Lawrence S. Falter to the International Chemical Workers Union on Access to Long Beach Exposure and Medical Records (1982)

Two letters about workers' records at J-M's Long Beach, California, plant. On January 11, 1982, Adrian S. Bedard, vice president and health and safety chairman of International Chemical Workers Union Local 255, asked the plant's employee relations manager, under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) access rule, for lists of toxic substances, safety data sheets, and all exposure monitoring and medical screening data. Lawrence S. Falter, senior counsel of Manville Service Corporation, replied on February 12 that the law was "unsettled," enclosed a substance list and the safety data sheets J-M had from vendors, and said medical data would be released only with each worker's written authorization.

What it shows

Falter points to court challenges to the OSHA rule and to "privacy considerations" under California law. He tells the union that monitoring data is kept in each worker's medical file and that the company's policy was "to ask all individual employees to review his own medical file." The plant had industrial hygiene surveys going back to 1972, which the union could review on site. To most other requests, for analyses of the monitoring, screening and medical data, the answer was that none was kept "at the Plant." For sampling methods he said the data was "available through both OSHA and NIOSH," the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Compare the exchange between W. B. Reitze and Tappin on the same OSHA rule (Reitze's reply to Tappin).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

L.S. Falter (J-M attorney) letter to local Long Beach union, 2/12/82, in response to its inquiry regarding union access to employee exposure and medical records. Falter attaches to his letter product toxicology information and states that employees have access to their medical and exposure records. Falter describes what medical and exposure information is available to the union and what procedures are to be taken to gain access to it.