Waukegan Plant Managers Meeting Minutes on Control of Dust Problems (1961)

Two pages of confidential minutes, signed by R. C. Smith, of a February 16, 1961, meeting of the managers of J-M's Waukegan, Illinois, plant (A. B. Marchant, Boyd Mulder and others) on the "Control of Dust Problems." A history of the plant's dust problem begins with a 1934 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company report that "pointed out Toxic dust problems throughout the plant"; in 1955 X-rays found 45 "Red Cases (known pneumoconiosis)" and 200 "Pink Cases (possible pneumoconiosis)"; and a 1956 procedure for "Control of Pulmonary Cases" covered the red cases, with "Nothing to be done about Pink Cases." In 1960, the minutes record, 45 of the plant's 510 air sampling stations were above the maximum limit.

What it shows

The managers were handed a current list of 46 red, 140 pink and 38 blue (non-occupational) cases, 224 in all, not counting men who had died or retired, and were reminded that "claims may be made within three years of death or date of last exposure." They noted that headquarters' lowering of safe dust limits in 1959 "had cancelled all 'Safe Placements'," meaning the jobs the sick men had been moved to were no longer below the limit. The meeting reaffirmed the 1956 procedure, ordered all red cases checked by March 15, and asked how many pink cases were on jobs above safe dust levels. A memo three weeks earlier had reported that none of these men had been properly placed (R. C. Smith to Marchant, January 1961).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Waukegan Plant Manager's meeting minutes dated 2/16/61 contain chronology of "control of dust problems," and shows 46 known cases and 140 possible cases. 1956 policies reaffirmed, i.e., do nothing re possible cases.

Editor's note: J-M's description says the 1956 policy of doing nothing about possible cases was reaffirmed. The minutes reaffirm the 1956 procedure but also decide that the possible cases are to be checked for jobs above safe dust levels.