Asbestos Rains Down on Chilly Delphi Workers, but UAW's in a Deep Freeze

[Omaha Steve]

http://labornotes.org/blogs/2010/02/asbestos-rains-Delphi-UAW-deep-freeze

by Gregg Shotwell | Wed, 02/03/2010 - 4:40pm

The slumlord at the GM-owned Delphi plant in Lockport, New York, turns off the heat every day between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. "Little Hitler," as the general foreman is known, thinks his dial-down saves GM money. Hammering pipes and raining asbestos may ring a different tune on the company cash register, but Little Hitler can’t see the dollars wasted for the pennies he’s counting.

Perhaps the little dictator doesn’t understand the dynamics of heating and cooling despite the fact the Lockport plant has made radiators and heating/cooling systems for a hundred years. The bean counter sure as hell doesn’t understand how to hold tolerance. You have to work with machinery to know what that means.

Health, safety, and worker morale be damned. Little Hitler has a game plan, and the local union officers are too busy protecting their overtime pay to fight for workers’ rights and common sense. Besides, their office is heated. No damn wonder they don’t walk the shop floor.

The shuddering and hammering of steam pipes caused by turning the heat on and off breaks the asbestos wrapping. The asbestos rains down from a height of about 18 feet, scattering invisible asbestos fibers everywhere. Management quarantines the immediate vicinity, but products as well as work areas, tools, and machines are contaminated.

Initially, security guards who don’t even have dust masks are stationed around the hazard scene to warn workers away, but of course vehicles are allowed to drive through, as if motion was protection and what you can’t see won’t hurt you. Who needs a grievance when you have team concept?

Union officers are too concerned about being “competitive” to care about health and safety, let alone the temperate comfort of workers who can’t wear gloves and in some cases even sleeves because of safety regulations and the tactile demands of manual dexterity that production requires.

FULL story at link.

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