W. B. Reitze to Plant Managers on OSHA's Rule on Access to Employee Exposure and Medical Records (1980)

An eight-page Johns-Manville memo of August 15, 1980, from W. B. Reitze of J-M's Health, Safety and Environment department to the company's U.S. plant managers, employee relations managers, division and production managers and plant doctors, on OSHA's new rule giving workers access to their exposure and medical records, effective August 21, 1980. Reitze attached his section-by-section "Summary and Interpretation" reviewed by Dr. W. R. Paul, J-M's medical director, and Helen Marsh of the legal staff. This copy, from the Waukegan plant's employee relations manager J. W. Szcygielski, is heavily underlined by a reader.

What it shows

Reitze told managers the rule covered "all industrial hygiene records, all medical records, as well as the analyses of both categories," that records had to be kept at least 30 years after employment ended, and that copies had to be given free "no later than 15 working days after request." Plants were not to let workers take originals away, and lay staff, including employee relations managers, "are not to review actual medical records." Research such as epidemiology studies would not be open "until the work has been completed," and requests for that kind of information were to be sent to his office "for action." On the rule's trade secret protection, he wrote that it was "a useless provision, because under the Freedom of Information Act, sooner or later all data is leaked." Later that year Reitze warned that withholding retirees' records from a union would break the rule (W. B. Reitze to M. A. Tappin on Not Violating OSHA's Records Access Rule (1980)).

About this copy

The ninth page of the file, a clipping of a "Point of View" column on the right-to-know rules from the Lake County Labor News, a union newspaper, is left out because it is a copyrighted newspaper article. The copy of the Federal Register regulation that Reitze attached is not in the file.