On June 26 of this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that \u201ca portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples, is unconstitutional,\u201d according to ABC News.\u00a0 Since then, there has\u00a0been much legislative activity in state and local governments to provide various measures of equality to same-sex couples.<\/p>\n
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Like many other aspects of life and business, the procurement profession\u00a0stands to be affected by this movement.\u00a0 One case in point is\u00a0a recent sponsorship of legislation in the City of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, \u201cPittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus has sponsored legislation that would require companies with city contracts over $250,000 to provide benefits for same-sex domestic partners.\u201d\u00a0 Stated another way, the city would refuse to award contracts meeting that monetary threshold to suppliers who do not provide benefits for same-sex domestic partners of their employees.<\/p>\n
I do not know what percentage of suppliers offer these types of benefits.\u00a0 But, assuming that it is less than 100%, this\u00a0could pose an interesting dilemma.\u00a0 In\u00a0some cases, the best supplier for a contract will also offer benefits to same-sex domestic partners of their employees.\u00a0 That makes for an easy procurement decision.\u00a0 However, one could imagine a scenario to\u00a0occur where the best supplier available for\u00a0a particular purchase did not offer those benefits and thus the city would have to select an inferior supplier who did comply with the requirements.<\/p>\n
This scenario forces business decision-makers to ponder:\u00a0 what is more important,\u00a0doing business with the best supplier\u00a0or supporting equality?<\/p>\n
Socially-responsible procurement is full of such dilemmas and this is the perfect\u00a0example of how procurement will continue to get more\u00a0complex as social responsibility\u00a0continues to become a higher priority of organizations.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure that, among you readers, some will have strong opinions one way and some will have strong opinions the opposite way.\u00a0 Regardless of your opinion, though, I believe that\u00a0it is undeniable that these types of requirements add\u00a0more work to a procurement professional\u2019s job.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying that like it\u2019s a bad thing or good thing.\u00a0 I\u2019m just saying that the more constraints there are in the Sourcing Hierarchy of Constraints and Criteria for a particular purchase, the more work is involved in\u00a0arriving at a procurement decision.<\/p>\n
Qualifying suppliers, auditing\u00a0suppliers for compliance, etc. all take\u00a0time and effort.\u00a0 And, this\u00a0is one of those\u00a0situations where a leader of your organization could be publicly embarrassed in the press if you fail to provide assurance of compliance, so it is not to be taken lightly.\u00a0\u00a0Procurement professionals \u2013 particularly in government roles \u2013 who are required to award contracts\u00a0only to suppliers who comply with same-sex benefit requirements will have to make sure all of the proverbial \u201ci\u2019s\u201d are dotted and \u201ct\u2019s\u201d are crossed while the same-sex marriage issue is still a sensitive subject.<\/p>\n
Organizations may very well decide\u00a0that the extra work is\u00a0worth it to them.\u00a0The situation is just another of the many evolving challenges of the procurement profession, which makes it an exciting profession in which to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On June 26 of this year, the United States Supreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n