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Jasmine Wallace
Business Ethics
Matias – Summer 2013
Case Analysis Guidelines
Protecting the Unborn at Work
Johnson Controls Inc. is a company which makes automobile batteries for companies
similar to and including Sears and Goodyear. This company’s factory plants air are all
filled with toxic particles of lead and lead oxide. This was the basis for their Fetal
Protection Policy. This policy stated that the levels of toxic particles of lead were low
enough for adults but too high for children and fetuses. The danger to the fetuses allowed
the policy to extend to not hiring women who were able to become pregnant. In order for a
woman to be considered for a position at the factory they had to prove they were not able
to conceive, or to become pregnant. This did not include being celibate or on
contraceptives, as this was not an exception.
The policy was later ruled to have violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, because it
prohibits sexual discrimination. This sexual discrimination came with the scientific
evidence that lead also harms sperm, which could then affect their offspring. By not taking
the same precautions to their male employees and their offspring as they did their female
employees, was cause for discrimination.
There was indeed a discrimination against women with the Fetal Protection Policy. Once
there was evidence that the levels of lead and lead oxide could also affect the sperm of
male employees, which could lead to fetal damages as well, they should have applied the
