Court to Review Ruling on Women in Hazardous Jobs

The Supreme Court, accepting a case that could affect millions of working women, said today it will review a ruling that allows employers exclude all women of child-bearing age from some hazardous jobs.

The justices agreed to study an automobile battery manufacturer’s policy of banning women who cannot prove they are infertile from jobs that expose them to lead.

A decision is expected sometime in 1991.

A federal appeals court last year upheld the fetal protection policy, rejecting arguments that banning women from high-paying, if hazardous, factory jobs amounts to illegal sex discrimination.

Exposure to lead, the principal material used in making batteries, is a health risk to workers and to the fetuses of pregnant workers.

Since 1982 the battery division of Johnson Controls Inc., based in Milwaukee, has barred women at its factories from jobs involving exposure to lead and from jobs that, through transfers or promotions, could progress to lead-exposed duties.

Eight employees and the United Auto Workers challenged the policy in court. Among the women who sued was one who had submitted to sterilization to preserve her job, and a 50-year-old divorcee.

The suit alleged that the policy violates a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, called Title VII, barring sexual bias in employment.

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Warren in Milwaukee ruled for Johnson Controls based on both sides’ pretrial arguments. No trial was held.

The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his ruling by a 7-4 vote last Sept. 26.

The appeals court concluded that the policy “is reasonably necessary to industrial safety.”

Three of the appeals court’s four dissenting judges wrote opinions, the most scathing of which was authored by Judge Frank Easterbrook, a conservative appointee of former President Ronald Reagan. Calling it “likely the most important sex-discrimination case in any court since . . . Congress enacted Title VII,” Easterbrook said, “If the majority is right, then by one estimate 20 million industrial jobs would be closed to women, for many substances in addition to lead pose fetal risks.”

“The law would allow employers to consign more women to ‘women’s work’ while reserving better-paying but more hazardous jobs for men,” Easterbrook said.

In other action today, the high court:

--Agreed to consider giving federal regulators more authority to lower electricity rates, setting the stage for a decision that could affect more than 49 million homes. The court said it will review a ruling that barred the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from slashing rate increases to customers in 15 Ohio communities.

--Agreed to hear an appeal challenging the authority of states to house convicted murderers on “Death Row” and keep them apart from other inmates.