M. A. Tappin to W. B. Reitze on Refusing Unions Retirees' Medical Records (1980)

A one-page confidential memo of December 11, 1980, from M. A. Tappin to W. B. Reitze, answering Reitze's letter of December 8 on the new OSHA rule giving workers and their representatives access to exposure and medical records. Tappin wrote that under labor law a union does not represent retired employees, and that J-M had always refused to bargain with any union over retirees because doing so "would, obviously, open up bargaining matters which would be extremely costly to the Corporation." He called the OSHA rule "merely an attempt by OSHA to circumvent controlling labor law," said he and the Legal Department were "quite willing to litigate," and directed: "Accordingly, no union should be given the medical records of any of our retired employees."

What it shows

Tappin added that the union at Waukegan (the International Chemical Workers Union) had recently asked for a retired employee's medical records, "but we were able to avoid a confrontation." Three days later Reitze answered that instructing a plant this way would violate a federal regulation (Reitze to Tappin). The question came up again at Long Beach in 1982 (Falter to the International Chemical Workers Union).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

On 12/11/80, M.A. Tappin writes to W.B. Reitze re Reitze's letter 12/8/80; OSHA - Workers' Access to Exposure and Medical Records. Tappin discusses the policy of refusing to allow access to the unions to medical records of retired employees, despite the OSHA regulations allowing access. He recommends litigating the issue as opposed to following through and providing the records to the unions as required by law.

Related documents

• W. B. Reitze to M. A. Tappin on Not Violating OSHA's Records Access Rule (1980)