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Semiconductor Employees Suing IBM
An anonymous reader writes "According to the NYTimes's Bob Herbert, IBM has been killing its employees by exposure to dangerous chemicals - evidence is being offered by stricken employees that unusually
large numbers of men and women who worked for the giant computer corporation over
the past few decades have been dying prematurely."
Whe I worked as a software Engineer for a small manufacturing company, many of the Electrical Engineers had many many problems relating to exposure to chemicals.
One had an enlarged liver, another had a nerveous dis-order. There was cancer. I think it stems from an over all lack of knowledge of hazordous chemicals.
When I worked there OSHA (Sp.?) had done a lot to make things better. A LOT of chemicals where removed and cleaned up. I was still nerveous about standing next to a pot of molten solder, etc.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Despite that, I think the employees have a fairly good point. Even if IBM didn't know about the toxic conditions, it was IBM who put the employees there, and they should likely have to deal with the consequences. Its really sad that it had to turn out this way.
Original found on Usenet.
okra - sterculic acid (anti-metabolite)
celery - psoralins (light-stimulated carcinogens)
crucifers - goitrin (turns off your thyroid)
litchee - hypoglycin-A (L-a-amino-b-[methylene
cyclopropyl]propionic acid)
peanuts - aflatoxcins (fungal metabolites; hepatic carcinogens)
lima beans - cyanogenic glycosides
carrots - carotatoxin (neurotxin)
mushrooms - hydrazines (carcinogen; holy Alar, Batman!)
tomatoes - tomatine (neurotoxin), quercetin glycosides (carcinogens)
broccoli - benzpyrene (carcinogin), goitrin (shuts down thyroid)
potatoes - solanine (toxin; causes spina bifida), chaconine
(neutrotoxin), isoflavones (estrogens), arsenic
cassava - linamarin (cyanogenic glycoside)
broad bean - vicine (hemolytic)
chick pea - beta-N-oxalylamino-L-alanine (lathyrogenic factor)
fiddlehead - ptaquiloside (leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, hemolysis;
bladder and intestinal carcinogen)
comfrey - pyrrolizidine alkaloids (hepatotoxin)
cabbage - thiocyanates (shuts down thyroid)
spinach - phytanic acid (chelates iron adn zinc - no absorption)
soy - genistin, daidzin, coumesterol (phytoestrogens)
wheat germ - phytoestrogens
nutmeg - myristicin (hallucinogen, spasmodic)
mustard - allyl isothiocyanate (war gas)
alfalfa sprouts - canavanine (arginine mimic; highly toxic to growing
mammals)
"statistical analyses", "troubling elevations", "younger than the U.S. average", "chilling", "sadly", "Incredibly", "More than 200 plaintiffs", "serious illnesses", "vehemently denied"
Phew, with all those emotive phrases, I'm finding that I have strong opinions on this, despite not having access to the data behind the complaint, and not seeing the phrase "standard deviations" appearing once. I guess because IBM are a big company, they must be evil and therefore guilty, except that they're being sued by SCO, so perhaps they're good and therefore innocent.
One thing's for sure though, I'm not going to wait for them to muddy this with boring old "facts" before jumping to my conclusion.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And the "can't happen to me" and "just a little won't hurt" mentalities build up too. When I was in high school I had a job cleaning environmental air samplers. I don't want to think about how much hexane I inhaled in those 4 years. I finally jury-rigged a vent hood out of a cardboard box and a box fan.
No health problems yet (10 years later) but I'll always wonder...
They use the same stuff as everyone else. To tell you the truth though, having WORKED in semiconductors, you are exposed to a lot more nasty stuff in an auto-body shop. That's not to say a lot of the chemicals aren't nasty, but it's generally in a controlled environment. You can't just slop chemicals around and expect to etch circuitry a few angstroms wide.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I survived Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma myself. Doctors do not yet know what causes this disease. They only have a list of 7 possible causes, only one of which is hazardous chemicals.
And in my case, that was one cause that was totally eliminated, due to lack of exposure.
One the other causes listed was STRESS!
Ages younger than the US average - try 36 for me. But how about sitting next to a kid in the waiting room, who at 17 was one his second go round for cancer?
This sounds more like lawyers trolling for dollars again.
Hydrogen Fluoride supposedly passes right through your skin and attacks your bones. He had an interesting trip to the emergency room.
Semiconductor work involves some severely toxic chemicals - arsenic is used both as a dopant and a substrate, for example. Imagine an accidental release of a cloud of it from a CVD process.
While semiconductor work can be especially dangerous, I've heard that chemical engineers in general have low life expectancies because of constant exposure to toxic materials (a good reason to work in software).
Things may be improving. We had lots of benzene around the chemistry lab in high school, for example, but now I understand that benzene is completely banned because it was proved carcinogenic.
Hard to undo 20 years of exposure, though.
I hate to be a gomer here, but in this case I would still think it's the managers' fault - managers are responsible for enforcing workplace policies, whether it's 'get your job done' or 'follow the safety procedures'. If someone's not following safety procedures, they should be reprimanded or fired because they are posing a liability to themselves and others. Ultimately, management is responsible for everything that goes on in a workplace.
OTOH, I am not a sue-happy type person - I think most of the product liability suits these days should be thrown out of court. I think this case may be an exception, however, since it involves safety in the workplace. The real questions, I think, are:
1. Is there actual medical data to back up these claims? Is there some sort of proof that these people became sick (or sicker than they would have become) as a result of working at IBM?
2. When did IBM know about the hazards and what did they do to mitigate the hazards once they knew?
(I think there is still a certain amount of liability even if they didn't know, but I think punitive damages should only be sought if they knew and did nothing to mitigate the damage. Either way, if there is proof that something at IBM caused the medical problems, they should at least be liable for the medical bills.)
Disclaimer: IANAL, but...
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I guess this is what happens when IBM tries to overclock humans.. halfs their lifetimes..
-- Jim
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
Companies that provided chemicals to I.B.M. are also defendants in the suits. The workers were not told of the risks, according to the lawsuits, even after they began showing symptoms of systemic chemical poisoning.
This show's they are after money, and not information. IBM bought these chemicals.... why is it the fault of the company that sold them to them?
I wonder how many of these people expose themselfs to other type of hazardous materials such as tobacco products, alcohol and automobiles?
For a year as a contractor in the late eighties. There was always a nasty stink of fumes around the entire plant. It would hit you as you drove up to the place.
I didn't work in a clean room, although I spent my 12 months there slicing silicon wafers and then bathing them in a solvent (do not remember exactly what it was) that dissolved the bond between each wafer and a strip of caulk. The protection I was given was for my eyes (goggles) and hands (rubber gloves).
I do remember that my lungs would burn after shifts, particularly by the end of the week. I don't have cancer, yet, but I do have diminished lung capacity and chronic bronchitus now. Are they fallout from my stint at IBM? Possibly. Doctors always ask me if I smoke (never have) when they give me lung capacity tests and get back these crappy results.
Do I suspect I was taken advantage of? Again, possibly, but you need to understand that at the time it was a big deal to get any job at IBM in Duchess county. Seven dollars an hour was considered a king's ransom since just about all the other work available was for minimum wage. All of the contractors I worked with applied to become full-time employees, and a "lucky" few were accepted when their temp stints ran out. Hopefully, since I wasn't one of the "lucky" ones, I'll be one of the truly lucky ones that doesn't develop a serious illness from my time spent there.
Overall I'm a little worried but as I said, I don't have cancer yet and I take care of my health. I feel bad for my co-workers who are very sick now or who have died. There were a lot of good people working there and I think IBM is no different than any other large corporation in the borderline craven way they put profits above all other considerations.
Be careful out there, is all I can say.
Justice does not stop there. Since we require American companies like IBM to abide by stringent environmental and work regulations that protect both the environment and American workers, we must also require foreign companies like Acer from Taiwan province (located in China) to abide by the same stringent environmental and work regulations. Otherwise, IBM will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies like Acer. Acer products are cheaper than IBM products simply because Acer does not pay the cost of protecting the environment or the employees.
At the same time, non-Westerners like the Koreans and the Chinese simply do the care about the environment or the health of employees. Please read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. All the Taiwanese and Korean companies received a failing grade on the issue of poisoning both the environment and their workers.
How can Westerners force non-Westerners like the Taiwanese and Koreans to enact and to enforce the same stringent environmental and work regulations that Westerners apply to Western companies like IBM? Simple. We boycott products made by Taiwanese or Korean companies. Please remember that when you buy products make in a particular country, you effectively support the value system in that country. Do not buy products made in either China or Korea.
If you have qualms about this boycott, please re-read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.