J. E. Begert to A. R. Fisher on Why Employees Were Leaving the Manville Plant (1942)

A two-page "Personal & Confidential" memo of October 8, 1942, from J. E. Begert, manager of Johns-Manville's Manville, New Jersey, factory, to A. R. Fisher, a J-M vice president, headed "Reasons for Employees Leaving J-M." A Mr. Slifer of the nearby Diehl plant had told Begert that the complaint he heard most often from former J-M workers "is that people are afraid to work in the dust of some of our departments," particularly a black dust that Begert thought was graphite in the Packing Department "or more probably, the black slate dust from punching #607 Shingles." Of that job Begert wrote: "We just have not been able to hold men on that job."

What it shows

Begert dismissed complaints about promotion and pay as "a fiction of their own minds" and "more imaginary than true," but wrote: "In my opinion, our working conditions and the type of our work are the more prominent causes." In wartime, with other plants hiring, workers were leaving the Manville plant in part because they feared its dust. Begert's response was to see what could be done about "convincing our employees that they have attractive jobs at Johns-Manville" and to consider publicity about J-M's war products.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

partially illegible. (possibly dated 10/6/1940 per archive notes but does not appear to be the date on the memo) Memo (from Begert?) to A.R. Fisher discussing reasons that employees are leaving JM. 1. "less attraticve working conditions" in which workers are fearful of dust in many departments. 2. unable to transfer to factory jobs from current positions 3. no opportunity for promotion