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."

Comments

Non-Registration Link

[sparkhead]

As usual....Same article without registration

industry problem?

[n0mad6]

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.

Same thing in other companies.

[thbigr]

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.

Weird Quote

[Thomas M Hughes]

"If we'd known all this from the beginning," he said, "we'd never have gone to work for I.B.M. We'd all have become shoe salesmen or something."

This seems like an odd statement to me. I mean, if I had found out that I had gone to school for 4-12 years, and that my chosen field would involve toxic materials, I likely would have said "Hey, can I get some safety equipment to shield me from this stuff? Maybe some gloves and some lead garments?" not "Ah, well...I think its time to go sell women's shoes."

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.

Re:Why

[Kibo]

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.

Holy hyperbole, Statman!

[Rogerborg]

"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.

You know you're on Slashdot when...

[corbettw]

"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".