So my employer sends me out for a little office remodel that included a breif visit to the attic, yippee. A real old building, ya know. The main area of the remodel is a couple of bathrooms and when I walk in I spy a couple of feet of broken up pipe insulation. Hmm that looks like asbestos. So I climb up into the crawl space where a couple of laborers are pulling out old duct work and climb back in a ways to find the conduits I’ve got to pull out and I see the laborers have knocked off the insulation just about every where they have tromped up there.
The building is owned by the GC and the architect whose office they are remodeling. I mention to the GC’s foreman that it looks like they’d busted up the old asbestos insulation pretty good and he tells me “that stuff can’t hurt ya!”
I go ahead and finish up my part of this, during one of my trips down to the truck I return to find the architect stuffing the pieces of insulation that were on the floor into a garbage sack.
I return to the shop and knowing that there are a couple of more attic crawls involved I tell my boss about the asbestos[ I took a small piece and put it a bag and had an inspector identify it just so they wouldn’t think I was blowing smoke from some designated orifice]. I also tell him that I wouldn’t be doing anymore attic work until there was an abatement.
Today he sends one of my co-workers over there to do some more work including more time in the attic. He calls me to ask a couple of questions about what I had done and I realize he knows nothing about the asbestos. The floor of this office is shared by about thirty people, including a suite of lawyers and I’m in a bit of a quandary about whether I should do something further, though I did tell my co-worker. He dragged up and headed home, real pissy.
Replies
Pye, I am not sure if you are looking for advice or support. What I can offer is this the GC and your boss are no where near meeting the OSHA standard for asbestos, if you are interested it is CFR 1926.1101. Right now with his actions the very least he would be looking at is a 7,000 dollar fine and a complete shutdown of the job and a very expensive abatement. What he would actually face would be more like a 70,000 dollar fine a job shut down a expensive abatement and OSHA visits to his sites for years to come. And this is just for the asbestos this has nothing to do with any other violations that I am sure are there. Your boss because he is working on the job site would also get hit with a large fine and the same treatment. Aside from all that you should be aware that the problem with asbestos is that it takes 10, 20, or more years for the damage to happen to a persons lungs. There is no cure and it does not take a lot of exposure. If you want to look at the standard or make a complaint to OSHA go to http://www.osha.gov. Hope this helps or at least points you in some direction.
Thanks for the info...I cannot make the decision for everyone being exposed without their knowledge, this sight needs to be inspected and an abatement needs to happen. my employer can either be on the boat or watch it sail away. Thanks again.
Edited 2/23/2005 4:50 pm ET by pye
Wow. Exposing a suite of lawyers to asbestos. You should tell the GC that that's not a good idea. Interesting story.
Hi everyone,
You might think that you're protecting yourself from asbestos by wearing a respirator while you're in the attic, but it will also get into your skin, hair, and clothes.
Who washes your clothes? You or your wife? Or your kids? You'll be exposing them to asbestos too. Wives of asbestos workers have a higher incidence of ovarian cancer.
Asbestos can also cause a type of wart where a fiber or fibers are rubbed into the skin, like the elastic cuff of a jacket on a wrist.
Anyway, stand your ground. It's your health. And I'm sure people are depending on you to be healthy for years to come.
May not be your fight, but if you or your coworkers go back, at least wear a respirator while working.