Workplace watch

Partner parity

by Dorie Clark

Sovereign Bank, the newcomer that entered the Boston market this spring by buying out 275 Fleet branches, recently backed off its October decision to stop offering domestic-partnership benefits to newly hired employees. After managers raised the matter with CEO Jay Sidhu earlier this month, Sovereign decided instead to extend the benefits to all workers, effective January 1.

In October, the company (which this year began allowing gay and lesbian employees to include their partners in their health-care coverage) sent a benefits brochure to workers stating its intention to limit the benefits to current Sovereign employees; new hires would not be eligible. The brochure cited the need to reduce health-care expenses, among other reasons, as justification for the change. However, Kim Mills, education director for the gay-advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, points out that the cost of such benefits has been shown to be negligible.

Sovereign announced Monday that it will lay off 300 employees in the New England region. The layoffs indicate a continuing desire to cut costs, but company spokeswoman Missy Orlando vows the bank will not back down from its promise to grant health-care benefits to both same-sex and opposite-sex partners. Sovereign joins 3600 other companies nationwide that offer domestic-partnership benefits, including more than 100 in the banking and financial-service industries. The Human Rights Campaign, which had written to Sidhu in October protesting the initial domestic-partnership limitation, praised Sovereign's recent decision. "I think it's great," says Mills. "It shows a lot of flexibility on the part of management and a willingness to look at something and say, `Oops, we did this wrong and we're going to fix it.' "