Female Workers Sue Nabisco, Allege Sex Bias : Courts: The suit alleges some women have suffered bladder infections because they were not allowed to use the restroom.

Female employees of a Nabisco Foods plant in Oxnard slapped the company with a sex-discrimination lawsuit Wednesday, accusing the food maker of so restricting their restroom privileges that some workers say they were forced to wear diapers on the job.

The class-action lawsuit--filed in Ventura County Superior Court on behalf of current and former female employees--alleges that some women have suffered bladder infections because they have been forbidden from going to the restroom.

“Women who work at Nabisco’s Oxnard plant who have left the production line because they needed to use the toilet have been suspended, disciplined and sent home without pay as a consequence,” the lawsuit says.

“This disinterest and lack of concern with the problems and concerns of Nabisco’s female employees is and has been intentionally discriminatory and has been the product of discriminatory attitudes toward women.”

Nabisco officials said Wednesday that the complaints are groundless and that such practices would violate the company’s work policies.

“Certainly we deny the allegations vehemently,” company spokesman Hank Sandbach said from New Jersey, where Nabisco is headquartered. “This is a small number of workers, complaining about something that allegedly happened quite some time ago. We do deny those allegations and will continue to do so.”

The lawsuit comes after 30 current and former Nabisco employees filed federal sex-discrimination complaints against the company, which makes steak sauce, chili pepper products and the world’s supply of Grey Poupon mustard at its 3rd Street factory.

Many of those who filed complaints, and who agreed to be part of the class-action lawsuit, are seasonal workers who have been with the company for more than 20 years. While the complaints center on past practices, lawyers representing the women say they fear some of those practices are ongoing or could crop up again.

Twenty-five-year employee Lydia Lovio Hernandez was the first to file a sex-discrimination charge, angered about losing her job in 1993 for tangling with company supervisors about the restroom policy.

Since she filed a complaint last summer, more than 50 women have come forward, many of whom told of being denied restroom visits even if they had a doctor’s note saying they needed to go whenever the need arose.

“I still have nightmares about it,” said Hernandez, who was among the workers who resorted to wearing diapers and other means of protection on the job because of the bathroom restrictions.

“But I’m very grateful for the way it has turned out,” she said. “My main thing was to expose the things that were happening to us. If nothing else, I’ve gotten my reward right there.”

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Since going public with their complaints, the assembly-line workers have won wide support, including a boost from the city of West Hollywood which last month adopted a resolution calling on Nabisco to quickly remedy the situation or face a potential boycott of its products.

According to the lawsuit, Nabisco’s Oxnard plant maintains job classifications that are generally segregated by sex. As a result, women are assigned to assembly-line work and cannot readily leave when they need to use the restroom.

In contrast, men are assigned to jobs where they are free to go to the bathroom whenever the need arises, the lawsuit says.

In some cases, women “have been instructed to urinate in their clothes while working on the production line rather than leave to use the toilet,” the lawsuit alleges.

In addition to Nabisco, the lawsuit names Local 186 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a defendant, alleging that union leaders failed to adequately respond to workers’ complaints about the restroom restrictions.

Scott Dennison, the union’s recently elected secretary-treasurer, said his administration has pledged to support the women of Nabisco, and that it is unfair for him and other union leaders to be held accountable for things that happened under previous administrations.

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“Since I’ve taken office, none of the ladies involved with the lawsuit has come into this office and made any complaints verbally or in writing,” Dennison said. “But my administration is in a unique situation. I’m going to be held accountable, the union members are going to be held accountable, for what someone else did or did not do.”

As a display of the union’s support, Dennison points to a meeting last month where Teamsters officials and Nabisco management hammered out an agreement outlining and clarifying policies regarding restroom usage at the Oxnard plant.

While denying any wrongdoing, the company agreed at the meeting to reopen previously closed restrooms, expand the two break periods by three minutes each and designate 20 employees per shift to relieve assembly-line workers. The agreement went into effect immediately.

Nabisco officials said the meeting broke no new ground, but instead clarified existing policy at the Oxnard plant.

Attorneys representing the women in the class-action lawsuit said the agreement failed to dissuade them from going forward with their court action.

“The major goal is to make sure that there is a permanent improvement in working conditions for the women at the Nabisco plant in Oxnard,” said lead attorney Paul Strauss, with the Chicago-based law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

He has been joined by Oxnard attorney Gregory Ramirez and attorneys with the Oxnard office of California Rural Legal Assistance.

The lawyers want the court to issue a permanent injunction preventing Nabisco from restricting restroom visits. They also want back pay for women who lost wages as a result of the practice and compensation for those who suffered personal injury, illness and emotional distress.

“What the union and the company are doing is good damage control,” Strauss said. “But that really doesn’t help us much with the past, and it’s not a guarantee for the future.”