Unknown Speaker  00:00
Supreme Court rejected that argument says, contract on the conduct case and then the state gets back to surrogates at one level, the state cannot interfere with that right to things to contract. So and No, no, no, no appreciate that was given to the difference in the political position of the worker, and the employer, the presumed equality of the relationship and said that you can see a contract. clever people later came around and said, Okay, if we can't get it for men, we will get a, quote, get protective legislation for women and children. And that is, that is what happened. And then in the afternoon case for most of the Oregon with legislation that set the maximum hours, maximum hours that women could work in, in manufacturing, their laundry, operates a series of the other businesses and the court indeed found that that was appropriate legislation, because, in fact, women needed special protection. And primarily based on the reason for is on one of fragility, but to their role as mothers and were bearers and years of children and therefore, they must, we must give them protective special protection because the future of our race depends on now. We subsequently learned that the that the protective legislation had in fact a disastrous effect on women's status. So that she wound up being precluded from most high paying jobs because the special protections extended to insert now if you had to be paid double time with time for time and a half for overtime, if you couldn't work overtime, in a world where I had to be paid more money that man had to be paid for full working overtime, she could not stand on the feed for more than certain hours, if it was elevated loss ratio and a chair were stressed. So all these things are made it much more expensive to hire women than to harness the job. So clearly women were precluded from this job. And interestingly, all those jobs that were run female dominated world where for whatever reason, the corporations or employers prefer women or had women those occupation, those always wound up being exceptions to the rules. So it didn't hurt the future. Our race if women stayed up all night with switchboard operators, although it did if they stayed up, as you know, as mechanics. Interesting one of them I did a lot of research on this when I was in law school. When the issue particularly with legislation was a major issue. Feminists are such things as a side deal industry in in sequence, St. Louis was, was excluded because in fact, during the season, women were stuck in the view, that was hard to figure out why certain industries were okay, what what I think we are coming on to a current. Let me go back and say that Mueller versus argon, which was the case that established always was based on a what we now call the Brandeis brief. It was a brief submitted by justice to women. Who was the second was gold Mark, Mark and Brandeis. That's right. At any rate, this was the brief which was given Brandeis name because he was the lawyer for the National Consumer League and presented a briefing on the revenue and sprint document of what they consider to be scientific evidence of the harm to women as mothers by prolonged hours in the workforce, but nefarious occupational hazards to women, qua women, by additional strain and stress of the workforce. And most of that, as I said, was a so called pseudo development. So it was in my estimation, pseudo scientific documentation of the hazards hasn't said they projected and formed the basis of allowance to protect the witness ledger. It would appear to me that we are presently moving into our has already moved into a similar type of approach in the labor market today with I think also pseudo scientific

Unknown Speaker  04:53
foundation of the toxicity in the workforce being used as a basis For the exclusion of women from from jobs, it sounds because we all know it, the minute we walk into the street, it is unhealthy to breathe the air, we are all prone to accept immediately that most industry is dangerous to our health. Most people are then willing to make a giant leap of faith. That if it's dangerous to our health, it is certainly dangerous to a pregnant woman, because anything that comes into heart is naturally going to go through, you know, to the fears, or arguably could go to the fetus and then cause damage to the fetus. And without much research, that proposition has gotten accepted, so that you now have fetal protection policies in a large number of industries, which will exclude women from jobs on an assumption that the toxic environment could affect women of fertile, potentially fertile women. So it's not just women, pregnant, five to 65, to the age group is five to 63. Because in fact, there are there might have been known cases of women who have given birth and five and been given birth to see veterans again. I don't know. Standard, so that the market for women and more people, that's a very conservative estimate of this horrifying situation was that in a case it was a couple of years ago against American cyanus. Let me tell you what happened there Americans excluded all women who work all women were fertile from the pigmentation. The room believed there was some 20 Odd women there, it was one of the highest paying jobs in the in the plant. It was the problem that was intended to lead poisoning, which is known to be detrimental to the reproductive function of men, but none of them were excluded from that, unless they have to prove that they were sterile or willing to be sterilized. And indeed, out of that group five women did become did becoming sterile. Which shows us that in fact that, you know, this was a high paying job was needed, there was some very compelling reason these women are willing to sacrifice, you know,

Unknown Speaker  08:07
basic function, one God money,

Unknown Speaker  08:09
they wanted the money that they was willing to sacrifice their diligence, to conceive what Justice sense even they had no intention to consider. They're willing to undergo these, this operation and lose just a sense of thing was still capable of conceiving children. But the horror of this was, after going through all this a year later, they closed that clinic. So that these were more central than that, the interesting thing to know, I mean, there's no doubt that there are toxic levels in the workplace that can affect fetal development in a number of ways. I don't know enough of the scientists in science and there was a talk was a little on. So go into into that, but there have been a variety of studies that have been shown to you know, to have a variety of different types of effects, some of which will affect the fetus, through deposit directly, in other words, anything that happens to the mother or happened to the fetus of the mother and inhales carbon monoxide that will be inhaled by the fetus. There are other types of toxins that will affect the gene structure, and other types of toxins that will affect the development of the fetus the two, the first one obviously can only be transmitted to the mother the second two can be transmitted to both the mother or father except the problem with all of these other steps one, nobody knows the level to which the toxic how high the toxicity must be before it will indeed have an effect on the on the mother or on the fetus or, you know how that combined was other things like if the mother is drinking or smoking

Unknown Speaker  10:02
or doing drugs or you know,

Unknown Speaker  10:04
not even doing illegal drugs, but they're taking Valium, nobody knows what the effect the comparable effects of those various activities might have one on the nontheless. Employers have left to watch the exclusion of women based on an assumption that there's a problem possibility that it could be harmful, and therefore they don't come up with their reasoning is twofold. One, they will claim we really care about this fetus, and we really care about the development of young children. The second thing is probably the more likely one is that that the mother can raise a claim because the mother is probably covered by working with this company workers comp. But that the APR of trials would not be to be eliminated, return on workers comp could ultimately serve. The interesting one interesting thing to note on how workplace has have been looked at to date is a difference between how toxins that have been known to affect male reproductive capability have been treated in those who will arguably affect female reproductive hazards. There have been two or two toxins one is simple DB CP. And cap the others cap Romanos herbicide, the other it's a pesticide, both of which learn to affect the reproduction through the male bolting, changing the phonetic structure. And

Unknown Speaker  11:57
secondly, of making the mother

Unknown Speaker  11:59
therapy, those both of those chemicals have been banned. When it comes to men, arguably, we don't even know whether in fact these chemicals are affecting them at the you know, the extent to which they are then women are excluded from from the workplace. Except for Agent Orange, it's not

Unknown Speaker  12:23
that the causation is not so clear. But if you're saying that these other situations, it was their fault. So I think that fasten might come to I think that this was a situation where Isabel and I had a similar reaction, which was, look, the solution is not exclude me, but I can workplace The solution is to clean up. So that's good is not a principle as matter implementation, it may be a lot harder. And then the consequence may be that businesses go abroad, and people have less protection. So I think it's it's a global issue. Had one practical political problem, and I should tell you just to give an ad to get from my foreign thing, our proposal does have to do with legal strategies for forcing cleaning up of the workplace in a sex neutral way. But the global thing.

Unknown Speaker  13:27
The other thing is that my answer to that was that there was there is an immediate presumption that we don't know, there might indeed be harm, but we have absolutely no way of knowing because none of the tests are really very clear. There have been a few isolated tests, which will tell us what the results are. And we now know about the live i It takes a long time to learn these things and where they you know, the actual comments,

Unknown Speaker  13:53
but there are there are there are some studies now that show we in Buffalo, particularly interested in discussing the flight path to the mckeeva doors on the board of appeal the door by the way means golden cow. And they're now appear to be for some of these industries that produce that certain chemical use certain chemicals there are now higher rates of cancer and, and miscarriages among women in another culture will be there. And there's some evidence now in Singapore and Taiwan. Now how much of this comes from malnutrition because of low wages? And how much of this comes from, from the particular the lack of regulatory enforcement in those countries of any sort? I suppose it's an open question, but the question is, how much does one want to presume? You know, and maybe one ought to err on err on the side of being conservative about the damage that shouldn't be done, but then when that might be done And rather that are inside of believing that it is more likely that these that these chemicals may produce it may produce damage, and then concentrate not just simply on the national issue, but think of the global environmental taking.

Unknown Speaker  15:20
I don't think much. I mean, you said every I think one of the and this is why words visa, that as I understand the stand that organizations are taking is just like they did during the early days of protective legislation, let's get a half a loaf if we can get off Oh, well, so therefore less if the most we can do is protect the women who may be carrying the children. Let's do that and never worry about cleaning up the whole workforce.

Unknown Speaker  15:44
I think there are some statewide efforts to regulate the Massachusetts has a right to which you're telling me that workers have to be informed that there seems to clean them up. But liability building and it's very hard to enforce the liability corporation, so unlimited two quarters two, you know, so that is a Pulido so, you know, then they have to want to know the country. Well could obviously have legislation which would cover all American or any companies which Americans can have interest there now when abroad, maybe even to the same one in terms of

Unknown Speaker  16:31
you know. Got 30. So

Unknown Speaker  16:38
thank you