Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan Letters on Hiring Dust Counter Otto Binder (1936)

Seven letters from January to June 1936 about Otto L. Binder, a dust-sampling technician who had worked on the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's dust survey of Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan plants. A January 7 letter to M. F. Judd of R-M's Raybestos Division totals $2,918.73 that R-M had paid toward Binder's salary and travel since May 1934 under an arrangement with J-M. On March 11 Vandiver Brown, J-M's general attorney, told Judd that "the Metropolitan survey of our two companies is now practically completed" and offered Binder to sample dust at R-M plants to check "the efficiency of equipment installed since the date of the earlier reports."

What it shows

On May 14 Brown passed on word from Dr. Lanza of Metropolitan Life that it would release Binder to J-M on July 1, since Metropolitan wanted to train a full-time employee of its own. On May 27 Brown confirmed the plan agreed with Judd and Simpson: J-M would hire Binder full-time, set up equipment at Manville, New Jersey, for "sampling, counting and analyzing dust," and lend him to R-M for a fee. Judd agreed and told R-M's division managers. One of them, E. H. Jefferds at North Charleston, regretted that Metropolitan had taken this step before the suits pending against his division were tried, judging that it "will not be in favor of granting Mr. Fehnel permission to testify for us at future trials." The letters show the two companies bringing dust measurement in-house once Metropolitan's survey ended.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Otto Binder begins J-M in-house dust counts using the Greenburg-Smith impinger Method (counts particles.)

Correspondence from Jan-June 1936 between, Vandiver Brown (JM) and Judd (RM) discussing Otto Binder. He is now "released' from Metropolitan Life and available to conduct dust studies, if RM is interested. JM has already shown interest and begun arrangements to have Mr. Binder take dust samples at its plants. Payment/budget arrangements are also discussed.

Editor's note: J-M's description says Binder began in-house dust counts using the Greenburg-Smith impinger method. These letters do not mention the impinger or any counting method.