John D. Anderson to C. L. Sheckler on Rising Workmen's Compensation Costs at the Manville Plant (1970)

A confidential one-page letter of March 11, 1970, from John D. Anderson of the Manville Building and Flooring Materials Plants in New Jersey to C. L. Sheckler at headquarters, on workmen's compensation and occupational disease costs at Manville. Anderson writes that "tremendous concern has been registered by the Plant Managers" over the escalation of these costs, which had been "increasing at an astronomical rate," and over the accounting methods used to charge occupational disease cases to the plants. With two new plant managers recently appointed, he asks Sheckler to meet with them on what could be done to control "and, hopefully, lessen the escalation of these costs."

What it shows

The rise followed a wave of claims at the Manville plant in 1969 (see Sheckler's July 1969 memo to Anderson on mass filings). J-M's September 1970 report on asbestos and health counted 681 occupational disease cases company-wide in 1969, up from 337 the year before, and blamed part of the increase on "mass" filing at Manville.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

John D. Anderson (Manville) in a letter to C.L. Sheckler, 3/11/70, states that extreme concern has been expressed by Plant Managers over the tremendous escalation of workers' compensation and occupational disease costs at the Manville plant. He also states that the plant managers are concerned about current accounting methods employed in assigning costs to these cases. Anderson requests that a meeting be called to review these matters with the plant managers.