Argentina businesses increasingly adopting LGBTQ+ policies, report finds

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation and the LGBT+ Public Policy Institute of Argentina released their third annual report last week on the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in the country’s workplaces.

The Global Workplace Equity Program: Equidad AR evaluates major Argentine and multinational companies and their policies for LGBTQ+ employees.

This year, the number of participating companies in the survey grew from 76 to 82, reflecting an increasing commitment to developing LGBTQ+-inclusive policies and practices in Argentine workplaces. The report also highlights 224,649 queer employees, a 120 percent increase compared to last year.

The HRC Foundation’s AR Equity Program is modelled after the HRC Corporate Equity Index, the leading survey assessing LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion in the U.S. Companies that excel in LGBTQ+ inclusion and equity earn the HRC Foundation’s “Best Places to Work LGBT+ 2024” designation.

Fifty-five out of the 82 participating companies in Argentina received this certification this year, representing 26 different business sectors.

Image Credit: Canva

“As we’ve seen countless times, when organizations implement LGBT+ policies, everyone wins: Workers are better able to reach their full potential and employers reaffirm their commitment to treating all people with dignity and respect,” said RaShawn Hawkins, senior director of the HRC Foundation’s Workplace Equality Program. “We are very proud of our partners for the work they have done to advance LGBT+ equality in their workplaces and look forward to continuing to work with them as partners in this fight.”

The commitment to LGBTQ+-inclusive policies and practices holds special significance for the community in Argentina this year.

HRC highlighted that “recent public administrative changes focused on the LGBT+ community motivated the private sector to generate more opportunities to grow and develop its diverse workforce through business.”

President Javier Milei and his government have faced criticism for closing the National Institute against Discrimination and the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity.

“The complex context that Argentina is experiencing of difficulties, hostility, and refusal of the national government to sustain many of the public policies that were carried out in recent years, puts the private sector at the center, which clearly has all the conditions to make an important contribution and become a decisive factor to support from another place different from the one we have been used to because the State has run away,” gay Congressman Esteban Paulón told the ‘Washington Blade’.

The congressman added, “the private sector, and from the cooperation between the public sector and the private sector, can work and sustain many of the achievements that have been achieved in these years.” Paulón cited the implementation of a labor quota for transgender individuals that Milei’s government is no longer implementing but suggested that it “could be sustained” with a “firm commitment” from the private sector.

Onax Cirlini, HRC’s AR Equity implementing partner, noted that “beyond the institutional efforts highlighted in this report, we see the dynamics generated by activism organized by employee resource groups (ERGs)/business resource groups (BRGs) or affinity groups.”

“This internal momentum, often led by people in the community itself, enhances institutional equality efforts by providing continuity and persistence,” said Cirlini.

Dolores Covacevich, another HRC AR Equity implementing partner, emphasized the group’s recognition of “the importance of every role within companies and organizations as they work toward the integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and the commitment to LGBT+ inclusion efforts.”

“We know that none of this work would be possible without inclusive leadership that promotes these processes,” said Covacevich.

HRC has collaborated with groups in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil to implement similar indexes in those countries.

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