Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls

This decision gave women the opportunity to make their own reasoned decisions about pregnancy and dangerous work.

Johnson Controls, Inc. manufactures batteries--a process that utilizes lead as a primary ingredient. Men's and women's exposure to lead may have a negative impact on health, including birth defects in children. Some studies have suggested lead exposure may affect fertility in both men and women.

Before the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Johnson Controls hired men only. Title VII banned this practice. However, once women began working at the company in 1977, it issued an official policy regarding female exposure to lead:

Since not all women who can become mothers wish to become mothers (or will become mothers), it would appear to be illegal discrimination to treat all who are capable of pregnancy as though they will become pregnant.

Johnson urged women not to apply for lead-exposed positions if they hoped to bear children. However, it made them eligible for this work provided they signed a statement that they understood the risks, including a higher than normal rate of miscarriage.

During the next five years, eight women with blood levels above 30 micrograms per deciliter--the level considered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to be the critical threshold for workers hoping to have children--became pregnant. None of the children born of these pregnancies had any apparent birth defects or abnormalities. Still, Johnson Controls decided to exclude women of childbearing age from lead-exposed jobs or positions from which one would be eligible for promotion to a lead-exposed job. The policy defined "women . . . capable of bearing children" as "all women except those whose inability to bear children is medically documented."