By Steve Brier
The New York Times recently ran back-to-back articles in their “This Working Life” column by Rachel Swarns. The first article, which appeared in the Oct. 19 issue of the paper, describes the firing of a pregnant low- wage worker, Angelica Valencia, from her position at Fierman Produce Exchange in Queens, where she earned $8.70 an hour packing potatoes. Her job, which frequently required overtime work, led her to get a doctor’s note indicating that her “high risk” pregnancy required that she not work beyond 40 hours a week. The company insisted that both overtime and heavy lifting of boxes were essential parts of the job and, despite passage by the City Council more than a year ago of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, the company refused to make an accommodation for Ms. Valencia and fired her in August. The company claimed that she was unable to continue working because she was at “high risk” in a workplace “that was fast-paced, was very physical and involved machinery.”
The day after the first article appeared, Rachel Swarns wrote a follow-up “feel good” article in the Times, reporting that Fierman Produce Exchange had seen the light and thanks to a lawsuit brought by Ms. Valencia, the company decided to give Ms. Valencia her job back, now that her baby had been born. They were even discussing the possibility of offering her back pay, thanks to pressure brought by a family and work advocacy group, A Better Balance.
As uplifting as the outcome for Angelica Valencia is, most female workers facing sexual discrimination don’t have the option of getting a New York Times reporter to tell their story. They have to rely on good old fashioned union power to fight discrimination. That’s exactly what LaFondra Brown, a unionized ironworker in the Bronx, did when she walked off the job when a supervisor sexually harassed her. Ms. Brown, according to an article by Joe Maniscalco in Labor Press, had the support of her brothers (and hopefully a few sisters as well, assuming she was not the only female worker at her job site), of the New York State Iron Workers District Council, the NYC Community Alliance for Worker Justice, and City Council member Alan King, all of whom supported her strike against sexual harassment.
Sexual discrimination against women workers, whether they are pregnant or if supervisors decide to be sexually aggressive, can be fought most effectively by unions that are committed to protecting their members. If you are a worker facing any form of discrimination, it’s better to be able to count on the collective power of your fellow workers to confront that discrimination than to have to rely on sympathetic newspaper reports and legal action to achieve justice.
Dr. Steve Brier is a Murphy Institute Consortial Faculty Member and Prof. of Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center.
