PHR / SPHR Professional Exam: A Case Study

Is Safety the Most Important Policy? - A Case Study

A company manufactured batteries for automobiles. The battery manufacturing process used lead as a main ingredient. It is generally known that exposure to lead can cause serious health problems. Even though the company provided personal protective equipment (PPE) to its workers, there was still a chance that some exposure could happen to the folks out on the manufacturing line. One of the dangers was related to harm that could be done during pregnancy to both the mother and the baby.The case was Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc. 499 U.S. 197 (1991). The decision of the Court was that the company policy on fetal protection was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA). It impacted only women and, as such, was illegally discriminating against women based on sex.

One pregnant employee objected to that policy and her union sued the company. The company stood by its policy claiming safety trumps all other concerns."
Did the company have a valid policy? Why?

Case Study Outcome:
Because of the sensitivity the company had to the safety and health of its employees, its policy was to prohibit any pregnant worker from being on the production line. It didn’t want to be responsible for harming any of its employees or their children.Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote, “danger to a woman herself does not justify discrimination.”

The Court concluded that it is the woman’s decision to make about her safety and that of her fetus. Blackmun then said, these decisions “Must be left to the parents…rather than the employers. It is no more appropriate for the courts than it is for individual employers to decide whether a woman’s reproductive role is more important to herself and her family than her economic role.”

Thus, in this instance, Title VII trumps safety concerns for the employer. (For a copy of the complete Supreme Court Opinion, go to http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/499/187/case.html.)