Advertisement

Tech Data emerges as key LGBT rights activist as antidiscrimination bill dies

 
Published Feb. 11, 2016

CLEARWATER — Just a day after an antidiscrimination bill it promoted died in the Florida Senate, Tech Data Corp. launched a new effort aimed at making the company more welcoming to gay and lesbian employees.

The tech wholesaler on Wednesday held the first meeting of an employee group it says will help workers raise concerns about how gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees are treated. It's part of a larger effort to make the 9,000-employee company more inclusive, executives say.

Tech Data — by revenues Tampa Bay's largest publicly traded company — has emerged in recent months as an increasingly vocal proponent of extending legal protections to cover sexual orientation and gender. It has boosted its contributions in recent years to Equality Florida, an advocacy group. And it sent a top executive to Tallahassee this week to promote an antidiscrimination bill, marking a new strategy and more aggressive role for the company.

While the company publicly supported the bill, dubbed the Competitive Workforce Act, as early as 2014, it had not done much to actively promote it, said John Tonnison, Tech Data's chief information officer. The company started to take on a "far more active" role in December, he said, at the request of Equality Florida.

"I would say for a couple of years, we were headlining rather than performing," Tonnison said.

Chief Financial Officer Chuck Dannewitz told employees Wednesday the issue has become a priority for Tech Data because it affects the company's relationship with its employees and vendors. Many of its business partners are have headquarters on the West Coast and skew progressive, Tonnison said, and its vendors have previously pushed the company to adopt inclusive policies.

"It's morally right. It's the right thing to do," Dannewitz said, adding: "To remain competitive in this increasingly global society in which we live, companies like Tech Data must embrace and reflect the diversity of our partners, our vendors, the workforce and the global workforce in its entirety."

Tech Data isn't alone: In Florida, other big companies such as CSX and Darden Restaurants have signed on to an effort to pass the antidiscrimination bill, helping to get the measure its first legislative hearing after nearly a decade.

"Businesses have had a huge impact on this debate, in part because they have been the clearest voices when it comes to demonstrating that Florida is at a disadvantage without these protections," said Nadine Smith, chief executive of Equality Florida.

Elsewhere, businesses have played key roles in promoting LGBT protections.

In Indiana, for example, some of the state's biggest companies pushed lawmakers last year to amend a law that advocates feared would enable discrimination. Business leaders there said they worried the national attention over the controversy would make it harder to attract employees and sully the state's reputation.

The Florida bill, SB 120, was killed Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it failed on a 5-5 vote. Opponents said they were concerned the bill would allow sexual predators to dress as transgender women and use women's restrooms.

"It's a disturbing insight to our overall legislative process and status of thinking on this matter," Tonnison said. "The drumbeat needs to keep beating."

Activists said the hearing marked a measure of success, even if it won't become law: The gridlocked vote that killed it was the first ever recorded on the proposal in the Statehouse, and it raised the issue among lawmakers.

The bill is done for this session, but its backers say they plan to propose the measure again next year.

Contact Thad Moore at tmoore@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3434. Follow @thadmoore.