The Issues:
Equal Benefits Ordinances

Equal Benefits Ordinances, or EBOs, prohibit a jurisdiction from doing business with companies that discriminate against families headed by same-sex couples.   An EBO states that companies that do business with a particular city, county or state must offer benefits to the domestic partners of their employees that are equal to the benefits offered to spouses of employees.  

The domestic partner benefits covered by EBOs can include bereavement leave, family medical leave, health and pension programs, life insurance, and relocation assistance, to name a few.  

EBOs guarantee that citizens are not subsidizing discriminatory workplace policies. Furthermore, they give businesses a positive incentive - public contracts -- for providing equal benefits.

Under an EBO, contractors may comply with the law by offering employee benefits that don't discriminate between spouses and domestic partners, offering no employee benefits based on marriage or domestic partnership, or having no employees. There are usually exemptions in place for contractors who provide emergency services.

EBOs are modeled after San Francisco's landmark 1997 law, which spurred virtually thousands of companies across the country to implement domestic partner benefits programs.

EBOs have a national impact.    Since cities and counties conduct business in a broad range of industries, they may attract contractors from every state in the nation.   This means that an employer contracting with San Francisco, for instance, may have employees in Minnesota. These employees in the Midwest may reap the benefits of a law implemented on the west coast.  

Five years after the EBO passed in San Francisco, compliant contractors could be found in at least 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, and in over 900 cities across the country.

While a 1998 U.S. District Court ruling changed the San Francisco law by allowing companies to limit their compliance geographically, the vast majority of companies complying with the San Francisco law elected not to discriminate in certain locales, but rather, to comply fully.

According to Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, the San Francisco law impacted legislation in California as well.   By prompting a surge in the number of employers offering domestic partner benefits, Kors said, the San Francisco Equal Benefits Ordinance played a key role in building a foundation for the dramatic expansion of California laws protecting the rights of domestic partners in that state. As of 2005, California will offer nearly all of the rights and benefits under state law to domestic partners that are currently available to spouses.

In addition, the state of California, with the 5th largest economy in the world, passed Assembly Bill 17 in fall of 2003. This legislation will implement a statewide Equal Benefits law for contracts of more than $100,000. The law will go into effect in 2007.  

EBOs are in place in a variety of cities and counties across the United States, including:

  • Seattle, Washington
  • King County, Washington
  • Tumwater, Washington
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Oakland, California
  • Berkeley, California
  • Los Angeles, California
  • San Mateo County, California
  • Portland, Maine

Broward County Florida enacted a provision in 1999 giving an advantage in bidding to businesses offering domestic partner benefits

Currently, no Maryland jurisdiction has an EBO in place.

For more information about this topic, an excellent resource is the City of San Francisco Human Rights Commission's 5-year report on their EBO.

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