Shari Inniss-Grant, Fellow

Women in manufacturing continue to lose out. As we’ve said before, women aren’t seeing any of the gains from the recovery in the manufacturing sector. While the nation has gained over half a million manufacturing jobs since 2010, women have lost 36,000. In March alone, women lost 12,000 manufacturing jobs.

But these aren’t the only kinds of losses hitting women in the manufacturing industry; even women who have managed to hold onto their jobs might find themselves stripped of some benefits if employers like John Kennedy, CEO of Autocam, have their way.

The man at the helm of Autocam Corporation, a Michigan-based for-profit company that manufactures auto parts and medical equipment, is arguing he should have the right to deny employees and dependents all forms of contraception. The district court did not agree. It denied his request for a preliminary injunction, stating that, “Implementing the challenged mandate will keep the locus of decision-making in exactly the same place: namely, with each employee, and not the Autocam plaintiffs.

What do a crafts supply chain, construction contractor, and health food company have in common? Over the past two weeks these for-profit companies have tried to convince appellate courts that their employees should be denied full insurance coverage of birth control at their bosses' discretion. Today, Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation — a wood cabinet manufacturer with 950 employees — becomes the fourth for-profit company to try to convince a circuit court in oral arguments for preliminary injunction that they should not have to comply with the federal birth control benefit. 

Both the district court and the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals have rejected Conestoga's attempts to get out of complying with the birth control benefit by arguing that a for-profit company's religious beliefs should overrule the government's interest in protecting women and children's health. However the company hasn't heeded the courts' warning that they're unlikely to win.