IBM Black Eye

I am sure this is NOT the kind of News Media attention that IBM wants to see.
Tues Feb 26 front page story www.usatoday.com about workers taking employers
to court over birth defects & in the opening sentences we are told that 50
employees of IBM semi-conductor plant in Essex VT had children with birth
defects, in some cases fatal.

The Cover Story continued on second page talks about how employers, that try
to prevent pregnant women from working in areas that might put their unborn
children at risk, get sued for sex discrimination & lose.  For example, the
US Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that battery maker Johnson Controls practice,
of banning pregnant women from certain jobs to protect their unborn children
from exposure to lead, amounted to sex discrimination.

Since father's exposure to toxins can also harm the fetus, the health experts
are saying that all workers should be protected, not just pregnant mothers.

There was a case where an employer warned of dangers, the pregnant woman
insisted on keeping the job, the baby got birth defects, then later the child
sued the employer of the mother.  The fetus did not agree to be at risk.

IBM denies that any risks at their factory contributed to these birth defects
& expresses regrets for their misfortune.  The article also has statistics on
the volume of children born with birth defects.  It is very difficult to
prove links as to the causes.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)