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NATIONAL NEWS

Women Sterilized or Lose Jobs

On January 29, the ACLU filed a Title VII lawsuit against American Cyanamid for sex discrimination in its employment practices at the Willow Island, West Virginia, plant, including the establishment of a policy that forced five women workers to submit to sterilizations in order to keep their jobs. The policy, adopted in October of 1978, excluded women of childbearing capacity from working in the pigments department, where exposure to lead, according to the company, might cause injury to a fetus. Only women

Sterilization ABUSE

is a Crime against the People

LOUSE!

C. Choy/LNS who could prove they were sterile could continue to work in pigments. The company's exclusionary policy, an official told women workers, would be required by regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). No such regula-... tions have been issued.

Five women at Willow Island needed the highly rated jobs in pigments badly enough to submit to sterilizations. This January, American Cyanamid shut down the department and transferred the sterilized women to other jobs in the plant with less seniority and lower pay.

The lawsuit charges American Cyanamid with fraud under West Virginia law for misleading the women with false and incomplete statements. "We do not consider the sterilization of the women voluntary," ACLU Women's Rights Project staff counsel Joan E. Bertin said in announcing the lawsuit. "The company did not give the women all the facts about the health risks, government regulations, or their plans for the pigments department. The women did not give informed consent. Yet if no women had been sterilized, this would still be a sex discrimination case. Women at Willow Island do not have freedom of choice about where they work or under what conditions. The outrageousness of the sterilization policy emphasizes the totally unacceptable working conditions for women.

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In addition to the women who submitted to sterilization, the class action lawsuit includes among its thirteen named plaintiffs two women who refused to undergo sterilization and were demoted from pigments into lower paying janitorial jobs, and women who were prevented from taking available jobs because of their sex.

American Cyanamid's policy, the lawsuit charges, has illegally invaded the privacy of these women by making their reproductive capabilities public knowledge. As a result, the women have suffered ridicule, humiliation, and embarrassment.

American Cyanamid is a billion dollar manufacturer of chemical products for agricultural, consumer, and other uses, with 44,000 employees in over 100 plants in the U.S. and abroad. The Willow Island plant employs over 500 production workers, of whom about 25 are women. No women were em-

Page 4/What She Wants/March, 1980.

ployed in production at the plant until 1974 when, according to a number of the plaintiffs, the company started hiring women because it was afraid of losing government contracts.

The exclusionary policy, which originated at American Cyanamid's corporate headquarters in Wayne, New Jersey and may have been adopted by other plants as well, was first announced at Willow Island in January 1978. The personnel director told women workers that the policy anticipated OSHA and other government regulations and would apply to eight departments, where workers handled toxic substances, including lead. The ACLU's lawsuit challenges the alleged "health" reasons for the policy, pointing out that there is no scientific basis for concluding that toxic substances are "more hazardous to women and their offspring than to men and their offspring". The lawsuit charges that American Cyanamid knew or should have known in January 1978 that OSHA was not intending to regulate women out of the jobs they held at American Cyanamid. In fact, when OSHA did issue regulations on lead in November 1978, a month after the Willow Island policy was finally adopted, the agency mandated that workers of both sexes who intend to have children should be temporarily removed from jobs when their lead blood level reaches a certain point.

After the American Cyanamid policy was adopted, OSHA cited Willow Island for a "willful violation" of the Act because of the exclusionary policy. A company whose working conditions are so hazardous

that women must be sterilized to keep their jobs, the agency said, is violating its legal duty to maintain a workplace free from health hazards.

The women tried to negotiate with the company. One told the company her husband had had a vasectomy. Another offered to sign a release freeing the company from any liability. The company rejected the alternatives.

After the adoption of the policy, everyone in the plant knew which women were sterile. "You're just one of the boys now," the men said. Others told the women the company shouldn't have wasted good money on sterilizations, since they could have "done it for nothing" in the carpentry shop.

Ten of the plaintiffs and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (the union at Willow Island), which has joined the ACLU in the lawsuit, filed charges of sex discrimination against the company with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. When the company closed the pigments department, the men workers blamed the women's "complaining" for their lost jobs.

The ACLU wants the court to declare the exclusionary policy illegal and to order American Cyanamid to adopt sex-neutral policies which protect the health and reproductive capacities of all its workers. The suit also asks for an order making the reproductive status of women workers confidential, ending discrimination in hiring and harassment of women workers, and awarding back pay, seniority rights, and damages to the plaintiffs.

Virginia Sterilizes “Misfits”

(HerSay)-More than 4,000 women, men and children were sterilized at state hospitals in Virginia in a program to eliminate society's "misfits". Prostitutes and petty criminals were among the chief targets of the program, and were told in most cases that their operation was to correct medical problems.

The program ended in 1972, and its extent came to light during a search of records at one state hospital. Dr. Ray Nelson, Director of the Lynchburg Training School and Hospital, said a regular sterilization pro-

gram was scheduled for many years-males on Tuesdays and females on Thursdays. The law authorizing the operations is still on the books and has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

One 67-year-old woman learned last year that the "appendectomy" she had at the age of 16 was really an operation to cut her fallopian tubes. Said the woman, when told the truth about her surgery, "My husband and I wanted children desperately-we were crazy about them. I never knew what they'd done to me.'

"Norma Rae" Still Fighting

(HerSay)-Labor organizer Crystal Lee Sutton, known as Norma Rae in the film of that name which portrayed her struggles against the J. P. Stevens Company, says working conditions at the giant textile company's many plants are no better than they were in the 1930's. Sutton is currently on a nationwide speaking tour in support of the J. P. Stevens boycott. She ended her self-imposed retirement from the labor spotlight several months ago as a result of what she says was an inaccurate media portrayal of her efforts to gain rights for textile workers at J. P. Stevens plants in North Carolina,

Sutton was blacklisted from holding mill jobs in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, after being fired from J. P. Stevens in 1973 for her union organizing activities. Five years after her efforts won Stevens employees the right to union representation, the company still has not signed a contract with its workers. Stevens has been cited in 18 separate National Labor Relations Board decisions for unfair labor practices since 1963 and fined over $1.5 million. Sutton reasons that with 1978 assets of $955 million, however, it's cheaper for Stevens to break the law than to comply with a contract for its workers.

Sutton says that although 20th Century Fox made

Norma Rae against her wishes, it is one of the best union movies ever made. For the film to have had more meaning for the labor movement, however, it should have showed that the union is still trying to get a contract with J. P. Stevens. The movie also neglected to show the effects of brown lung disease among J. P. Stevens workers exposed to cotton dust in the textile mills.

Sutton says that today in J. P. Stevens mills, "People lose their jobs, work long hours and don't even get a lunch break. They get hurt on the job, lose an arm or a leg for life and then the company's through with them." For example, Sutton's aunt worked in a mill for 49 years and received retirement benefits of only $3,000, amounting to $27 per month. Says Sutton, "So many people think this is something out of the 1930's, but this is happening in the South today." Two Tokens, Please?

(HerSay)-The Executive Council of the AFL/CIO, an all-male club throughout its existence, is going to admit a woman to its ranks. Its president, Lane Kirkland, recently announced that the 35-member council agreed to reserve two upcoming vacancies for a woman and a non-white.