Bad News

[Guest guest]

I just got a call that the last Tool Maker I worked with died

yesterday.

A little back ground on this story in the middle 70's I was a Tool

Make working in the Plastic Department. The Co. was trying to come

up with a plastic tough enough to stamp out steel panels in a Die.

We were working with a lot of volatile Chemicals mixing different

plastic's together with out the proper protection. They were mixing

plastics with there bare hands and cleaning them with chemicals to

get it off there hands. We were also cutting and grinding the

plastic without proper venting so there was fiberglass dust in the

air all day long. Here is what happened a lot of the men would get

a bad rash so bad they could not work on the plastic. So the Co.

would put them on sick leave rather then put then to work in a

different department so they only got half there pay. As time went

on one after the other was getting sick we were in the Union and

they got the Co. to make the place safe to work in but it was to

late for us. I worked with 40 guys and 15 Pattern Makers in the

same room. Today except for my self the last Tool Maker died of

cancer yesterday. I never had a health problem in my life until I

worked in this Department. I was a Machine Designer before becoming

a Tool Maker and knew about safety working with Chemicals so I

always put on gloves when working with plastic mixing never let it

get on my hands. I was called a pussy for doing this and now I am

the only one left. I have seen my co-works get sick and be harassed

for it by the Co. then little by little they started dieing from

Brain Tumors, Testis Cancer, Leukemia, Lung Cancer and Colon

Cancer. I was lucky I did everything I could to protect myself

working in this department. But I still got sick I feel my low T

and messed up Immune System is the cause of working in this

Department. And to see the last guy go scares the shit out of me.

Forget about suing them it has been tried by both the men and the

Union and no one can prove that this is why all of the men got sick

and died.

Phil