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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."
I've been dying to get one as just as long as you've been dying to make them!
8==8 Bones 8==8
As usual....Same article without registration
and I was always jealous of everyone with an "IBM" job. .
at least working in the pr0n industry I'll only go blind. .
I know you are trolling, but I doubt that would matter in this case. The families of the victims would receive the compensation (as they would still have to assume the debt due to the high cost of medical bills, funeral arrangements, etc)
Does anyone know of exposure to harmful substances in other companies that do similar manufacturing? I mean, surely, IBM does not have dramatically different methods of manufacturing hard drives and semiconductors from the rest of the industry.
after all, semiconductor industry isn't _that_ old (few _decades_) and generally usage of chemicals a few decades ago wasn't often so well thought and their long term effects weren't usually that well laid out in ANY industry. and even more common is that employees in those old times didn't care themselfs at all about protection("what, i can't see it it cant hurt me don't tell me boy how to do this i've been doing this for 30 years") and general awareness about such things wasn't exactly stellar.
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
I went to news.google.com to search for the google partner link, but "IBM lawsuit" turned up all this shit about some company called SCO. Who are they, anyway? They say they've got some sort of Unix, but I've never seen or even heard of anyone who runs it.
Must be some two-bit company...wonder why they're getting so much press.
Please help metamoderate.
A) Can't always stop it.
B) Powerful solvents are rarely good for you. Same for heavy metals.
C) Not everyone read MSDS like they should.
D) Proper saftey gear can be very uncomfortable and unwieldy, esspecially if it's fitted correctly. (I fog up goggles like you can't believe, even when I put anti-fog crap in them.)
E) Stress can accelerate cancer.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
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)
Typical chemicals used back then as far as I can remember (unless my memory was affected) were; hydrofloric acid (maybe mixed with nitric acid so you would know if it splashed on you), arsenic and phosgene used as dopants, various solvents mostly zylene which is a known carcinogen (but you can buy it at Home Depot so it must be safe for you), acetone, and silane (methane with Si instead of C) which burns on contact with air to make silicon dioxide (glass).
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
C) Not everyone read MSDS like they should.
I don't think MSDS rules existed in the time period they're talking about (mid-60's to late 70's).
Mandatory access to MSDS is relatively recent. A quick web search indicates that the OSHA "Hazard Communication" law came into effect in 1983.
"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.
How long before IBM shuts down all their manufacturing plants and moves them to places where such employee problems aren't IBM's problem?
Now, if you can show me a few hundred people with the SAME ailment, you might have something. But this suit is fishing with a gill net.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is statistical hogwash. You can't take a sample like "all IBM employees" and compare it to "all the people in the United States." Analysis needs to be tuned to a population that has a similar demographic. Age, geography, economic background, pollution, family history, smoking, and even diet affect cancer rates tremendously.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Yeah, that works for swim goggles for me, but not my lab goggles. It was a problem in college when I had to use HF. That always made me a just little nervous. (I'm also kinda clumsy) It is surprising how blasie one can become around horrible chemicals. HF was the only one that kept making me nervous.
But I've gotta imagine if I somehow managed to shatter a jug of 1 Ph HCl it wouldn't take long for the fumes to mess me up. I always tried to closely follow standards, but even at a university, there were rules, and practices. It wasn't uncommon to see unlabled beakers with a sign that just said don't touch, and some illegible initials. I can't imagine what the standards might fall to in an enviroment where everyone knows each other, and many have been doing this for decade+ after they got comfortable with "Don't Touch" and "Mine".
I don't even know if Osha can solve stuff like that. No one hated Osha more than the insturment makers. They had giant posters ridiculing osha policies (the Osha version of a Cowboy comes to mind). They knew what they were doing, and like the way they did it. (It's worth noting these guys weren't shop teachers. They'd been doing it more, better, longer, and had all their fingers.)
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
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...
Could it be the workers fault ?? I know here where i work many safty procedures are in place, including masks for some substances but rarely do I see people using them.
All the time I see people breathing fumes, will they one day turn around and sue ?? Probably. People are trained, equipment is offered free, people ignore the rules, people sue.
We want faster processors and more memory at all costs. If there's an environmental or human toll caused by getting a new CPU and video card every year so I can play the k00lest new gamez, then I say screw 'em :P
Go into hardware, die from nasty production chemicals
Go into software, die from a Doritos or Mountain Dew overdose.
Either way, you're screwed
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
White mice exposed to flourscent lights die.
"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.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF- 8&oe=UTF-8&q=spit+goggles
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
"When I worked there OSHA (Sp.?) had done a lot to make things better."
You know you're on Slashdot when someone is unsure of the spelling of "OSHA".
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
After all, aren't ALL employees 'semiconductors'? My boss got across the 220VAC line once and didn't completely short it. The affect on *his* shorts was undesirable...
-- Don't call me "Sir," I increase entropy for a living!
Although this kind of threat to workers' health is an outrage, in the real world, companies just move overseas when the US cracks down with safety/anti-pollution regulations or if the lawsuits start to pile up. Instead of fixing the problem, it is much cheaper to just move overseas and keep on doing what they have always been doing. There is practically *ZERO* enforcement of workplace safety regulations, environmental pollution regulations, and workers rights in China. The right to sue your employer in China only exists on paper and there are no independent labor unions.
What is needed here is both strict safety regulation and a ban or heavy tariff on goods from countries that do not enforce a basic level of similar reguations. This will force IBM and others to clean up their act and prevent them from just transfering the plants overseas.
I guess this is what happens when IBM tries to overclock humans.. halfs their lifetimes..
-- Jim
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
What is needed here is both strict safety regulation and a ban or heavy tariff on goods from countries that do not enforce a basic level of similar reguations. This will force IBM and others to clean up their act and prevent them from just transfering the plants overseas.
Mod parent up.
It should not be possible to reduce manufacturing costs by offshoring in order to skirt basic workplace safety, child labor, or environmental regulations.
I can't speak to the merits of the case either way, but for some perspective it might be helpful to note that this is an OP-ED piece, and not a news story, from the NY Times. So although everything stated in the article may in fact be plain vanilla truth, your usual spin filters should be engaged.
At that time, the long-term dangers of those chemicals were not appreciated. However, can they clearly pin it on the IBM process lines? How about the Reynold's plant, auto body shops, plating factories, and the rest fo the crap that was being dumped into the Silicon Valley air, dirt and water?
The chemicals get into these "victims" by breathing in the fabs. Chemical spills also are another common way.
As for environmental suits. These are really just coveralls for "high tech" workers made of a thin nylon. The "bunny suits" are meant to prevent things like hair and flakes of skin floating around in the air. People are the single biggest source for particlulate contamination in any fab.
The "bunny suits" protect the wafers from the people, they are not meant to protect the workers from hazards in the workplace. Many fabs prefer workers to wear synthetic fibre clothes because cotton clothes shed fibers like you would not believe. Don't wear perfume, hairspray, make-up, cough, sneeze, tear paper, use non-clean room paper, use pencils, chew gum, etc., ect., in a fab.
Put on in order: gloves, hair net, shoe covers, (enter the changing room) hood, coveralls (and don't let the coveralls touch the floor as you put them on), booties over the shoe covers, a second pair of gloves, step on a sticky mat, pass through an air lock and air shower to blow off any particles, and your in the fab. Easy! To leave, just go through the door into the change room. Lots of protocol to get in, simple to get out.
Most new fab designs are highly automated to try and eliminate workers and keep them from contaminating the wafers (one reason anyway).
The questions:
Was the company reasonably able to know the danger and effects of the chemicals within a given environment?
Were the employee's reasonably able to know the danger and effects of the chemicals within a given environment?
I do not agree with lawsuits against companies because we later find that a given environment wasn't as safe as we once thought. If we suddenly find that some specific type of blue paint causes skin conditions after it has been used for twenty years is it reasonable for the employees of the company that manufactured that paint to sue the company when the company itself wasn't aware and wasn't able to be aware of the risks involved. As time goes on we will continue to discover the hazards we place ourselves in. That will not change! Everything that you do involves risk. Get used to it.
I suppose I would only support this type of action if it can be proven that the company intentionally withheld knowledge from its employees and placed them in harms way with their actions. That in my opinion would be a valid case. Monetary reward should be given in the case of dishonestly or reasonable negligence. I say reasonable because if you neglect to protect your building skylight from burglars jumping or even walking on it, I do not feel you should be responsible because it isn't reasonable.
This country has become far to sue happy.
You can disagree with me if you wish but, please be aware that in a few years simple disagreements may be cause for lawsuits.
oops to late. They already are.
A group of IBM fab workers (presumably the same group) made an appearance on NBC's Dateline to discuss this very issue five years ago. Here's a transcript.
When I hired in at a "technology company" on Day One they gave us the HF safety talk.
Not only does HF pass through your skin and attack the bones, you don't even feel it (other than as a wet spot) until it reaches the bones. By then you're in a whole lotta trouble, prompt pre-feeling treatment is necessary.
The treatment is to soak/rinse the affected area in a mix of ethanol and water.
They also had the anecdote about a guy who got some on his pants, and exposed a rather large area. He had to sit in a tub of ethanol/water. (which can infuse through the skin) After necessary steps, he was sent home drunk. I presume he wasn't chastised for being drunk on Company Time.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Agreed, but it isn't fair for you to blame IBM for this. Their competitors do it, so if they don't, they go out of business. It really is that simple. Sometimes the government tries to erect tariffs to balance the playing field a bit, but then everybody starts screaming about protectionism and corporate welfare. It's a no-win situation for all involved.
I think a stronger case can be made, though: all of these countries which have weak employee protection laws now will get stronger laws and start having retroactive lawsuits (ala tobacco or asbestos) which will probably cost the companies a lot more down the road than it would cost them to avoid those areas now. And I'll bet they're not factoring that risk into their cost analyses.
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?
If IBM has reaped the profits of business operations that wound up poisoning and killing their employees, why should the employees (or their survivors) not sue for compensation?
Everything that you do involves risk. Apparently for you, this means that the risk is shifted to the employee when things go badly, but stay with the company when things go well (as the company keeps the reward associated with the risk).
2 If it is workplace related exposure, then the people exposed to it should generally come down with the SAME TYPE of cancers/diseases(e.g. radium watch makers all came down with bone tumors, aniline dye workers all came down with bladder cancer) . If someone has esophagous cancer (prob from smoking+drinking) and somebody else has a bone tumor and someone else has brain cancer then these things DON'T ADD UP.
We need to see a GOOD epidemiological investigation before IBM is accused of increasing the cancer risk in it's manufacturing divisions. These things are almost always related to
Selection bias
..........FULL STOP.
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.