• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Health Policy Advisory HEALTH PAC Center No. 50 March 1973 Editorial: YOUR JOB OR YOUR LIFE Outside of coal miners' black lung By most criteria, Johns-Manville (J-M) disease, more public and scientific atten­ is a sophisticated, progressive company. tion has been focused on asbestos-related It can boast that it has historically led the diseases than any other occupational field in asbestos hazards research. In re­ hazard. In 1970 the asbestos industry sponse to widespread alarm over the dan­ rocked when newspapers across the gers of asbestos J-M has, after initial re­ country carried accounts of workers who sistance, successively lowered its work­ contracted asbestosis, lung cancer and ers' exposure levels. It has already mesothelioma from spraying asbestos on achieved the 1976 exposure standard of 2 buildings under construction. The exposes fibers/cc at most locations in its large resulted in the banning of asbestos spray­ plants, while other companies still strive ing in New York, Boston and Chicago. But to reach the present standard of 5 fi­ the action came too late to prevent thou­ bers/cc. There's one hitch, however. There sands of deaths. Among the fatalities was is no assurance that workers will stop Albert Hutchinson, president of the 20,000- dying from this level of exposure any member union, the International Associa­ tion of Heat and Frost Insulators and As­ more than they stopped dying when pre­ bestos Workers. vious levels were lowered. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that 2 Asbestos is a substance ubiquitously fibers/cc exposure is not hazardous to the used in industry: garment workers make health of workers. Indeed, many experts coats from a mixture of wool, nylon and believe that the only safe level of ex­ asbestos; painters mix asbestos with posure is no exposure at all. paint; auto workers spray asbestos on brake linings; demolition workers shake Eliminating all exposure is technolog­ free billions of asbestos particles when ically feasible. But for the moment no they tear down buildings. pressure for this is coming from workers, While articles on the asbestos "plague" their unions, or the government. This hesi­ continue to appear, they rarely go beyond tancy of workers and unions stems from discussing the medical consequences of their realistic assessment of the situation asbestos exposure and the efforts of re­ and not out of ignorance, masochism or searchers to discover safe exposure levels. materialism. If they pressed industry with This case study of the Johns-Manville Cor­ a demand to end all exposure, J-M claims poration, giant of the asbestos industry, it would have one of two options: either examines the political and economic con­ pick up stakes and move to a more tem­ flicts underlying the medical problem. perate labor climate, or automate its exist- ing plants. In either event, workers are in For more than 95 percent of the workers what is fast becoming a classic bind— handling the "magic mineral"—garment fighting for their health and safety while workers, auto workers, painters, aero­ risking their Uvelihood or jeopardizing space workers, demolition workers, five their health and safety while holding down million in all—do not work in asbestos their jobs. production. Control of asbestos exposure In a society oriented to the health and in other industries is almost nonexistent. well-being of all citizens and not toward Sadly, most trade unions are too preoc­ profit, no one would face so cruel a cupied with their economic plight to con­ choice. Scientific advances and changing cern themselves with other issues. But technology might still cause a reshuffling the health of asbestos workers generally, of jobs, but re-training of workers and re­ and the job protection of J-M workers location of jobs would not be the insur­ specifically, can only be won through mountable problems they are in this socie­ broad scale labor unity and militancy. For ty. J-M workers know that neither they now this prospect is Utopian. In the mean­ nor other workers in single industries have time, local worker militancy, media ex­ the muscle to insure such rational alter­ poses and the support of health profes­ natives. So they stay at J-M, earn a mod­ sionals can force piece meal progress. est living and die a premature and often Minimally, this can save some lives. Max­ gruesome death. imally, it might suggest the need for a But even if J-M brought the exposure broader attack against occupational dis­ level down to zero in its plants, other eases, the most preventable diseases of asbestos workers would be no better off. all. CORPORATE GANGER Johns-Manville Corporation (J-M) is the In the last three years J-M has stream­ largest producer of asbestos in the world. lined its stodgy image as a family-owned, The biggest miner of asbestos in North one-product business, to become an in­ America, it uses only 25 percent of its creasingly diversified, multinational com­ mined fiber in manufacturing its many pany with an ex-Rand analyst, ex-NYU and varied products for industrial and Business School professor as its head. J-M home use. The rest it sells to foreign and has not only lifted its corporate face, its domestic customers (1). J-M's sales of plants have changed, too. J-M has instal­ asbestos products, about one-third of its led new dust collection equipment so that total sales, are the largest in the world, its large plants, which were once as dusty about $220 million in 1971. Its closest as any North Carolina textile mill, are American competitor, the Raybestos Man­ now eerily antiseptic. At J-M's largest hattan Company, commands about $120 plant in Manville, New Jersey, only a million, but it owns no mines. So it, like suggestion of the former era remains— almost every asbestos manufacturer, buys the colonial style building at the entrance some fiber from J-M, according to an in­ of the plant that houses the administrative dustry spokesman, offices. Formerly called the Asbestos 2 Hotel, this mansion was built to include CONTENTS recreational facilities for the Johns and 2 Asbestos Hazards the Manvilles. who missed the glamour of New York City. Manville was so named in 1929 by its founding father, Thomas Manville. Moving from Brooklyn, J-M settled in New Jersey ville one of its major production centers. because "our customers were here and the The use of asbestos has continued to location was accessible for shipping," ac­ mushroom through the years, and J-M's cording to the plant community relations business has flourished. The health of manager. Manville homesteaders were asbestos workers has not. lured from depressed eastern Pennsyl­ The Medical Problem vania coal towns by company scouts who Serious medical problems resulting from promised them land and decent wages. occupational exposure to asbestos have Many were unemployed and others were been known for over half a century. But only too happy to escape the hazardous their full impact on the lives and deaths work in the mines for what they believed of asbestos workers was not widely real­ would be safe and steady work at J-M. ized until the early 1960's. Then a dramatic Today Manville cannot quite be called series studies by Dr. Irving Selikoff and a company town. There are no company his associates at the Mt. Sinai School of stores; the newspaper is independently Medicine, in collaboration with Dr. E. run. Several plants — GAF, American Cuyler Hammond of the American Cancer Cyanamid and Bakelite—are close by. Society, revealed the scope of the trage- Yet J-M is still the town's mainstay. It dy. employs 2,225 of Manville's 13,115 citi­ Asbestos insulation workers in the build­ zens, the Mayor and other local officials ing trades were found to have a death rate among them. Its payroll accounts for 60 25 percent greater than other workers of percent of Manville's total income, and it similar age. Of 632 union members with pays 50 percent of Manville's taxes. Most 20 or more years of exposure to asbestos, of the town's older residents are grateful 255 died between 1943 and 1962. As Dr. for the favors which J-M has rendered Selikoff and associates followed the re­ over the years. J-M gave pipe for the maining workers for another eight years, town's sewage system, contributed heav­ the picture became even more stark. One ily to the building fund for the new high hundred and sixty-three workers died— school, donated the air pollution detection over twice as many as normally expected equipment atop Borough Hall, repaired at (2). no cost the town's road maintenance The Selikoff team next turned to asbes­ equipment, and supported the Veterans' tos production workers at the Johns-Man- Parade, Pop Warner Little League Team, ville factory in Manville, New Jersey. They and local VFW. Manville shopkeepers say found workers with long-term exposure that "without J-M there'd be no Main to asbestos dying at a rate 50 percent Street." greater than expected. Manville, though not a wealthy town, Throughout the United States, about has always been economically stable. 40,000 people are asbestos insulation During the war years the asbestos indus­ workers in the building trades, and 50,000 try grew tremendously as new uses for, work in the production of asbestos. But asbestos were discovered. In this period, when it is realized that an estimated five J-M became the asbestos king and Man- million people work with asbestos-contain- Published by the Health Policy Advisory Center, 17 Murray Street New York, N.

Load more

  16

Copy Link