3 in Southland Rank in Top 100 Companies for Working Moms

Home products maker S.C. Johnson Wax has a Women’s Business Council to help break down barriers to advancement faced by female employees.

Skokie, Ill.-based Fel-Pro, which makes car gaskets, sealants and lubricants, provides up to $6,500 in tuition reimbursements for children of its workers. And the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reserves a room for nursing mothers.

Such benefits helped earn those companies a place on Working Mother magazine’s ninth annual list of 100 best companies for working moms. The list was unveiled Tuesday at the Labor Department.

Eight California companies made the list, including three in Southern California.

Moorpark-based G.T. Water Products was cited for the seventh year in a row and was the smallest company on the list. The plumbing products manufacturer provides 26 weeks of leave for new parents, even though, with just 24 employees, it is exempt from the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

Toy maker Mattel Inc. of El Segundo and Ventura-based Patagonia, an outdoor-apparel firm, were also on the list. Each was cited last year.

“Family-friendly workplaces are good for the bottom line,” Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Tuesday. His department has an in-house day-care center.

Working Mother chooses the companies based on pay and opportunities for advancement for working mothers, child care and “family friendly” benefits such as part-time jobs with benefits, job sharing and flexible hours.

“We’ve discovered that quality of life is a much greater asset in securing people than high salaries,” said George Lucas, maker of such hit movies as “American Graffiti” and the “Star Wars” trilogy.

On-site child-care facilities and flexible work schedules helped win his San Rafael, Calif.-based Lucasfilm Ltd. a place on the list for the fourth consecutive year.

Lucas, who also won the magazine’s “Family Champion Award,” said he was being recognized for “just doing what one should be doing.”

Lucas, a single father of three, joked that by virtue of his juggling work, parent-teacher conferences and dinner, “I guess I qualify as a working mother.”

The Top 10 companies on the list are AT&T;, Barnett Banks Inc., Fel-Pro Inc., Glaxo Inc., John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Lancaster Laboratories Inc., NationsBank and Xerox Corp.

Ten companies, including the Southland’s G.T. Water Products and Patagonia, were recognized for gender pay parity.

Working Mother 100

Eight California companies, three in Southern California, were included on this year’s list of 100 best companies for working mothers, published in the October issue of Working Mother magazine.

1. Genentech, South San Francisco

2. G.T. Water Products, Moorpark

3. Lucasfilm, San Rafael

4. Mattel, El Segundo

5. Morrison & Foerster, San Francisco

6. Pacific Gas & Electric, San Francisco

7. Patagonia, Ventura

8. Silicon Graphics, Mountain View

Three California companies were among 10 companies singled out as having unusually good pay parity for women.

Percent of Percent among Company work force highest-paid Avon (N.Y.) 74% 76% Bayfront Medical (Fla.) 77 78 Ben & Jerry’s (Vt.) 40 47 Beth Israel of Boston 67 75 G.T. Water Products 46 50 Lucasfilm 30 52 Miami Herald (Fla.) 39 40 Patagonia 57 57 Riverside Methodist (Ohio) 79 85 Seattle Times (Wash.) 33 37