Work conditions in the US industry remained largely unchanged from1930 to the late 1960s. Basil Whipple began work at the Ruberoid plant inErie, Pennsylvania, in 1935. For twenty years he was employed on a paper drying machine before moving into the mill board department. Ruberoid bought scrap gaskets from various suppliers, which Whipple would feed into a speed hammer mill. The mill ground the waste into a powder to which new asbestos would be added. The old gaskets came in burlapssacks as did the asbestos, which was purchased from Johns-Manville andthe Ruberoid subsidiary Vermont Asbestos.
The beating room and the trimming machines were in a single building, but the grinder created somuch dust that Whipple was forced to close the door when the machine was operating. There were no warning labels on the asbestos bags, no ventilation fans, and no warning signs in the mill. The union complainedto the management about the dust, but Ruberoid always said it wash armless: ‘Nobody was scared of asbestos then’, Whipple later recalled:‘They didn’t understand it. Hugh Jackson spent his career working for Johns-Manville mostly inplant safety.
From 1952 to 1960 he was manager of the Industrial Health section and he reported directly to Dr Kenneth Smith, the corporation’s medical director. Jackson often visited the Waukegan factory in Illinois, where within a single complex Johns-Manville manufactured thermalinsulation, textiles, paper, mill board, and sheet materials. It also made pipe coverings, shingles, and flat boards. During the manufacture of shingles, asbestos, cement, and silica were combined into slurry, then pressed, dried, and cut into sections. According to Jackson, many of the jobs at Waukegan were dusty. The asbestos would arrive in 100 lb burlap bags, which along with the silica would be dumped by hand into the machines. There was no proper ventilation and the men would breathe in fiber. That pattern was repeated at numerous factories throughout the US. Asbestos dust scattered well beyond the factory gates. The streets around T&N’s Roberts’ plant in Leeds were awash with fibre and in the words of one resident: ‘It was as though we were practically eating dust. I rememberdust and fiber all around the streets near the factory. You could see thedust in the air. I have seen it blow around like a snowstorm. In addition, workers brought dust home on their clothes.
A physician who worked for an American manufacturer described that problem in the following way: ‘Once asbestos gets into the home, carried home by the workmen, it is there virtually permanently—it gets into the rugs, into the carpets, it gets suspended by movement and actually you are getting 24 hour/day exposure. Most American, British, and French workers who came into contact with asbestos did not work in the primary industry, but were employedat oil refineries, shipyards, on building sites or in auto-repair shops. Inaddition to their exposure to a known hazard they shared a lack of knowledge about the dangers they faced.
The actor Steve McQueen, who died from mesothelioma at the age of 50, and who is said to have worked in shipyards and for a time in a brake-repair shop, is typical of the casualties. The US market for drum brake linings was dominated by Raybestos-Manhattan Inc. Its brake and clutch pads were marketed under the brand names Raybestos and Grey-Rock and sold to automotive warehouses, distributors and jobbers, car dealers, and repair shops. Raybestos also sold direct to ‘do-it-yourself’ car owners. Most drum linings were by weight between a third and three-quarters pure asbestos. Disc pads also contained chrysotile. According to the Asbestos Information Association, by 1972 worldwide over 300 million motor vehicles used asbestos-based brake linings. In that year in the US alone, more than 50,000 tonnes of asbestos was used in their manufacture.
As one manager of an auto-repair shopcommented in 1975: ‘Almost everything that moves uses some form ofasbestos friction material. All repair shops followed much the same procedures. After removing the wheel and brake drum, the brakes were usually cleaned out by compressed air or brushed by hand. Often the new linings were drilled, ground, and the SEC wanted to avoid the spectacle of a pandemic of ARDs in such asmall community. Today the town of Yallourn no longer exists.