Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.)

Unarco (Union Asbestos and Rubber Company) was a U.S. manufacturer that produced asbestos insulation, textiles, and related products from the 1910s through the 1960s. The company is historically significant for operating an asbestos plant in Bloomington, Illinois that exposed thousands of workers and community members to asbestos, and for being one of the early companies to file for bankruptcy due to asbestos liability.

Origin

The name is a contraction of "Union Asbestos and Rubber Company," founded in the early 20th century. The company became widely known in asbestos litigation after its Bloomington, Illinois facility (operated from 1930 to 1972) became the subject of major exposure studies and lawsuits. Unarco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982, the same year as Johns-Manville.

Corporate history

According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, the company was incorporated in Illinois on March 19, 1918, as the Union Asbestos & Rubber Co., a maker of railroad supplies, and changed its name to UNARCO Industries Inc. on April 17, 1963.¹ In 1926 it built a plant at Cicero, Illinois, to make flexible insulation, packings, gaskets and other asbestos products.¹ The book says it has been reported that Unibestos was developed in 1936 by Rudolph Louis Roman Wild, who also invented the company's Insubestos.¹ It says Unibestos was made at a plant at McGregor, Texas, that was later moved to Tyler, Texas, and that a second Unibestos plant opened at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1951, which is later than the 1930 opening date given above.¹² Asbestos textiles were made at a plant at Marshville, North Carolina, built in 1947 and later sold.² On May 22, 1970, the company was incorporated in Delaware as the successor, by merger, to Leavitt Tube Co. Inc. and UNARCO Industries Inc.¹

In the data sheet The Travelers Insurance Company compiled for a 1980 asbestos seminar from defendants' interrogatory answers, Unarco said it had bought the assets and taken on the liabilities of "Union Rubber and Asbestos Co." and had sold its Unibestos product line to Pittsburgh Corning on July 1, 1962.⁴ The company's product description in the same section says Unibestos was discontinued in 1963, when the line was sold to Pittsburgh Corning Corporation, while a retyped copy of that description gives 1962.⁵⁶ The sheet lists the Unibestos plants as Cicero, Illinois; Paterson, New Jersey; McGregor, Texas; and Bloomington, Illinois, and dates Unibestos pipe covering from 1936; it does not mention Tyler, which the Sourcebook gives as the later home of the McGregor plant.⁴¹² The 1962 sale also bears on the dates given on this page for the Bloomington and Tyler plants, which run to 1972: by the sheet's account, Unibestos belonged to Pittsburgh Corning from mid-1962.⁴ The sheet says Insubestos was made at Marshville, North Carolina, from the 1940s, and that Unarco did not mine or mill asbestos; it bought chrysotile from Canada and from other producers, amosite from Cape Asbestos Company of South Africa, and 500 short tons and 1,282 bags of amosite from the GSA in 1969.⁴

The book says that UNR Inc. purportedly became the holding company and parent of UNARCO Industries through a share-for-share exchange of stock on May 8, 1980, but that UNR's announcement in the Wall Street Journal of October 3, 1980, said the company had changed its name from Unarco to UNR Industries; the authors found the relationship between the two unclear.² The same announcement said the New York Stock Exchange had assigned Unarco the ticker symbol UNR on March 28, 1946.² The book's own table of name changes instead dates the change from UNARCO Industries Inc. to UNR Industries Inc. to 1981, citing the same 1980 advertisement.³ According to the book, the company stopped making its own asbestos-containing products in 1970, two years before the Bloomington closing date given above, and its involvement with asbestos also came through purchase and sale agreements with other asbestos makers.²

The 1980 Travelers sheet agrees that Unarco had not made asbestos products since 1970, and the company's product description says the listed materials were made through April 1970 unless otherwise noted; the sheet gives the reason as economic, saying the company wanted to move into metal fabrication for a greater return.⁴⁵ It shows Unarco's gross sales of asbestos products falling from $4,226,000, 36 percent of its total gross sales, in 1960 to $1,957,000 in 1963 and $275,000, 0.37 percent, in 1970.⁷ It gives the company's first knowledge of the hazards and its first warning labels both as the "Late 1960's," lists Unarco as a former member of ATI, presumably the Asbestos Textile Institute, and says Unarco denied direct sales to the Long Beach Naval Shipyard but admitted sales to the Navy.⁴⁷

Significance in Asbestos Context

Unarco is a key defendant name to look for in occupational histories, particularly for workers from central Illinois, Texas (Tyler plant), and rail-related industries. The company was a major supplier of asbestos pipe covering and textiles to railroads. The Tyler, Texas plant (operated 1954–1972) became infamous after a 1971 government investigation found extreme asbestos exposures and inadequate protections, producing a well-documented worker cohort with high mesothelioma rates. Because Unarco entered bankruptcy in 1982, claims against it are handled through the UNR Asbestos-Disease Claims Trust rather than direct litigation, which affects how and when compensation is paid. Family members of Unarco workers, including children who were exposed via dust brought home on clothing, have also been recognized as having compensable exposure histories.

Related Terms

Asbestos Trust, Johns-Manville, Take-Home Exposure, Pipe Covering, Bankruptcy Trust Claim, Occupational Exposure

Notes

• If you or a family member worked at Unarco's Bloomington, Illinois or Tyler, Texas plants, tell your attorney immediately. Both sites have well-documented exposure records that strengthen claims.
• Look for Social Security earnings records, union records, or pension documents that can verify employment at Unarco; the company's records are decades old and direct employer documentation may be limited.
• Compensation for Unarco exposure typically flows through the UNR Asbestos-Disease Claims Trust; ask your attorney about the trust's current payment percentage and filing requirements.
• Take-home exposure claims (spouses and children of Unarco workers) are well-established for this company. Do not assume you are ineligible just because you never worked there yourself.
• Preserve any photographs, work clothing memories, or family accounts of dusty work clothes being laundered at home, as these support take-home exposure claims.

References

1. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 171.
2. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 172.
3. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 161.
4. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Unarco Product Information, p. 3
5. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Unarco Product Information, p. 4
6. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Unarco Product Information, p. 5
7. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Unarco Product Information, p. 2

Asbestos products

71 products our documents name Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.) as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

Plants

Plants where asbestos products were made that the documents say Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.) ran.

• Kubar Manufacturing Company and later owners plant at Davidson, North Carolina
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. / Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation plant at Bloomington, Illinois
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. / Pittsburgh Corning Corporation plant at Tyler, Texas
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. / Union Asbestos & Rubber Company plant at McGregor, Texas
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. plant at Cicero, Illinois
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. plant at Earlville, Illinois
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Co. plant at Paterson, New Jersey
• Union Asbestos & Rubber Company plant at Blue Island, Illinois

Court cases

2 court decisions in our case-law library name Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.) as a defendant, newest first.

• Betts v. Manville Personal Injury Trust (1992)
• Lowe v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1985)

In our library

8 documents in our library name Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.), by collection.

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.), OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Union Asbestos & Rubber Company · UNARCO · Union Asbestos & Rubber.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Unarco (Union Asbestos & Rubber Co.), across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.