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Civil Rights Groups Seek Action Against Corning Glass By WILLIAM SINGLE GaaneU News Service WASHINGTON -- Two civil right* organizations have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to find that Coming Glass Works'past pay practices violated women's rights -- an issue the justices will hear argued March 23. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women (NOW) have joined in tiling a friend-ofthe-court brief on behalf of U.S. Secretary of Labor Peter J. Brennan, Comma's no minal opponent m tbe case. The high court is confronted with two conflicting U.S. Courts of Appeals decisions un the issue, both involving Cuming. 1tiding un Uk case could be back pay and interest totaling more than 990,000 for em ployes in the Corning and Wcllsboro, plants. The cases involve practices, now aban doned, when Coming inspectors were almost all women and worked only in the daytime. When Coming inaugurated night shifts, state law prohibited employing women at night. Corning was forced to recruit men who demanded wages comparable to what they had been earning at more complex jobs at the plant. The upshot was that mate night impectora were past almost double the rate of the day time female ones. In 1968 the company opened the higher^ |jaid rught inspection jobs to women. Two years earlier the Federal quai l*ay Ad hal abolished separate male and female pay schedules, and 13 years earlier N'<*w Yurk had voted to allow women u> work lugbi.v In a HUB muon contract. Coming abolished the separate day and night base rates. How ever, the contract provided that special higher rates would continue fur mght-stuft workers employed before that time. That, a court of appeals in New York ru led. perpetuated the discrimination. A court of appeals in Pennsylvania ruled the other way. The brief from NOW and ACLU says that Coming's 1969 introduction of a base wage rate did not equalize wages because what they call the "male" premium was contin ued for tiersons then wurking as inspectors ua the night shifL "...All women continue performing equal work at a rate lea than that paid ail men until the first new man is lured." the two groups contend. Even "the fad that some women are being paid at the 'male' rate docs noL alter the sex-based character of the rate." the ACLU-NOW brief says.The tuchcr rate does not cease to be a 'male' rate until equalization is achieved, that is. unul no woman inspector is paid the lower rate." Nor were the two groups sympathetic toComing's statement that equalizing up to the higher rale would entail a heavy cosi: "When exploitation cease* and fair value is paid the coat is always greater__" Noting that this case has become very complex and that it dates back to an "archaic" New York State law prohibiting women from working certain hours, Corning Glass spokesman said the company soil feels that what it did was legally correct. "Coming Glass . Works teit and still feels that it was doing the right thing," Robert L Edwards, public information manager said Monday night. in-; ,r DIDi i 1 uvi i-pti FILES | BB 0000632 | 01 3460