Vandiver Brown to S. A. Williams on a Compensation Waiver for Workers with Early Dust Disease (1936)

A two-page memorandum of August 18, 1936, from Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville's Legal Department to S. A. Williams, a J-M vice-president. Brown recalls his July 15 memo, which pointed out that "considerable advantage to the Corporation might be derived by weeding out all employees with incipient but non-disabling pneumoconiosis" before Illinois's new law took effect. If J-M were unwilling to release some of them, "either for social reasons or on account of the difficulty of replacing skilled personnel," he offers a "compromise procedure": within sixty days after October 1, the employee would ask the Industrial Commission for permission to waive full compensation for disability or death from silicosis or asbestosis. If approved, any later compensation would be half what the employer would otherwise owe.

What it shows

Brown explains that to get the waiver filed, J-M would either have to release the employee or tell him "that, unless he files the waiver within sixty days after the effective date of the Act, we will have to let him go." He also advises that J-M file notice that it accepts the Act's compensation provisions, since otherwise it could be sued for damages. Copies went to E. M. Voorhees and to J. P. Kottcamp, the Waukegan plant manager.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Brown in a memorandum to S.A. Williams, 8/18/36, suggests an alternative to firing some of J-M's employees with incipient pneumoconiosis: employees would be permitted, within 60 days after 10/1/36, to file a waiver of full compensation for disability or death resulting from silicosis or asbestosis.

Related documents

• Vandiver Brown to S. A. Williams on the New Illinois Dust Disease Law (1936)