Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Occupational lead poisoning has been recognized for over 2,000 years. The single most effective approach to its prevention-control of the inhalation of airborne lead-has also been known since antiquity. In the United States, in 1978, OSHA adopted a comprehensive lead standard for general industry, including manufacturing plants. The preparation of the 1978 standard was directed by Dr. John Froines under the leadership of Dr. Eula Bingham, OSHA director. This standard has been an enormous success, and it has been judged as among the most influential actions undertaken by OSHA. Thousands of workers have benefited, and many work places and work practices have been improved as a result of this standard. A unique part of the lead standard is medical removal requirement, for "leaded" workers with pay and benefit protection. Because of evidence that men's reproductive capacity was also at risk from high lead exposure, OSHA set a single standard for men and women. OSHA recommended that employers permit men and women planning to conceive to transfer out of high lead exposure jobs. For more on this OSHA lead standard, go to osha.gov/SLTC/lead . "Fetal protection policies," as discussed in this clip, were an unforeseen consequence of the OSHA lead standard. These policies excluded reproductively active women from jobs on the grounds that the fetus is more sensitive to lead than either the adult male or female worker. The justification for these policies by industry was that lead intoxication of the fetus could result in employer liability for damages expressed in the child who is not covered by workers' compensation. In 1979, OSHA issued citations to Bunker Hill and another company, American Cyanamid that had instituted such exclusionary policies, alleging that requiring women workers to be sterilized violated the general duty of employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace. Cyanamid challenged the citations and won the first two rounds. On appeal, Judge Robert Bork wrote the opinion for the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He ruled that an employer's general duty to provide a safe and healthy workplace did not forbid requiring sterilization as a condition of employment for women only. On March 20, 1991, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 decision in a related case (Johnson Controls) that a fetal protection policy were illegal because they categorized employees on the basis of their potential for pregnancy. Rather than trying to make it appear safe by excluding women workers and ignoring the evidence about men, employers have to make the workplace safe for men and women. Focusing only on whether employers could exclude women and whether women were different from men deflects attention, not only from the reproductive hazards from men's exposure, but from concerns about the effects of toxins on workers more generally. To read more about this important case, go to http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/rturner/employment/more-on-johnson-controls.pdf. The Bunker Hill mine in Idaho operated from 1886 to 1981. In the 60's and 70's it provided approximately 25% of the primary lead in the United States. Women first began working on the production and maintenance lines in 1972. This is clipped from the 1979 film, Working for Your Life (58 minutes, Labor Occupational Health Program) which explores the health and safety conditions of America's working women by examining the hazards and demands they face in their workplaces Ken Light and Andrea Hricko, working for LOHP at the time, created this important documentary film. The film is based on the 1976 handbook Working for Your Life: A Woman's Guide to Job Health Hazards, by Andrea Hricko with Melanie Brunt. A joint publication of Labor Occupational Health Program and Public Citizen's Health Research Group This handbook is available on the internet at content.cdlib.org/ark:/28722/bk0003s5w6s/?layout=metadata . Filmed in over 40 workplaces, this film highlights occupations that are both traditional ones for women (e.g., clerical and hospital workers) and jobs into which women are just beginning to move (such as mining). The film also shows women who are seeking solutions to these job hazards, including a woman who set up a union health and safety committee, women testifying at OSHA hearings, and a woman organizer who is concerned about health hazards in her electronics plant. A copy of the original film is posted to my channel. .
Occupational lead poisoning has been recognized for over 2,000 years. The single most effective approach to its prevention-control of the inhalation of airborne lead-has also been known since antiquity. In the United States, in 1978, OSHA adopted a comprehensive lead standard for general industry, including manufacturing plants. The preparation of the 1978 standard was directed by Dr. John Froines under the leadership of Dr. Eula Bingham, OSHA director. This standard has been an enormous success, and it has been judged as among the most influential actions undertaken by OSHA. Thousands of workers have benefited, and many work places and work practices have been improved as a result of this standard. A unique part of the lead standard is medical removal requirement, for "leaded" workers with pay and benefit protection. Because of evidence that men's reproductive capacity was also at risk from high lead exposure, OSHA set a single standard for men and women. OSHA recommended that employers permit men and women planning to conceive to transfer out of high lead exposure jobs. For more on this OSHA lead standard, go to osha.gov/SLTC/lead . "Fetal protection policies," as discussed in this clip, were an unforeseen consequence of the OSHA lead standard. These policies excluded reproductively active women from jobs on the grounds that the fetus is more sensitive to lead than either the adult male or female worker. The justification for these policies by industry was that lead intoxication of the fetus could result in employer liability for damages expressed in the child who is not covered by workers' compensation. In 1979, OSHA issued citations to Bunker Hill and another company, American Cyanamid that had instituted such exclusionary policies, alleging that requiring women workers to be sterilized violated the general duty of employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace. Cyanamid challenged the citations and won the first two rounds. On appeal, Judge Robert Bork wrote the opinion for the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He ruled that an employer's general duty to provide a safe and healthy workplace did not forbid requiring sterilization as a condition of employment for women only. On March 20, 1991, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 decision in a related case (Johnson Controls) that a fetal protection policy were illegal because they categorized employees on the basis of their potential for pregnancy. Rather than trying to make it appear safe by excluding women workers and ignoring the evidence about men, employers have to make the workplace safe for men and women. Focusing only on whether employers could exclude women and whether women were different from men deflects attention, not only from the reproductive hazards from men's exposure, but from concerns about the effects of toxins on workers more generally. To read more about this important case, go to http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/rturner/employment/more-on-johnson-controls.pdf. The Bunker Hill mine in Idaho operated from 1886 to 1981. In the 60's and 70's it provided approximately 25% of the primary lead in the United States. Women first began working on the production and maintenance lines in 1972. This is clipped from the 1979 film, Working for Your Life (58 minutes, Labor Occupational Health Program) which explores the health and safety conditions of America's working women by examining the hazards and demands they face in their workplaces Ken Light and Andrea Hricko, working for LOHP at the time, created this important documentary film. The film is based on the 1976 handbook Working for Your Life: A Woman's Guide to Job Health Hazards, by Andrea Hricko with Melanie Brunt. A joint publication of Labor Occupational Health Program and Public Citizen's Health Research Group This handbook is available on the internet at content.cdlib.org/ark:/28722/bk0003s5w6s/?layout=metadata . Filmed in over 40 workplaces, this film highlights occupations that are both traditional ones for women (e.g., clerical and hospital workers) and jobs into which women are just beginning to move (such as mining). The film also shows women who are seeking solutions to these job hazards, including a woman who set up a union health and safety committee, women testifying at OSHA hearings, and a woman organizer who is concerned about health hazards in her electronics plant. A copy of the original film is posted to my channel. .
