Document wgJ3LNJoQZoqLOa74Ooxq2LJD

Women in industry face 'health' threats Ellen Goodman !** ` 1 About six months ago a woman named Norma James was sterilized. It wasn't something she'd planned, you understand. She wasn't eager for it, but the 34-year-old mother of four was faced with the choice of keeping her job or her fertility. p The General Motors battery plant ' in Oshawa, Ont., where she worked, i had new research that showed lead oxide emissions could harm unborn children. The company issued an : ultimatum: a woman had to prove that she was unable to bear chil dren, or face a transfer. Mrs. James had been a widow, remarried and was now in the proc! ess of divorce. In any case, she was a single working mother and the job in the battery plant paid $6.50 an hour for good steady nightwork. ... -That can mean a lot when you want I to be with the kids after school. So she thought about it some but, as she told a reporter in April, "I need that job more than anything else." What happened to Mrs. James isn't a fluke. It's a warning, an early alarm system for all women in industry: the growing concern over occupational health may be used to force thousands of women out of their jobs. And all in the name of protection of future generations. It's beginning all across the coun try. Last year, the giant Exxon Corp. began research on the effects of benzene. They may well recom mend that women of child-bearing age not be exposed until the re search is done. The lead industry's environmental *i . health committee already has recommended against employing "fertile, gravid or lactating fe males" until the verdict is in on the effects on the fetus. researchers discover some uniquely female side effect, industry can't be allowed to exclude all fertile women from the job, whether or not they plan to have children. As one union woman said, "When industry starts talking protective about women, watch out. They're about to protect them right out of their jobs." This week the Society for Occupa "It's outrageous," says Dorothy Haner of the United Auto Workers, "to deal with the cojicept by arbi trarily moving women out of jobs. You have to tell women the facts and let them decide for them selves." It's more than outrageous, tional and Environmental Health is sponsoring the first major confer ence on "Women and the Work Place." Participants will include all the principal players from industry, unions and medical research. It comes at a pivotal time. she says. It's illegal. Pure, unadulterated sex discrimination. Mrs. James and five other women are trying to prove that now m ' Canada. When industry excludes fertile women, they avoid the larger issue We are in a situation where much of safety in the work place. It's of the research on the genetic side cheaper to get rid of them, than to effects of work is being done on get rid of the danger. An industry women alone. The research may be spokesman recently put it this way: used, not to change the safety stand "We'd rather risk a sex discrimina ards, but to exclude fertile women. tion suit than a deformed baby." Morton Corn, the Assistant Secre But that isn't the choice. The issue tary of HEW, was quoted recently is ultimately that of safety in the as saying that "woman is a sensi work place. tive creature and we have come late to a recognition of the health problem." Dr. Jeanne Stellman, a health and safety specialist for the Oil, Chemi cal and Atomic Workers Union, has Well, we are all sensitive crea said that. "Selecting out a certain tures and every time we discover a group in the labor force is the easv genetic side effect on women, pretty way. It's a cop-out to exclude just soon we find one on men. It was women of child-bearing age from true with DES and it's true with certain jobs while permitting older polyvinylchloride. We've seen that women or men to do those jobs." the sperm is as sensitive as the Dorothy Haner put it another way: ovum. Recently it was found that "The decision shouldn't be made on the wives of anesthesiologists have the basis of which group you decide a higher rate of miscarriage than can endure the danger." the norm. So, let's hope that the heavies All the research should be carried , assembled for this week's confer out with men and women. Even if ence remember Norma James. xm9SZZ THE SUNDAY PLAIN DEALER, JUNE 20, 1976 i