Area Coalition Acts to Protect Job Rights of AIDS Victims

A coalition of Orange County business, government and labor officials has begun sending local businesses a poster notifying them that state law protects people affected by AIDS against discrimination as much as it does the physically handicapped.

Participants said Monday that they believe that it is the nation’s first jointly sponsored effort to prevent job discrimination against patients and those thought to be at risk of contracting acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

“Posting this information can prevent discrimination before it occurs” and also will help clarify employers’ responsibilities and employees’ rights, Daniel H. Ninburg, chairman of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said at a news conference held by coalition members Monday in Santa Ana.

Other Sponsors

Other sponsors of the anti-discrimination effort are Pacific Bell and the Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and ACTION, a coalition of county agencies serving AIDS patients and the public.

The 11- by 16-inch orange and black poster printed by the coalition explains the AIDS ruling issued last February by the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission.

Under the ruling by the commission, employers may not fire, refuse to hire or reinstate, or otherwise discriminate against anyone who has AIDS, or anyone thought to have AIDS or be at risk of contracting the disease.

The ruling was based on the case of AIDS patient John E. Chadbourne of Santa Barbara, who died in 1985, before state officials could rule on his complaint against his employer, Raytheon Co. in Goleta. Chadbourne said the company forced him to take medical leave, although his doctor said he was fit to work. He filed his complaint in 1984.

The poster advises those who believe that they have been discriminated against because of AIDS to contact the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing or the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

The poster, however, does not address a major concern of many employers--whether they should disclose an employee’s AIDS status to other employees--because that issue is not covered by the state regulations dealing with the handicapped, coalition sponsors said.

Posters will be sent to 5,000 shops, plants and offices around Orange County during the month of November, sponsors said at the news conference held in the county Hall of Administration.

‘Educates Employers’

“It educates employers even if they don’t post it,” said Vicki Plevin, a human relations specialist with the county Human Relations Commission, one of the sponsors.

“One of our major goals is to fight the disinformation about AIDS,” Plevin said. “In reality, it makes Orange County safer for all of us. Only when people feel they’re not going to lose their home, their livelihood and their friends, will they come forward and get the testing (for exposure to the AIDS virus).”

At the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, AIDS discrimination complaints have received priority status for faster processing, according to Myonia Gibbs, director of the agency’s Santa Ana office.

As with all physical handicaps, employers may remove someone if they can prove the person poses danger or risk to co-workers, Gibbs said.

Gibbs said the local fair employment office has received nearly a dozen complaints of AIDS-related discrimination, most complaining about termination. Some of those filing complaints have been unable to relate discrimination with their firing, but others have been reinstated to their jobs, she said.

The problem in Orange County is no worse than elsewhere, state officials say. But those numbers probably are conservative, said Werner Kuhn, vice chairman of ACTION and executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County.

“Very few people want to fight,” Kuhn said. “That’s why prevention is important.”

Four Calls a Week

Kuhn said the Garden Grove center receives about four calls a week from people who believe that they have been discriminated against because of AIDS. “Most people don’t know there’s a remedy.”

Vincent Chalk, a former teacher at University High School in Irvine, sued the Orange County Department of Education to regain the teaching job he lost when officials learned that he had been diagnosed with AIDS. He has appealed the decision of a federal judge, who ruled recently that he should be barred from the classroom pending the start of his trial early next year.

“If I put the fellow back in the classroom and I am wrong, it could well be catastrophic,” U.S. District Judge William P. Gray said Sept. 8, when he denied Chalk’s request for an injunction that would have returned him to the classroom.

While all state employers--including school districts--are covered by the state ruling, Chalk’s case is being heard in the federal court system because the department receives federal funds, Kuhn said.

Kuhn cited one case in which a young man who works for a medium-size employer in Orange County told co-workers that he had tested positive for AIDS. After his supervisor called him in to verify the facts, he was laid off, according to Kuhn. The employee hired an attorney, who wrote the company a letter, explaining that the man was not ill and that the firing was illegal under state regulations. The employee was reinstated, Kuhn said.

In another case, a job applicant who was known to be in a high-risk group for AIDS was asked to take an AIDS antibody test by the owners of a small company. He refused and was not hired. His case remains unresolved, Kuhn said.

Robert Phelps, employment manager for Beckman Industrial Corp., with 600 employees in Fullerton, said he received two posters Monday and requested 15 more from the Human Relations Commission.

‘Fearful Situation’

“All the human resource people have been waiting for some kind of definitive statement. It’s been a very fearful situation for employers,” Phelps said.

Pacific Bell adopted a “discrimination free” AIDS policy in 1983 after an employee in San Francisco refused to enter the home of a customer with AIDS, said Pat Krone, a spokeswoman for Pacific Bell and a member of the commission.

Krone said that the company’s policy now allows workers to choose whether they want to work around people with AIDS but that requests to be taken off cases are rare because of company education efforts.