Fullerton Company Challenges State’s Job Bias Ruling

A firm that owns a Fullerton battery plant has challenged a state ruling that its policy designed to protect the unborn results in discrimination against women.

The challenge was in an Orange County Superior Court lawsuit filed by Johnson Controls Inc. against the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission.

Johnson owns a plant in Fullerton, called Globe Battery Division, that manufactures batteries for vehicles. The firm excluded women from some jobs after recognizing that assembly line workers were endangered by exposure to lead used in batteries. In particular, Johnson believed that lead exposure to women workers who might later become pregnant posed a serious risk to the fetus, according to Gerald Griffin, attorney for the firm.

But the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleged that the practice discriminated against women, and the fair employment commission--a separate entity--agreed last fall and ordered Johnson to end the practice.

Johnson challenged that ruling, along with the commission’s order that the firm hire, with at least $16,000 in back wages, Queen Elizabeth Foster, a woman who had been denied employment and then successfully challenged the rule.

Fetal protection plans such as Johnson’s have been common in this decade in industries using lead, cadmium, radiation and pesticides, according to Brian Hembacher, assistant chief counsel of the fair employment department.

Griffin said the commission’s ruling, which became final Oct. 19, makes it difficult for state employers to institute fetal protection plans.

Hembacher called the issues in the case “incredibly complex.” But he suggested that Johnson could have avoided legal problems by limiting its policy to pregnant women.

Hembacher said the firm might have applied the same rule to men who are trying to start families.