silly, too–it took me a while to figure it out, but the “gray” value is merely the reverse of the “black” value.
Also, it would be nice if the site would provide for paragraphing in comments–that is, an extra line between paragraphs. I noted that deficiency some time ago, and I guess it won’t happen any time soon.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The word verification method can be changed. In fact, for the first few days of word verification, a “single key” method identical to blogspot’s, was used. It is obvious that someone made a choice to use the “overlay” method, and it doesn’t work. Quite a number of folks who used to post don’t seem to any more, and we all pay the price for the clumsy word verification method, because we no longer get the benefit of a wider variety of views.
posted by dalea on
Let me add my voice to the word verification debate. It is particularly frustrating for those of us with color blindness, a genetic trait. We don’t see shades and tones as well as ‘normal’ people. Plus the font used here is really hard to follow. Plus, is it case sensitive?
posted by raj on
Oh, good, at least they have added paragraphing.
They still seem to be using the overlayed double-word verification, but seem to have increased the contrast.
DaleA: I just assume that it’s case sensitive and hit the caps-lock key.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Yup. definitely an improvement this morning. Thanks, folks.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, it’s a step backwards. The Globe should provide DP benefits to the designated partners or some other designated person for EVERY employee, gay or straight.
Why should I, as a single person, not get access to the same benefits as someone who chooses to get married? I should be able to get those benefits for my mom, or roommate, or neighbor.
Why should companies be forced to pay for health insurance for a) people who aren’t in their workforce and b) have little to no relationship to people who are in their workforce?
Personally, I don’t care; if you want to pay the imputed income, that’s your business. However, your fellow employees may not like the increased cost to the risk pool (and hence, their increased premiums).
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Why should companies be forced to pay for health insurance for a) people who aren’t in their workforce and b) have little to no relationship to people who are in their workforce?
Who said anything about “force?” That’s your thing, being a statist and all.
I’m asking a legitimate question — why are individuals who choose to have children, or register their sex partners, entitled to more compensation than otherwise capable employees?
I think a number of companies large and small will be asking themselves this question increasingly over the next 5 to 10 years, especially after all the government welfare benefits which big-government conservatives like yourself have created for various couplings and social groups which they like.
your fellow employees may not like the increased cost to the risk pool (and hence, their increased premiums).
Of course, all the rest of the employees who are single have a similar problem — which is an order of magnitude worse. We get paid less in real benefits AND carry a larger liability not related to our own activities.
That’s not economically beneficial — one reason why big-government “conservatives” and their “liberal” counterparts in the two old parties are so fond of legislation which forces employers (and single employees) to subsidize the lifestyle choices of their affluent fellow employees who choose to have children.
Such socialism will increasingly have no future in a competitive global economy.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I think a number of companies large and small will be asking themselves this question increasingly over the next 5 to 10 years, especially after all the government welfare benefits which big-government conservatives like yourself have created for various couplings and social groups which they like.
Of course — and the answer will be that they need to extend LESS benefit, not more. If the government is paying for it, there’s no need for the company to do the same.
Of course, all the rest of the employees who are single have a similar problem — which is an order of magnitude worse. We get paid less in real benefits AND carry a larger liability not related to our own activities.
Then, instead of advocating that you get additional benefits, advocate that theirs be cut.
posted by Gary DuVall on
Testing.