Living with Aids on the Job

By Stephen Koepp

The deadly swath being cut by acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, is fast becoming a quandary for U.S. corporate management as well as a challenge for the U.S. health system. As the disease continues to spread, the emergence of the AIDS victim in the workplace poses one of the country's most difficult tests of employer compassion and good judgment -- and increasingly, of legal acumen. Many managers have reacted by firing AIDS sufferers outright or banning the employee from work on permanent sick leave. But now, at least partly because a thicket of lawsuits has sprung up around cases of the malady, a growing number of U.S. companies and Government agencies are trying to greet the AIDS sufferer with greater understanding and acceptance.

The problems that AIDS poses for the business community are already substantial, and growing. Some 23,700 Americans have contracted the disease, and an estimated 20% to 30% of the 1.5 million U.S. citizens who have so far been exposed to the AIDS virus are expected to join them. Even though AIDS is spread almost always through intimate sexual relations or the sharing of hypodermic needles, many workers have strong objections to working in close quarters with carriers of the disease. Says Dana Ferrell, a director of the South Florida Health Action Coalition: "There's still a tremendous amount of ignorance out there." The dilemma, says Kenneth Labowitz, a Washington lawyer who represents many stricken employees, is that "a person who has AIDS has the worst medical stigma of the decade. One anchor in the crisis is family, and the other is his job. The victim needs support from both."

Already there have been many cases where managers have felt compelled to remove AIDS sufferers from jobs because other employees have demanded it. When Paul Cronan, a twelve-year veteran phone installer for New England Telephone, revealed his illness in May 1985, co-workers refused to use the truck he had driven, demanded that the bathroom he used be disinfected and threatened to kill Cronan if he returned to work. The company put Cronan on disability leave. Todd Shuttleworth, a former budget analyst for Broward County, Fla., came down with AIDS in 1984. The county dismissed him and canceled his medical benefits immediately after Shuttleworth revealed his illness. Says Paul Swinney, who lost his federal prison-guard job in California after contracting AIDS: "They simply want to get rid of you."

Increasingly, it may not be that easy. Swinney, Cronan and Shuttleworth are all suing their employers for damages as high as $15 million. Earlier this month, the U.S. Government for the first time filed a complaint on behalf of an AIDS victim. The Health and Human Services Department accused the Charlotte (N.C.) Memorial Hospital of violating the civil rights of an AIDS-afflicted registered nurse by firing the man and refusing to offer him any other work. By the time the Government acted, however, the AIDS victim had been dead five months. Indeed, no AIDS victim has yet lived long enough to win a decision from the U.S. court system (though judgments in cases where plaintiffs have died are legally valid).

The lack of much legal precedent leaves the obligations of employers to AIDS victims largely untested. Most states have laws prohibiting companies from discriminating against the handicapped, which many legal experts believe covers AIDS victims as well. Federal law may also provide protection, as the North Carolina hospital case illustrates.

For all of the uncertainty, a number of corporations, including Pacific Bell and Cigna insurance company, are now allowing AIDS sufferers to stay on the job as long as their failing health permits. Three years ago, when two BankAmerica employees in San Francisco flatly refused to work with an AIDS victim, the company let the objectors resign and kept the disease victim in | his post. Says Nancy L. Merritt, a BankAmerica vice president: "We recognize the therapeutic value of employees being allowed to work as long as they can." At the San Francisco headquarters of Levi Strauss, the blue jeans manufacturer, an AIDS victim who was allowed to stay on the job as a supervisor declares, "I do not get the feeling here that I'm a leper."

Companies that decide to live with AIDS have generally succeeded in defusing the worries of other employees by educating them on the difficulty of being infected by the disease on the job. When two workers at the daily Portland Oregonian came down with AIDS last spring, Personnel Director Frank Lesage called small meetings among 350 company employees to discuss the issue and handed out literature on the disease. Says Lesage: "They were not happy with the news, but they were glad we were up front about our policy."

The more difficult problem for many firms is the cost of treating an AIDS victim, which averages about $147,000 during the two years it generally takes for the disease to run its fatal course. For small businesses, one or two AIDS cases could trigger a ruinous hike in health-insurance premiums. To keep costs in the $35,000 range, corporations like RCA have established outpatient-care programs in which AIDS patients spend far less time in the hospital and more on the job or at home.

Despite such changes in attitude, AIDS high-risk groups, particularly homosexuals, are feeling an increasing employment chill. Physician Leon Warshaw, executive director of the New York Business Group on Health, decries the trend. Says he: "Fear of AIDS is a front for an unreasoning homophobia. People who have the mannerisms or appearance or careers that suggest they might be gay -- whether they are or not -- become a source of concern for employers."

Fear of AIDS on the job is diminishing most quickly in larger U.S. cities, where familiarity with the disease is highest. But before long, the grim likelihood is that businesses in all parts of the country will have to learn to deal with AIDS. New corporate attitudes about what to do with afflicted workers are likely to spread roughly at the same rate as the disease itself.

With reporting by Roger Franklin/New York and Charles Pelton/San Francisco