W. B. Reitze to J. W. Szcygielski on a Brochure for Alerting Asbestos Workers' Families (1978)

A one-page Johns-Manville memo of June 1, 1978, from W. B. Reitze at world headquarters to J. W. Szcygielski at the Waukegan, Illinois, plant, copied to E. W. Nelson and W. Cooper, headed "Printed Brochures for Use in Alerting Families of Asbestos Workers to Possible Health Hazards." Answering a May 12 memo from Nelson, Reitze encloses "a brochure which we used a number of years ago" whose page 9 briefly mentions precautions "to ensure that the worker's home environment is not contaminated with asbestos," and says it "is the only brochure that we have which deals with the subject." Attached is a blank Asbestos Information Association/North America order form for its employee pamphlet, posters, handbook and work-practice booklets.

What it shows

Reitze writes that when the brochure was first given to workers at asbestos-using plants, J-M had asked the employees at its Manville, New Jersey, plant to take it home, and "the majority of the employees did take the booklets home for their wives and families to review." The memo shows that by 1978 J-M recognized that workers' families could be exposed through dust brought home (see Take-home Exposure), but that its only printed material for families was an older employee booklet with a brief passage on the subject. The brochure itself is not attached; it may be the 1975 booklet "What You Should Know About Asbestos and Health," which warned against taking dust home on work clothes (see Cooper's 1977 history).