Comparable Worth Measure Vetoed : Governor Also Rejects Waste Cleanup, S. Africa Export Bills

Arguing that salary disparities between male and female state workers are already being addressed, Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed on Monday comparable worth legislation that would have created a commission to study the pay gap.

Deukmejian also vetoed bills to prohibit public utilities from exporting nuclear technology to South Africa, force his Administration to give higher priority to the cleanup of large toxic waste sites and require freight trains to pull cabooses.

Plowing his way through hundreds of bills that require action by midnight Wednesday, the governor signed legislation that will allow the state to quarantine milk products, such as the tainted Mexican-style cheeses that were linked to 89 deaths in California this summer.

The governor announced that he vetoed 55 bills and signed 61 others. Remaining on his desk by the close of business Monday were about 400 bills, including many of the most controversial measures the Legislature sent to him during the last week of its 1985 session.

For the second year in a row, Deukmejian vetoed a bill by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) that would have created an 11-member commission on pay equity to evaluate 6,000 state job classifications and determine whether male and female employees receive similar pay for doing work of comparable value.

“I continue to believe that salary inequities, as well as other economic and safety issues for female-dominated classes in the state Civil Service, are already being addressed through collective bargaining,” Deukmejian said in his veto message.

The Republican governor said a state task force has studied pay inequities for women and will soon report its findings to the Legislature. Furthermore, he said, state employees in many female-dominated job classes received a higher percentage increase in pay this year than other classifications.

Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte), who carried the bill on the Assembly floor, had argued that “neither collective bargaining nor good intentions have done much to eliminate the substantial gap in the average salaries of men and women who work for the state of California.”

In vetoing a bill by Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) that would have banned the export of nuclear technology to South Africa, Deukmejian expressed his opposition to that country’s policy of racial separation but said he does not want to harm firms operating there that practice equal employment.

Deukmejian said the bill represents a “broad prohibition with unknown possible diplomatic and trade consequences.”

The question of South Africa’s policy of apartheid has been among the most hotly debated issues of the session. Deukmejian struck an anti-apartheid provision from the state budget earlier this year and said he would veto a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would prohibit any new pension fund investments in companies operating in South Africa.

However, Deukmejian later announced an executive order asking state pension officials to review their South African investments on a case-by-case basis, with an eye toward selling those that discriminate against nonwhites.

Deukmejian also vetoed a measure designed to force his Administration to change its strategy of cleaning up relatively small toxic waste sites, rather than hazardous sites that are larger and more costly to clean. Under Deukmejian, the state downgraded the priority of many of the worst toxic waste sites.

The bill by Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-Riverside) would have required the Department of Health Services to give highest priority to the cleanup of sites that are on both the state and federal Superfund lists.

In his veto message, Deukmejian said, “This bill would unnecessarily restrict the state’s ability to address those toxic dangers that may pose the most immediate danger to public health and safety, merely because the federal government has not yet placed a site on its list.”

The governor also repeated his pledge to sign two measures providing $22.5 million for the Stringfellow hazardous waste site in Riverside County, which was among the sites that had fallen in priority.

Freight Trains

The caboose bill vetoed by the governor would have made it a misdemeanor for a railroad company not to attach a caboose to the ends of most freight trains. Railroads want to eliminate the use of cabooses.

Sen. Alfred Alquist (D-San Jose), the author of the bill and a former rail yard foreman, argued that cabooses are necessary to provide safety because, with them, a railroad worker would be stationed at the rear of the train.

“I am persuaded,” Deukmejian said in vetoing the bill, “that technology has advanced to the degree that the functions formerly provided by cabooses can be performed through mechanical devices.”

One bill signed by the governor is in response to the deadly listeriosis epidemic caused by tainted cheese discovered this summer at a processing plant in Artesia.

The measure by Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) will create a new class of reportable diseases, including such milk-borne illnesses as listeriosis, diphtheria and salmonellosis.

Health Officials

Torres’ measure will give health officials the power to condemn or quarantine milk products linked to the three diseases.

Another bill signed by the governor will require each high school student to complete at least one semester of economics in order to graduate. Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), the author of the measure, said it would improve “economic literacy” of California students.