VENTURA : Judge Orders Packer to Halt Hiring Bias

A federal judge in Los Angeles has issued a court order barring one of Ventura County’s largest lemon packers from discriminating against female job applicants.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies has prohibited the Saticoy Lemon Assn., headquartered in Ventura, from preventing women from applying or refusing to hire women as general laborers, which includes shipping clerks, maintenance workers, mechanics and lift operators.

The judge ordered the company to post all job openings and keep records of applicants for at least five years.

“What this means is that the barrier has been broken,” said Christopher Paul Danch, an attorney representing the women who filed the class-action lawsuit against Saticoy.

George E. Preonas, an attorney representing Saticoy, said the order does not require the company to change any specific hiring policies.

“We’re always reviewing our policies to make sure they comply with the law,” Preonas said. “We have been posting job openings for the last six or seven years.”

In September, Davies ruled that the packinghouse had illegally discriminated against as many as 100 female job applicants. Attorneys said the women were passed over for jobs later given to male applicants with little or no experience.

The lawsuit was filed in 1987 by former Saticoy workers. It said the company was responsible for the hiring practices of the Seaboard Lemon Assn. of Oxnard, a company Saticoy acquired in May, 1986.

After the merger, many of the female workers laid off by Seaboard at the end of the growing season were never rehired by Saticoy, the suit said. Saticoy’s attorneys argued that there were no job openings at the time the women applied.

Davies’ order, issued Jan. 17, affects the five packinghouses that Saticoy operates in Ventura, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Oxnard.

Danch said he and other attorneys are filing claims on behalf of the women for back pay. Claims must be filed by April 1.