Review Ordered for Ruling Against Sterility Job Policy

A state commission must reconsider its finding that a Fullerton battery plant violated fair-employment laws in refusing to hire fertile women for jobs that involve exposure to high levels of lead, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.

Since 1982, Johnson Controls Inc. has refused to hire women for about 25% of the jobs in its automotive battery plants unless they can prove they are sterile.

The firm said the high levels of lead present in the battery assembly line could cause birth defects in fetuses carried by female employees.

But the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission, acting on a complaint brought by a woman from Orange who was denied a job at the firm’s Globe Battery Division in Fullerton, found that the “fetal protection policy” resulted in discrimination against women.

The commission ordered the firm to hire the woman, Queen Elizabeth Foster, and awarded her $16,000 in back pay.

The battery manufacturer challenged that ruling on procedural grounds in Superior Court in Santa Ana, contending that the commission improperly excluded legal contentions that would justify the policy.

Superior Court Judge William F. McDonald granted the Johnson Controls challenge Tuesday and ordered the commission to consider additional arguments by the firm.

The plant’s human resources director, Roger Martinsen, called Johnson Controls’ policy “right and proper.”

“We aren’t trying to cause a problem for the ladies,” he said. “We were trying to do just the opposite, to protect them. What happened here is that we went a little beyond what the government (safety regulations) required us to do, and it looked like it was going to come back and bite us.”

The state Fair Employment and Housing Department had sought to have the firm’s policy strengthened, so that fertile men also would be excluded from the jobs, or weakened to bar pregnant women only from the assembly line.

“Our sole concern is fair employment,” said Brian W. Hembacher, a lawyer with that department. “We, as an anti-discrimination agency, cannot be concerned with reducing the lead levels.”

The fair employment panel hears complaints brought against firms. Its decisions can be appealed through state courts.

“It’s a difficult matter,” Hembacher said. “You’re talking about the safety of future children, but likewise you have to be concerned about equal employment opportunity for women. Women can’t be excluded from the workplace merely for their potential to bear children.”

Foster, 34, said that she was disappointed with Tuesday’s ruling and that she still wanted the job with Johnson Controls, where workers make $10 to $15 an hour.

She said she now works in the accounting department of Southland Corp., earning $7.50 an hour.

Foster said she has no children and has no plans to bear any.