H. M. Jackson, Manville Textile Plant Survey by the New Fiber-Count Method (1969)

A three-page report of June 13, 1969, signed by H. M. Jackson, manager of J-M's industrial health program, on a dust survey of the asbestos textile plant at Manville, New Jersey, using the company's new method of counting fibers per cubic centimeter of air. It lists "problem areas" station by station: fiber feeders at 16.1 fibers/cc, hand barring at 21.6, carding at up to 15.5, spinning frames averaging 21.1, twisting at up to 22.5 and lining looms at up to 32.9, with the engineering projects planned for each. For several of these jobs, including spinning and twisting, Jackson recommended that respirators "NOT be made mandatory at this time" while improvements were under way.

What it shows

The report ties the respirator question to pay. Under the plant's incentive standards a worker required to wear a respirator received an allowance (about 30 cents an hour on a $3.00 job), and Jackson recommended holding off on mandatory respirators for the card tenders and loom operators until a review of "the job and incentive standards problem" was done. A "premium" for respirator work, he wrote, would have to be negotiated with the union, and "without such an approach, numerous difficulties are anticipated." At the time J-M's limit for asbestos fiber was 12 fibers/cc (as Sheckler put it that September), and many of the problem stations were above it. J-M had begun the fiber-count method earlier that year (Fenner's February 1969 memo).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

H.M. Jackson memorandum dated 6/13/69 re "Manville Textile Plant Survey, New Method-Survey and Analysis," probably dates use of Millipore or membrane filter. Describes effect of respirator requirement on wages.