Document 2RxmQzw4Bp52zpYJXE6pxQb5R

FILE NAME Painters and Allied Trades PAINT DATE 1979 Sept DOC PAINT030 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Conference Proceedings - International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades THE CATHERWOOD BRARY OF THE < STATE SCHOOL OF AL AND LABOR LATIONS = AT _ UNIVERSITY PROCEEDINGS OF THE Twenty General Convention OF THE International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades September 1979 Chicago Illinois EP: Property of P. CATHERWOOD MARTIN MARTIN MARTIN MARTIN MARTIN 108 . PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION thing a real union with blood and guts dedicated to its members best interests a union ready to stand up and fight for its people That's what you Painters have That's what we Firefighters have That's what we have in the unions of the Public Employee Department of the AFL And that's what we're here to protect and defend to build and to strengthen An America without bona fide unions would be a country without a bona fide system of democracy and none of us wants that Thank you delegates for letting me sound off I wish you great suc- cess in your future activities Thank you very much to introduce our next speaker of the afternoon featured Bill Duval Applause GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT DUVAL Thank you Mr. Chairman Fellow delegates all of you are aware that our Brotherhood has no higher priority at this Convention than our decade of job safety You see that theme and your hear that theme all around you Our commitment is complete Our goal is clear We're going to see that safe and secure tomorrows are built for everyone that you represent today and for those generations to come that will comprise this great labor organization in years to come Applause GENERAL PRESIDENT RAFTERY Thank you Howie You can rest assured that the Painters will continue to work with the Public Employee Department and the Firefighters and their objectives down through the years and you can assured also of our continued very close personal re- lationship _ Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today Thank you Howie And now it's an extreme pleas- ure for me to introduce to you a man to introduce our next speaker of the afternoon a guy that's very close to me and has done an out- standing job for us on the Executive Board representing the called Seventh District the guys in red out here today - Vice President Duval will come on board We have a friend here today one that 15 years ago joined the faculty of the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Cincinnati Our friend who has risen to be a full professor and associate direc- tor building an experience with environmental health and toxicolo- gy has made an outstanding success as the OSHA Director since President Carter appointed her in 1977 I have no greater privilege than to introduce to you a speaker to whom we owe tremendous gratitude for the help the hope and the money that she has given to our Brotherhood OSHA program Eula Bingham is a Ms. and we're happy and thankful that she is She's the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health We're fortunate to have her professional experience working for us We are greatly honored today INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF to welcome to our convention a friend a charming lady a profes- t sional Dr. Eula Bingham I (Applause ) t t DR BINGHAM Thank you very t much for that kind introduction 10 It's always a pleasure to be with working men and women and it's a pleasure for me to be here and I'm humble that you would ask me to attend this meeting A story told about a man who ' needed heart transplant Before the operation he discussed with his doctor the donor of the new heart that would be placed in his body His doctor gave him a choice He could have the heart of a 25year athlete or the heart of a year reporter or the heart of a year lobbyist who had spent his whole life opposing legis- lation for workers Without hesitation the patient chose the lobbyist's heart Why did you pick that heart Because it has never been used said the patient Laughter and applause For many years unions such as yours have fought for the enact- ment of a law to protect the members from hazards on the job I don't have to tell you that Painters take more than a brush in their hands when they go to work They often take their lives literally into their hands A 1976 study by Dr. Selikoff of New York Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that 84 percent of the painters examined by him suffered some damage to their nervous system His HisHis is a tl y C W S 01 W it W cl 0 re ra 8 nc su ar le ch ot th ye th th las me eri est WC pe FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION and jers / to ople to introduce our next speaker of the afternoon featured Bill Duval lave Applause ) lave tions partat's 1 de- n fide hout ting suc- GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT DUVAL Thank you Mr. Chair- man Fellow delegates all of you are aware that our Brotherhood has no higher priority at this Convention than our decade of job safety You see that theme and your hear that theme all around you Our commitment is complete Our goal is clear We're going to see that safe and secure tomorrows are built sent tions this for everyone that you repre- today and for those generato come that will comprise great labor organization in years to come .AFYou .ters the and jec- and our re- We have a friend here today one that 15 years ago joined the faculty of the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Cincinnati Our friend who has risen to be a full professor and associate direc- tor building an experience with environmental health and toxicology has made an outstanding suc- cess as the OSHA Director since xing President Carter appointed her in 1977 ; e to you easu.a iker I have no greater privilege than to introduce to you a speaker to whom we owe tremendous gratitude for the help the hope and the money that she has given to our Brotherhood OSHA program very outExthe uys Vice ard Eula Bingham is a Ms. and we're happy and thankful that she is She's the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health We're fortunate to have her professional experience working for us We are greatly honored today . INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 109 to welcome to our convention a friend a charming lady a profes- sional Dr. Eula Bingham (Applause ) DR BINGHAM Thank you very much for that kind introduction Other studies have shown that ' the accident rate in your work places is almost five times the na- tional average The Painters are three to five times more likely to develop lung cancer than the general population It's always a pleasure to be with working men and women and it's a pleasure for me to be here and I'm humble that you would ask me to attend this meeting A story is told about a man who The Occupational Safety and Health Act gives OSHA the legal authority to protect workers while clearly replacing the major responsibility for cleaning up the work site on the nation's employers needed a heart transplant Before the operation he discussed with his doctor the donor of the new heart that would be placed in his body His doctor gave him a choice He could have the heart of a 25- has not been easy to im- plement the Occupational Safety and Health Act In spite of the fact that during the past two and a half years OSHA has finally begun to concentrate on the real threat to year athlete or the heart of a year reporter or the heart of a year lobbyist who had spent his whole life opposing legislation for workers Without hesitation the patient chose the lobbyist's heart workers lives and to build the scientific and medical capabilities of the agency there are still those who snip at OSHA charging that it is ineffective costly and really worthless When the Chamber of Commerce Why did you pick that heart Because it has never been used said the patient claimed in a recent article that OSHA had failed to significantly reduce worker injury and illness rates it ignored the fact that over Laughter and applause ) 8 million American workers are now protected from substances For many years unions such as yours have fought for the enact- ment of a law to protect the members from hazards on the job I don't have to tell you that Painters take more than a brush in their hands when they go to work They often take their lives literally into their hands A 1976 study by Dr. Selikoff of New York Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that 84 percent of the painters examined by him suffered some damage to their nervous system ; such as asbestos vinyl chloride arsenic oven emissions and lead These workers have a smaller chance of contracting cancer and other irreversible diseases from these substances than they did 10 years ago . The Chamber article also ignored the fact that a major portion of the increase in work place deaths last year occurred in establish- ments with small numbers of work- ers 10 to 15 workers in these establishments These are the very workplaces . that many business people groups and lobbyists have 110 PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION exempted sought to have | OSHA coverage from intend that workers should have to choose between their jobs and their : Each of the actions taken by lives OSHA to protect workers rights under this administration has supported the principle that workers should control of their destiny and their lives in the workplace OSHA has asked the Supreme Court to review this decision since the Fifth Circuit had ruled the opposite way We hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the Sixth Two years ago we announced a policy to guarantee around pay From that moment when Circuit's opinion extending the right to refuse dangerous work to every state in this nation members of this union or any other worker accompany an OSHA com- pliance officer during a work place inspection they are not to suffer discrimination from their employers in the form of lost wages This is to apply even if the inspection takes several days as it often does in large plants or on construction sites , . Members of this union have been very concerned over adequate medical surveillance of Painters and others whom you represent This is particularly important on con- struction sites where contractors often do not keep medical records for any significant period of time Without good medical records or . records of worker exposures it is Any employer who fails to com- pensate workers for around under this policy is being charged with discrimination under Section 11 of our Act often impossible for the Occupa- tional Safety and Health Adminis- tration or for the National Insti- tutes of Occupational Safety and Health to learn of the relationship between substances and disease It Some employers are still refusing to grant pay and we are using all our available legal tools to protect the workers involved is also difficult for workers to learn : of dangers they may face and the effects of toxic substances Very shortly OSHA will issue Another fundamental right is the right of a worker to refuse to ex- pose himself to a dangerous condition if there is a reasonable belief that the condition could cause death or injury rules covering access to employee exposure records and their medical records This will support our policy that workers have the basic right to know about their exposures in the workplace and the effects of these exposures OSHA went to court to secure this right after several employers tried to punish workers who had refused to face threatening situations The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Whirlpool vs. Marshall upheld OSHA's posi- tion ruling that the Occupational Safety and Health Act does not . The proposal that we issued re- quired employers to preserve records for the duration of a worker's employment plus five years We propose that employers should make these records available upon request to employees or former employees or their designated rep- resentatives INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD 0 Under this proposal consent would be required from the em- ployee before anyone could have records access to his or her medical in order that we can protect , the individual's privacy : We know from experience that some employers knew of adverse reactions to work place chemicals and physical agents and yet they failed to inform the workers By giving workers the right to see rele- identify vant exposure and medical data it will be easier for them to | hazards that may be causing their health problems The educated worker is the strongest possible force for mak- ing changes in the workplace Another step to assert the worker's right to know was taken last summer when OSHA issued a requirement that workers and their representatives shall be given access to the log of injuries and illnesses that's kept by employers S with 10 or more employees Neith- t er the access to the medical rec- E t ords nor accesse to the log requires 1 employers to maintain any more T records so there is no additional r paper work burden that people complain about It is simply a overdue recognition that workers should know C about the conditions affecting your lives is For many years industry and government paid a great deal of attention to safety hazards while virtually ignoring threats to the 7 workers health yet untold thou- sands of workers have died from C diseases caused by exposure to t toxic substances in their work el places ir ignoring tc The tragic irony of ti occupational health was portrayed th FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION com by hts up- ters iny e da und hen intend that workers should have to . choose between their jobs and their lives OSHA has asked the Supreme Court to review this decision since the Fifth Circuit had ruled the opposite way We hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the Sixth Circuit's opinion extending the right to refuse dangerous work to every state in this nation her omace ffer oyhis ion es ion ind ged ion ing all ect Members of this union have been very concerned over adequate medical surveillance of Painters and . others whom you represent This is particularly important on con- struction sites where contractors often do not keep medical records for any significant period of time Without good medical records or records of worker exposures it is often impossible for the Occupational Safety and Health Adminis- Fation or for the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health to learn of the relationship between substances and disease It is also difficult for workers to learn of the dangers they may face and the effects of toxic substances Very shortly OSHA will issue rules covering access to employee he exposure records and their medical ex- records This will support our poldi- icy that workers have the basic ief right to know about their exposures ith in the workplace and the effects of these exposures re The proposal that we issued re- ers quired employers to preserve recad ords for the duration of a worker's employment plus five years We irt propose that employers should 01 make these records available upon si- request to employees or former ial employees or their designated rep- ot resentatives INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 111 Under this proposal consent would be required from the em- ployee before anyone could have access to his or her medical records in order that we can protect the individual's privacy in a recent Associated Press photograph of a chemical plant in Arkansas Outside the plant was a sign that read 374 days since last time accident inside the plant they were producing 245T We know from experience that some employers knew of adverse containing a deadly contaminate . called dioxin problems reactions to work place chemicals The Arkansas Health Depart- and physical agents and yet they ment had found that 13 of 74 em- failed to inform the workers By ployees were suffering from signs giving workers the right to see rele- of dioxin poisioning These employ- vant exposure and medical data it . ees were safe from a physical acci- will be easier for them to identify dent in their environment but were hazards that may be causing their not free from the chemical accident health that occurred The educated worker is the . strongest possible force for mak- changes ing other step in the workplace An- to assert the work- er's right to know was taken last summer when OSHA issued a requirement that workers and their representatives shall be given ac- In order to protect your members working on construction sites from health hazards OSHA's Con- sruction Advisory Committee is . studying the problem of adapting OSHA health standards to this in- dustry cess to the log of injuries and ill- Toxic substances on construction nesses that's kept by employers with 10 or more employees Neith- er the access to the medical rec- ords nor accesse to the log requires employers to maintain any more records so there is no additional paper work burden complain about that people , sites presents different problems than they do in a factory Exposure levels are affected by weather Monitoring records on a single worker may have to be kept by a number of different employers due to the short nature of the work simply It is simply a overdue rec- ognition that workers should know about the conditions affecting your lives There are host of problems that a group of the Advisory Committee will be dealing with and I hope that Frank Burkhardt For many years industry and is going to be working with that government paid a great deal of attention to safety hazards while group to insure that your views are heard virtually ignoring threats to the workers health yet untold thou- sands of workers have died from diseases caused by exposure to toxic substances in their work places : The tragie irony of ignoring occupational health was portrayed Recently OSHA graduated 15 compliance officers who had more than 300 cumulative years experience in construction work These inspectors will be used exclusively to perform inspections of construction work sites and will help insure the safety of your people 112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF P. Perhaps our most significant ac- complishment in terms of its last- ing effect is the New Directions Educational Grants Program Program OSHA has previously devoted a rather pitiful amount of its budget $ million to educating employers and employees This was particular- ly sad since it is apparent that OSHA does not have enough com- pliance officers to do the job that has to be done . The key to improving working conditions on a large scale is to educate workers and employers so that they can recognize and learn to eliminate hazards in their own workplaces ment and the scientific community I am aware that this week you will consider a resolution to estab- lish a Health and Safety Department within your organization I am sure that the delegates will con- sider this issue carefully making the decision that is in the best in- terests of your membership This is certainly not the time to turn back in the struggle to create an American work environment that upholds the dignity and the safety of our nation's workers We must continue to fight those forces which seek to weaken the law through small business exemptions to let you know that was listening vary carefully Doctor and I know that all of our delegates join with me in thanking you for your consideration for our workers Applause I also want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be here today and I want to assure you as you have re- quested that Frank Burkhardt has already been assigned to serve as an advisor on your Committee I don't have enough for him to do so I'm assigning him to your Com- mittee Applause) go oli LC Cl . in in C . W -- co CO Last September we awarded 6.4 We must continue to fight those A lovely lady doing an outstand- 86 million in educational grants to 86 forces which oppose workers rights ing job in health and safety and its organizations including this union to around pay We must con- a friend of our Brotherhood re which received 125,000 You have tinue to fight those forces which And now the Chair would ne used this money well developing oppose workers rights to medical recog- nize for a partial report of the Com- educational materials for Painters removal protection mittee on Resolutions the Chair- R and Glaziers forms for your own I have been man Peter Verkerke Morris Even- BI Job Site Monitoring Corps and continually renewed 1 training sessions for thousands of and inspired by workers such as son the Secretary Frank Perrelli fo a third member of their Committee br 1 1 your members you are Listening to workers de- scribe the dangers in their own Chairman Verkerke of the Res- I would not be surprised if your work places has both saddened me olutions Committee grant were increased this year Applause to think of the suffering and driven me to attempt to do better job COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN VER- R. KERKE Thank you President Raf- In important areas such as the medical and monitoring surveillance program you've developed the willingness to substitute new materials for substances such as asbestos which presents severe problems and training and educational ef- I'm confident that I can count on your continued support in our ef- forts to create a better working environment for your membership Thank you very much Applause ) ; tery Delegates if you'll go into your folder you'll find a pamphlet on Resolutions looks like this indicating GENERAL PRESIDENT RAF- sia forts This union has shown its GENERAL PRESIDENT RAF- TERY Everybody locate it It's concern for the welfare of its mem- , bers TERY Dr. Bingham is not only the top honcho over in the Labor the large pamphlet just entitled Resolutions Innovative steps were taken in 1974 Joint establishing Safety and the National Health Com- mittee This was one of the first Safety and Health Committees to involve labor management govern- Department having to do with health and safety for OSHA but is also a very close friend of ours and when she suggested just a few moments ago that there's a possibility that our grant may be extended and even improved I want V. COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN VER- KERKE Delegates if you'll put is No. 1 on that Resolutions book- let then you can refer back to that later on The first resolution that we're as 162 PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION + B Laughter So this time around I want to introduce a fellow that worked for me in Washington He really cut his teeth back there We brought him on board as my administrative assistant quite a number of years ago He did such an outstanding job that when we had an opportunity to move him up as a Vice President we did that made him the Vice President of the Fifth District Guy Leber who is from Louisville Kentucky He does one hell of an out- standing job on the Board representing the people in the Fifth District He has a bad back and he tells me that he got that bad back by carrying a sack of cement up a hill Now only a guy from Kentucky could put out that kind of bull and try to get away with it . the Chair will recognize Arthur Kowal Chairman and Jerry Dow- ney Secretary (Applause COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN KOWAL Thank you Guy Brothers Raftery SecretaryTreasurer Petersdorf members of the Executive Board it was my pleasure to sit on this Committee I'd like to thank my Committee members for the participation in our Committee meetings and at this time I would like to introduce our Secretary Jerome Downey from San Jose California COMMITTEE SECRETARY DOWNEY Thank you Brother This is a report of your General President's Committee Laughter ) I don't know how he actually screwed up his back but I know a Guy pretty well and I doubt very very much it was walking up hill with a sack of cement The report presented to our 24th General Convention by the General President says early and clearly that we are a Brotherhood built around security provided ; through our collective bargaining agreements and the security and I present to you to present the next Report of Committees Vice President Guy Leber of the Fifth District safety demanded by our fight for healthy workplaces and materials ' It is with that understanding that General President S. Frank Applause ) Raftery sets forth the events during the five years since our 23rd GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT General Convention Your commit- LEBER Contrary to what General tee found that the report makes President Raftery said that is the clear the kinds of problems faced way it happened by our General President and the I have decided however to get out of the jurisdiction of the Stonemasons and let them have all of that work . General Executive Board The five years were a time of continuing runaway in inflation fed by the price gouging of the OPEC nations and the major oil companies on Our first Committee Report will be the Report of the General President's Committee and at this time every form of energy Thus President Raftery explains in the report that all the wage in- : INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PA creases in the world won't mean a tio better life if the buying power of All and led by the price of energy First we need a reasonable growth and expansion in the economy if our Brotherhood's members are to have and the scarcity of energy threatens that Second we depend on a whole host of petrochemical and petrobased products with which to do our and the scarcity of energy threatens that ect tific ter ha~ eve mel atic and to aJ unn or ( Y gasoline Third our members need enough gasoline to get to the jobsite wereever it moves the scarcity of energy threatens that - It is against that backdrop that your committee reviewed the Report of the General President to the 24th General Convention We found it easy reading because of our to 1 The iden ards : asbe lead caus are a fe found it indispensable reading for everyone Brotherhood who arm trair T men Safe and Secure Tomorrows Today For that reason General President Raftery arranged to have this vital trail the lear Eacl capa to 1 knov of o way mem urge that you do so The following are the highlights of the various sections which tell so much about our Brotherhood 20,00 tery right We JOB SAFETY those theYou cannot read the And record of erho = last five years of the Interna- addir - FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 163 the Chair will recognize Arthur creases in the world won't mean a tional Brotherhood of Painters and t to | for t his him e as- ago job inity dent Vice Guy Kenoutepre- Kowal Chairman and Jerry Downey Secretary Applause COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN KOWAL Thank you Guy Brothers Raftery SecretaryTreasurer Petersdorf members of the Executive Board it was my pleasure to sit on this Committee I'd like to thank my Committee members for the participation in our Committee meetings and at better life if the buying power of those wages are always eaten away by inflation And that spiral in in- flation hits triply hard because it is led by the price of energy First we needa reasonable growth and expansion in the economy if our Brotherhood's members are to have jobs the scarcity of energy threatens that Second we depend on a whole host of petrochemical and petro- based products with which to do our and the scarcity of Allied Trades Occupational Safety and Health IBPAT Project without feeling the highly justified pride General President Raf- tery takes in this success story He had to push urge and coordinate every inch of the way to get the members of our contractor associ- ations the Federal Government and numerous other participants to move ahead on what has become a Job Safety and Health Program unmatched in any other industry or occupation Dis- this time I would like to introduce d he back t up our Secretary Jerome Downey from San Jose California COMMITTEE SECRETARY DOWNEY Thank you Brother ucky and This is a report of your General -. President's Committee energy threatens that Third our members need enough gasoline to get to the jobsite wereever it moves the scarcity of energy threatens that It is against that backdrop that your committee reviewed the Re- You have only to think back to our last Convention in Los Angeles to realize how far we have come | Then we were barely beginning to identify the potential health haz- ards of our members in exposure to asbestos silica sand chromates lead benzene and other cancer- The report presented to our 24th port of the General President to causing materials Today not only General Convention by the General the 24th General Convention We are those materials recognized by ually know President says early and clearly that we are a Brotherhood built found it easy reading because of its clear language and attractive a few experts but by a growing army of Job Safety Specialists very around security provided layout But more important we trained within our Brotherhood a hill through our collective bargaining found it indispensable reading for To date 8,000 of our fellow agreements and the security and everyone in our Brotherhood who members have been through the safety demanded by our fight for wants to know who we are how training in what has become one of t the healthy workplaces and materials we are doing and what we need to the most professional visual Vice ~ do to fulfill our goal of Building Fifth It is with that understanding Safe and Secure Tomorrows Today learning projects in the nation that General President S. Frank For reason General President Each member so trained is in turn Raftery sets forth the events dur- Raftery arranged to have this vital capable of taking that word back ing the five years since our 23rd report printed for all our members to the Local Union until that General Convention Your commitDENT and distributed as part of our Sep- knowledge spreads to every corner neral tee found that the report makes tember 1979 Journal If any dele- of our jurisdiction Even now the .s the clear the kinds of problems faced gate to this Convention has not yet way is clear for the number of by our General President and the taken the time to look it members trained to move up to . | General Executive Board The five that over we 20,000 as General President Raf- do The o get years were a time of continuing urge you so following tery makes clear there's a moral ze are the highlights of the various right for every worker everywhere Stone- which all of runaway in inflation fed by the price gouging of the OPEC nations sections tell so much about to know what the job hazards are and major oil companies on our Brotherhood We are committed to removing : the JOB every form of energy SAFETY those dangers from our job sites t will And we are committed as a Broth- re Presi- time Thus President Raftery explains in the report that all the wage in- You cannot read the record of the last five years of the Interna- erhood to keep moving ahead and adding new dimensions to our in- 164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION novative record in the decate of job safety ORGANIZING Organizing is always the lifeblood of our Brotherhood but it has taken on even more urgency in recent years to stop the spreading cancer of the shop openshop and merit contractors Thanks to standing Brotherhood policies including our aggressive organizing of repaint and our program of keeping organizing close to the grass our Brotherhood has been able to with- stand that challenge That has been accomplished across the board with our Special Branches winning 216 of 387 representation elections our public employees voting for IBPAT at a phenomenal 79.6 percent clip and a bevy of other success stories including our cooperation in coordinated organizing drives with the Building and Construction tye Trades Department and other bodies In all financial assistance for our District Councils and Local Unions totaled almost 1,000,000 in the five years since 1974 Today we have reason to hope that we have turned one big corner The 1979 victories over our opponents as we fought to retain DavisBacon prevailing wage rates in federal construction may well signal the turning of the corner in our struggle with opponents who are not just plotting against on a project or two but are now deter- mined to remove free trade unions from the American scene They launched that drive after they beat us on common situs picketing and thought they had us on the run President Raftery makes clear in his report that the best defense is + a good offense and the only way to turn back that challenge is to at- tack first with a vigorous continuing organizing effort throughout our jurisdiction JURISDICTION Typical of our Brotherhood's determination to police and expand our jurisdiction at every turn is our successful 1978 fight to retain 30,000 jobs in pointing and taping of drywall surfaces That challenge could never have been met without the documenting of our case from the submissions made by virtually each and every one of our Local Unions and District Councils throughout the United States and Canada A vigorous policy has also marked our efforts in nuclear coatings in addition the General President's Project Maintenance Agree- ment is another area where we have moved aggressively to protect our jurisdiction General President Raftery reports the need for this tough pos- ture is proven in several of the case histories of our Brotherhood's ef- forts before the Impartial Jurisdictional Disputes Board including its indefensible decision to eliminate the Appeals Board NATIONAL PENSION FUND . No success story in our Brotherhood's history can be told more quickly and more directly than by two simple facts about our IBPAT Union and Industry National Pen- sion Fund Six years ago it was paying about 1.5 million a year to 1,221 pensioners a At the end of June this year it was paying 10.9 million a year to more than 6,500 pensioners INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF P. This fantastic growth accom- panied by exceptionally low ad- ministrative expenses has been + achieved just 12 years since General President Raftery expressed his determination to see a National Pension Fund that would provide the maximum benefit for the maxi- mum number of members in our . ' Brotherhood Today that benefit is helping more than 53,000 mem- bers from 350 enrolled Local Unions and General President Raftery expresses a new determination to move ever higher in both benefits and participation ou to th ur er re st le CANADA The growth of our Brotherhood in Canada is forcefully illustrated in the fact that Canadian member- ship now represents 7 percent of our total membership and increase of a full percentage point just since our 1974 Convention Simi- larly President Raftery reports a strengthening in organization through the formation of the Ca nadian Building and Construction * re Trades Conference among all crafts it and a new conference of business th . agents within our Brotherhood To- m gether these strengthened ties have helped add to our singular election victories in 1979 in turn- ing back a Work law in British Columbia and in solidifying our jurisdiction throughout the 10 provinces al is SPECIAL BRANCHES Nowhere is the need of our pulling together as a team more evident than in the emphasis our entire Brotherhood puts on the Decade of Job Safety as it applies to our Paint Makers and nowhere is the benefit of that cooperation expressed more clearly than in the service the Floorcovers rendered ' ' st 182 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION and that's the way this Interna- tional is run on an time basis Applause This is dress this time I'm indeed an honor to ad- Convention for the first sure I'll have one other Now the first guy that I want to introduce this afternoon may be small in stature but he's a little powerhouse I want you to know about his work in health and safe- ty in the Brotherhood in addition to his regular assignments as my Director of Research for the Brotherhood . . opportunity but it's a particular pleasure because I have the opportunity to introduce to you one of the staunchest supporters of . the American trade labor movement in the United States He's a fellow that our union has had as a member for a number of years He is a Congressman that represents the kind of things that we're all inter- Now since our last Convention as you know Frank was gone a while to serve as Assistant Secre- tary of Labor Being a trade unionist and coming from the ranks he couldn't tolerate some of the things he saw in the Carter Administra- tion and he couldn't tolerate the indifference which was displayed by the White House and the staff at the White House in what it took to put together a program for the working people of this nation Long before Frank resigned I was after him to submit a resignation to Carter and come back to work for ested in Recently he was just elected chairman of a very important subcommittee in the House of Representatives a Committee on Labor Standards and as our General President said many times we're dedicated to labor standards whether they be Davis - Bacon whether they be Health and Safety Minimum Wage they're all standards that are out there to protect the American worker and this next speaker has done that probably better than anybody on re- cord the Brotherhood where he be- e longed so I want to let you know Now Congressman Ed Beard that while I gave him a leave of absence to go to the Labor Depart- ment and work over there to try to benefit all of us Frank found that it was absolutely intolerable and had to leave He was happy to come back with the Brother- hood and I know that you're happy to have him back Local from Providence Rhode Island is a member of 195 and is here today to address our Convention But let me say one other thing I think it's important for those of you around the state around the country who have seen the attacks on Bacon to know that this is the Congressman who held hear- I want to present to you Frank ings on Bacon He held one Burkhardt our search who will speaker for the Director of Represent the next afternoon day of hearings on Bacon the repeal of Davis that is and promptly reported out that Applause there was no need to even enter- tain any more hearings on this DIRECTOR BURKHARDT Thank you very much Bud particular law so he's the guy that's 100 percent solid behind us He's one that's represented our INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAIN before the Congress in many different and different ways support He deserves all he's getting it ofof : Congressmen Ed Beard : Applause CONGRESSMAN BEARD Thank you distinguished Mr. President members of this organization it's a great honor for to be here today Not so long ago in Rhode Island I was an active member of Local Union 195. I've been very honored by the people of the State of Rhode Island to represent them now for well this is the third term for me in the Congress I was also honored by the members of Congress to be the young- est ever elected as the Chairman - of the Labor Committee and I con- sider that a high honor at this point : in time in my career every istra dous every there senti cour istra they W Com that and Bob of y brin wor Y and org labo It's the gre ous Wol Things are very very tough right now in Washington and it's tough ; around the country for all of us 1 * There are a lot of things that are not going the way they should . We hear about appointments and Recently people losing their jobs we heard about the wonderful job the President stated Califano was doing and then within a day or so * he was fired We heard what a great job and - we knew right along that many of your own people in Washington and others that we hear down the line somehow rem are doing good jobs and they slid right out of their jobs +o after being pronounced by the ad ministration as being fit Frank Burkhardt was one of of your own that was said e FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION na- This indeed an honor to ad- S. t to be ttle low afeion my the first dress this Convention for the time I'm sure I'll have one other pleasure opportunity but it's a particular because I have the oppor- tunity to introduce to you one of staunchest the supporters of the American trade labor movement in the United States He's a fellow that our union has had as a mem- ber for a number of years He is a Congressman that represents the kind of things that we're all inter- ested in .on a Recently he was just elected chairman re- of a very important sub- on- committee in the House of Repre- he sentatives a Committee on Labor gs ra- the by at to he ng ter to For Standards and as our General President said many times we're dedicated to labor standards whether they be Dav - Bi acs on whether they be Health and Safety Minimum Wage they're all stan- lards that are out there to protect The American worker and this next speaker has done that probably better than anybody on re- better re- cord eOW of rtry Now Congressman Ed Beard from Providence Rhode Island is a member of Local 195 and is here today to address our Convention nd But let me say one other thing of le Ithink it's important for those you around the state around the country who have seen the attacks on Bacon to know that this is the Congressmwahon held hear- ik ings on Bacon He held one day of hearings on Bacon kt the repeal of Bacon that is and promptly reported out that there was no need to even enter- tain any more hearings on this 7 particular law so he's the guy that's 100 percent solid behind us He's one that's represented our INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 183 view before the Congress in many different ways He deserves all of our support and he's getting it _ Congressmen Ed Beard Applause ) CONGRESSMAN Thank you BEARD everyone I talked to in the admin- istration He was doing a tremendous job He received support from every national labor organization there was in Washington representing millions of people and of course he was fired by the administration so they say one thing and they mean something else Mr. President distinguished members of this organization it's a great honor for me to be here today What we're trying to do in my Committee and this is something that your Union your President and Frank Burkhardt and others Not so long ago in Rhode Island I was an active member of Local Bob Petersdorf and other members of your union have worked for to Union 195. I've been very honored bring good labor standards to the by the people of the State of Rhode Island to represent them now for well this is the third term for me in the Congress mnie working people of this country You know they can talk about and you see the press criticizing organized labor but it's organized I was also honored by the members of Congress to be the youngest ever elected as the Chairman labor that stands in the hallways It's organized labor that goes to the offices of the members of Con- of the Labor Committee and I consider that a high honor at this point in time in my career gress and they fight for the various things that affect men and women working men and women Things are very very tough right now in Washington and it's tough around the country for all of us There are a lot of things that are not going the way they should There are a lot of people in this nation business people that would like to see 2 percent of us and I'm .one of the 2 percent that got elected from the blue collar workers out of the Congress Well it's not going We hear about appointments and to happen as long as there are people losing their jobs Recently we heard about the wonderful job enough people in this country who realize that we do need representa- the President stated Califano was tion in the Congress from average doing and then within a day or so people and I think the people in he was fired this country know we must do We heard what a great job and we knew right along that many of your own people in Washington and others that we hear down the line are doing good jobs and somehow they slid right out of their jobs after being pronounced by the ad- something about it They are getting tired of this administration in some cases the Congress giving . to every Tom Dick and Harry and his uncle beyond the United States at the expense of the people of this country and that's got to stop ministration as being fit Applause) Frank Burkhardt was one one of your own that was said by You know it scares me when the Vice President just recently visited a 184 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERALGENERAL CONVENTION China Every time we go to country there's a commitment of course made and money and I have you a lot of money Now we're hearing all kinds of people all over this country talking about the boat peo- ple coming in We've got to do this and we've got to do that What I say we've got to do is start taking care of Americans first | porate stocks going sky high the expense of the American worker and there is also something else neededin the Congress besides good working conditions and safety standards that my committee can provide We also need to buy American give jobs to Americans make sure that contracts go to Americans We're in America Applause) ( Applause In my short experience in the Congress there's been a vacuum As you know next year is an election year for the Presidency of the United States The greatest labor leader we had in the United Now let me tell you something you may not be aware of I'll tell you something you may not be aware of It was your International that showed up on the Hill when I had hearings on asbestos States Congress is no longer with and related diseases and job safety us Hubert Humphrey is no longer It was yourrepresentative Frank with us But I do know one thing - Burkhardt that showed up and as a Democrat and I'm not testified and brought out the points ashamed or embarrassed to say it of some of these labels on cans of I made my decision months ago toxic chemicals and so on that there's only one man in the entire are ridiculous country that can bring this country back and give labor the push and working people what they need and that's the man from Massa- chusetts Ted Kennedy For example you take paint remover and you'll read that if you take paint remover internally it could be harmful to your health Who in the hell in this audience Applause is going to swallow paint remover And I hope understand Thurs- day that this convention will be voting on a resolution dealing with Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and I really hope that here supports him everyone Carteris on the Titanic and I'm telling you right now he hasn't helped us He's not helping work- ing people He's doing a great job for others around the world but our people are suffering Our people are suffer- ing worrying about shortages of home heating fuel high gasoline prices corporate interests and cor- Laughter That's okay to a child What they should be telling the workers of this country is Wear a certain mask a certain respirator We want labels that make sense we want labels that you don't have to have a chemist to interpret They ought to make sure that every manufacturer and every company makes sure that there's proper equipment and they're being en- forced Don't look at the organized labor unions around the country and in the shipyards and so on Go to the INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAII unorganized unorganized where there's nobody ear thos the thos thing And here's another Here's another thing your union has done with other unions in the along When I sit there in the halls daily in Congress lobbying for benefits for working people they're T the " Wi inv ,, peo you wit carrying members they're for all sometimes workers neglects and to mention the press that When they stand there for Social Security benefits they're for union and non- union When they stand there and my committee has the jurisdiction on minimum wage there's no one here drawing minimum wage You are people involved trying to help those farm workers factory workers in the North textile workers in the South trying to help the little guy Like I said before we don't have a Hubert Humphrey and we certainly don't have a Harry Tru- man but we do have someone that at least gives us some hope gives us some hope down the line that once we can get a President that can work with the Congress and the Congress can start to work for Americans to make sure that the and I c of ha ho gi gr da ye of- to ac ag at h cl young people are taken care of the working class the middle income and also our retirees to make sure that they don't lose benefits Now you know there's talk in a . the Congress about taking the un- Mr employment benefits away from the retirees Very near in the future I A will be testifying to try to make sure that that doesn't happen We can't afford to lose what's been FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION ' a porate stocks going sky high the it expense of the American worker ve and there is also something else ig needed in the Congress besides good is working conditions and safety 0- standards that my committee can 10 provide We also need to buy American is give jobs to Americans make sure that contracts go to Americans We're in America Applause he ec- he or ' ith ger ag 10t it go ire un- ish ed Isa- Now let me tell you something you may not be aware of I'll tell you something you may not be aware of It was your International that showed up on the Hill when I had hearings on asbestos and related diseases and job safety It was your representative Frank Burkhardt that showed up and testified and brought out the points f some of these labels on cans of coxic chemicals and so on that are ridiculous For example you take paint remover and you'll read that if you take paint remover internally it could be harmful to your health Who in the hell in this audience is going to swallow paint remover 1rs- with and iere I'm sn't ork- ers ople ffer- line cor- Laughter That's okay to a child What they should be telling the workers of this country is Wear a certain mask a certain respirator We want labels that make sense we want labels that you don't have to have a chemist to interpret They ought to make sure that every manufacturer and every company makes sure that there's proper equipment and they're being en: forced Don't look at the organized labor unions around the country and in the shipyards and so on Go to the Py INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 185 unorganized where there's nobody to look in Applause earned by our forefathers and those people that worked hard over the years We can't afford to lose those benefits . And here's another thing Here's There is a lot of people I see in another thing your union has done along with other unions in the AFL When I sit there in the halls daily in Congress lobbying for benefits for working people they're not just for 20 million union cardcarrying members they're for all workers sometimes the press neglects to mention that When they stand there for Social Security benefits they're for union and nonunion When they stand there and the Congress every day who say Well you know you're too much involved with working people You're too much involved with old people You have to get in line you know You should be working with the industrialists and this and that Let me tell you I know where I come from I came from the ranks of the blue collar worker and I haven't forgotten that I was a house painter and I'm proud of it - committee has the jurisdiction -on minimum wage there's no one here drawing minimum wage You are people involved trying to help those farm workers factory workers in the North textile workers in the South trying to help the little guy Like I said before we don't have a Hubert Humphrey and we Applause ) And I've talked to a lot of groups I've talked to a lot of groups but this is the proudest day I've had in my career in six years because I'm talking to people of my own persuasions I wanted to come here and I'm honored that I was invited here certainly don't have Harry Tru- man but we do have someone that You people represent my people across the nation My business at least gives us some hope gives us some hope down the line that agent is here Walter Truvy There are some in Rhode Island if they once we can get a President that can work with the Congress and the Congress can start to work for had to work they'd like to see me climbing those ladders Maybe they but if I have to go back I'll will SF Americans to make sure that the be proud of it young people are taken care of [Sideays the working class the middle in- Applause ) Sivaktycre. come and also make sure that benefits a our retirees to they don't lose ; ; But I know one thing There's a helluva lot of guys like me that are in the Congress that are de- Now you know there's talk in termined to do something for our the Congress about taking the un- people and we want to see it done We the employment benefits away from and we want someone to lead this 8 retirees Very near in the future I country : will be testifying to try to make ! sure that that doesn't happen We don't want to be shuffled by can't afford to lose what's been a Mexican President or be looked g 186 PROCEEDINGS oF THE TWENTY.FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION 186 PROCEEDINGS PROCEEDINGS PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL ers like we all these world lead- down , doing people are Saying that the, you've you Some people saying the , Some people The Russians troops troops favor are Cuba Don't worry worry about It's about about time United States stood It's and brought things back stood where they and started started to where looking evacuation thoa f tthasthipoPnennPen-n- Penn- sylvania Avenue you've never never , you've Applause yourself favor yourself working working * favor your people do representatives representatives representatives your peoplesomeone yourself yourself favor someone perfect in some some -no maybe perfect perfect little little cases maybe he isfor little heavy Americans our own people . to be men We just can't afford bepoploiliccee-- We all just can't world We can't afford afford be the charity drive the world but we cannot afford afford cannot cannot afford not to take earned our people We re do when We retirees must assure the retirees when our people spending spending versus domestic foreign Recently I just voted against foreign aid I say to hell with half foreign foreign aid what it costs you my mother that's a retiree and others their dollar Now there's not much else can can say outside of that that I haven't taken care States Government and The United States Government Government gave the and Social Security Security should your half job half the done ternational providing the ternational done sometimes already said and I know some might get upset because I Kennedy maybe a strong plug but I'm tellingtelling you the way it is I'm telling you you way it is have lawyers sorts sorts for the and have tell Don't Say advisors advisors and don't go off handle and say this Kennedy and and I say what's I I Hell three on mind months ago that Kennedy ought to Applause I I said three the the politician months ago I politician that had gguutstsguts thet y'reo say Okay Okay And all getting on the wagon Applause. And I'm going to tell this in more thing too and mouth mouth off closing .I've learned Congress Congress I a a lot ofpeople and Congress with a can can international international international organizations organizations organizations lot lot international in labor the President Presidentfriighnt e doswt n - from fromthe President dealtdealt with and - people very that very proudproud call my- was I very member 195 just one tnhoew stelifonyour international international international organiza- oprgaonirza-- your international band- organiza- Just Just the other day Speaker of of the House was saying that New New delegation delegation would with with Ted Kennedy Kennedy he runs telling telling you right now bea bandwagon bandwagon it's going There will be will president president and hopefully hopefully he will president presidentpresident president the next five the whatever whatever . next five be or Thank Thank Standing ovation ovation Standing ovation.) 4 INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PRESIDENT PRESIDENT RAF. If Kennedy doesn't make want Ed maybe you can make it it. e Ed for coming under ' this trip over here under under Ao personal personal stress wish one everyone here would ww think everyone shouldn't back- backthat you expressing expressing yourself , about really speak on you things should speak speak out on these things sure ' trip back luck. God bless er trip Applause back a MW you Oxy out on that the dais 203 back here here he was rising that 203 high indicating indicating off the deck ti fh speaker speaker heHill way every H0323HG aa Hill He doesn't speech gets H0323HG here to make speech involved as ere today bit emotionally emotionally emotionally involved involved H0323HG as he involved, H0323HG SRe Now the next next thing other Assistant going to conduct other program program conduct the th, program program to people who He He has several think when they have concluded concluded their business business find you are I much better informed informed the aspects aspects pension pension plan plan how aspects aspects informed on all of the th fr fa 89 89 bo bo Th 9 no * eni FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION CONVENTION poker hakeI felt you all of your who with hing some iliar ome- : you and have a few drinks and some people I understand have their own dinners they want to attend Tomorrow morning is an exceptionally important segment of the Brotherhood's business We are going to have a health and safety demonstration for about an hour - and a half or so the first thing in | the morning and then 11:00 o'clock is a special order of business for the nomination and election of of- ficers PROCEEDINGS of the Twentyfourth General Convention of the International Brotherhood of : com- u to you go out and enjoy yourself toout . night careful about it that t for everybodyis in their seats at 9:00 o'clock tomorrow morning that ock 3 recessed The Convention stands until 9:00 in the morning Painters & Allied Trades Chicago Illinois - September 10-14 1979 International Ballroom Conra,Hilton Hotel Chicago Illinois your Whereupon the Convention was here recessed at 5:00 o'clock p.m. to be reconvened at 9:00 o'clock a.m. on Wednesday September 12 1979. THIRD DAY SESSION Wednesday September 12 1979 9:00 o'clock a.m. may their deliberations be blessed with fruitful and enduring accomplishments Help us to effectively direct our efforts toward the main- GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX Convention please be in order Sergeant clear the aisles Everybody rise for the invoca- tenance of a closer relationship be- tween man and his brother We are grateful for Thy bounties of liberty and equality the in- alienable inheritance of all Amer- tion by Rabbi Nathan Weizz icans In a world threatened by RABBI WEIZZ Eternal God Father of all men in the long traditional spirit of fellowship and brotherly love the International of Painters and Allied Brotherhood Trades are assembled at the 24th .General Convention We pray to You to enable the many Conventioneers together with their officers and di- rectors who have come from near and far to reflect clearly and con- serpin. scientiously discord and fear endow the statesmen of the family of nations with foresight and understanding to cope successfully with the crucial problem of our time Enable them to remove the dangerous roadblocks that have been placed in mankind's path Cause all nations to realize than man is his Brother's keeper and thereby hasten the coming of a new golden age on earth crowned with justice and everlasting peace Amen May they be permeated by sincere and wholesome ideals and GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX The Chair recognizes 236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION Frank Burkhardt to conduct the safety presentation DIRECTOR BURKHARDT : Good morning delegates be a brief overview by George : Taylor of the AFL Department of Health and Safety and the last 1 item on our agenda probably the 1 We have this morning what I think is probably one of the most productive demonstrations of work that the Brotherhood has been doing for the last five years most important will be from Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine who really sin- gle handedly kicked off our Decade of Job Safety in the 1974 Conven- tion At the 1974 Convention General President Raftery declared a Dec- ade of Job Safety ; We have been through the first five years of that decade of job safety and I think we have a rec- ord we can all be proud of When General President Raftery started this convention he said conventions are to put together the stewardship accounting for the last five years and that's what we plan to do in this particular film that we pulled together It's a personal pleasure for me to be back working and doing what I think is probably the most rewarding kind of thing we can do for our members and that is improving the workplace and educating our members to the health hazards that exist in the painting trades . The program this morning will consist of the following Let me recapture it for you First of all the activities of the last five -years have been so numerous and so extensive that even I couldn't capture them in a speech in 30 minutes So what we have done is put to- gether an audiovisual presentation that pulls together our efforts and activities in the first half of the decade of job safety and we will see that first The second part of the program will be consideration by this delegation of Resolution GEB estab- lishing a Department of Health and Safety within our Brotherhood The third item on the agenda will In addition we will be laying out a program for the future which is why we come together every five years to account for the past and plan for the future me today I have with some of the people who have been responsible for this first five years of our Dec- ade of Job Safety and I'd like to introduce them to you First of all you heard from Dr. Eula Bingham yesterday She is the one that gives us the money but in the bureaucracy called the Department of Labor it's very important to have someone who believes in your cause and to shepherd your program through to make sure that we get the money we need to edu- cate our members and we have such an individual our contracting officer at the Department of Labor who has been most important in making sure that our program is on target and on time And he is Joe Perzella Joe will you stand up please . Applause Thank you .* INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PA Pa In addition every program needs a Director Somebody has to run it sox Somebody has got to make sure the " reports get in Somebody has got ] fits to make sure the goals are set and met and we have such a person . who's been running and directing ; this program and he is Don Cagle mc Don _ Applause And the three people most re- sponsible for the modules that we put out and our Health and Safety Manuals we put out and also the technicians film you are about to see the three highly competent technicians that we have in the IBPAT OSHA Marilyn program First of all Lar- son the Assistant Project Director Applause And Les Crandell Visual Specialist the Audio- es pr ar es Pl E " Applause And Rod here Rod Wolford who R right R is right ror II Applause li . a Thank you g just I think with that we will have the projectionist roll this little ti piece of film and I think you will h get some idea of what we have been doing for the last five years p F J Whereupon the film presenta- tion was shown to the delegates * The transcript of this film de- V scribing the first 5 years of the Decade of Job Safety and Health will be inserted in the final printing C t of today's Proceedings) The International Brotherhood of S FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION the icod it 10st ork een be a brief overview by George Department Taylor of the AFL Health of and Safety and the last item on our agenda probably the most important will be from Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine who really single handedly kicked off our Decade of Job Safety in the 1974 Conven- tion Raftery Raftery eral When General President Dec- started this convention * conventions are to put together the jojb ob stewardship accounting for the last five years and that's what we plan ec- to do in this particular film that we pulled together me In addition we will be laying out at a program for the future which is re- why we come together every five do years to account for the past and m- plan for the future lu- ; with lu- I the have with me today some of ng sople who have been responsible for this first five years of our Dec- ade of Job Safety and I'd like to ill introduce them to you ' st First of all you heard from Dr. Eula Bingham yesterday She is the nd one that gives us the money but in i't the bureaucracy called the Depart- 30 ment of Labor it's very important to have someone who believes in your cause and to shepherd your 0- program through to make sure that n we get the money we need to edu- id cate our members and we have le such an individual our contracting 11. officer at the Department of Labor who has been most important in n making sure that our program is on target and on time And he is Joe Perzella Jo~ will you stand up d please 11 Applause 4 I Thank you . , INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 237 In addition every program needs a Director Somebody has to run it Somebody has got to make sure the reports get in Somebody has got to make sure the goals are set and met and we have such a person who's been running and directing this program and he is Don Cagle Don Painters and Allied Trades has sought more for workers since 1887 More wages yes and more bene- fits too More job security more training and more for retirement More than butter always more AFL founder Sam Gompers said Applause And the three people most re- it best He wanted he said More And after that Still more sponsible for the modules that we put out and our Health and Safety Manuals we put out and also the film you are about to see are the three highly competent technicians that we have in the IBPAT program First of all Marilyn Lar- IBPAT sought more when it established its Department of Apprenticeship and Training in 1959 and even more in 1967 when it established its National Pension : Plan son the Assistant Project Director In 1974 General President S. Applause Frank Raftery organized the National Joint Safety and Health And Les Crandell the AudioVisual Specialist Committee to look into health and safety problems of painters and allied tradesworkers Applause And Rod Wolford who is right here Rod Applause Like Samuel Gompers President Raftery wanted still more health and more being for IBPAT members more quality of life to enjoy along with the bread- butter Thank you The committee meets twice each I think with that we will just have the projectionist roll this little piece of film and I think you will get some idea of what we have been doing for the last five years Whereupon the film presentation was shown to the delegates The transcript of this film describing the first 5 years of the Decade of Job Safety and Health will be inserted in the final printing of today's Proceedings) The International Brotherhood of year bringing labor management government and scientists together to seek solutions to the complex health and safety problems of the paint trades Through the NJS & HC IBPAT first came to Dr. Irving J. Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York Dr. Selikoff reached into the core of IBPAT membership with scien- ' tific measurements to confirm what some had suspected but none had really known before Many 238 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION just a few many of IBPAT's members suffer effects from ex- posure to substances of the paint and allied trades Many die Selikoff said and more endure needless damage to their health and well- being causing potential of chromates and other paint trade substances The three problems tackled in the first year of the Decade of Job Safety all yielded to IBPAT's at- tack . President Raftery and the Gen- eral Executive Board knew some- thing had to be done fast protect IBPAT's members Drywall taping compounds throughout the United States no longer contain asbestos September 9 1974 the Twenty- Third General Convention President Raftery declares the Decade of Job Safety a stepped attack on the health and safety hazards of the trades Furthermore safe procedures for using any drywall compound were developed although not yet widely practiced Our future efforts must alert more members and more contractors to the protections of these practices March 1975 NJS re- views preliminary results of . Dr. Selikoff's examinations of 600 con- vention delegates Many examined delegates had given up the tools of the trade to toil in administrative and leadership functions of the union Even so rays showed 27.4 percent of painters 28 percent of tapers 22.5 percent of floorcoverers :- and 32.6 percent of sandblasters had lung abnormalities This un- usually large number of abnormal better than four of Sandblasting regulations are stronger now safer products often substitute for silica sand Modern conditioned blasting- hoods increase production while providing the best protection for the blaster The future promises more stringent controls more moni- toring and perhaps even a ban of crystalline silica But whether or not silica is banned IBPAT must be ready to defend the interests of its members examined delegates IBPAT's officers and members When the findings appeared in the Painters & Allied Trades Journal many members wrote to request thorough examinations Chromate and cancer is a big concern because of the large amounts of chromate pigment in green yellow and red paints The NJS researched chromates thoroughly The conclusion chromates cause June 17 1975 NJS devises a plan for study based on Dr. Selikoff's work The committee agrees to a three program to 1 control the asbestos hazard especially in drywall taping compounds 2 develop safe work practices for sandblasters and 3 study the carcinogenic or cancer- cancer IBPAT's efforts led to tougher OSHA standards for chro- mate But hundreds of other sub- stances still need IBPAT's informed attention . members Early in the Decade of Job Safety Dr. Selikoff also examined 1,400 other IBPAT throughout the United States In Toledo 200 th distr . the gove part series in the Painters & Allied Trades Journal in 1976 and 77- Taking the message to the mem- bers All this early activity delivered a _ conclusive bundle of facts A painter's life span is 11 years shorter than the average worker And the risk of cancer is three times : greater No wonder OSHA classifies painting as a high occupa- : tion IBPAT knew it didn't have to be this way No problem on the jobsite is beyond a solution Many would take time and research but for others solutions already existed Educating members and informing the public of the hazards of paint trades became a top priority of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades Presi- dent Raftery and the General Executive Board sought practical ways to deliver this urgent message . October IBPAT submits eet tO to the Occupational Safety and tet Health Administration an unso- Lb licited proposal for education and 8 " training of 25,000 members The wheels of government turn slowly and not until November 1976 more ( ( than a year after submitting the E proposal did President Raftery hear any word FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION T's exint coff ess ell- causing potential of chromates and - other paint trade substances The three problems tackled in the first year of the Decade of Job Safety all yielded to IBPAT's at- tack . en- Drywall taping compounds ne- throughout the United States no -to longer contain asbestos ty- Furthermore safe procedures for si- using any drywall compound were ide developed although not yet widely ick practiced Our future efforts must of alert more members and more con- tractors to the protections of these , practices re- Dr. on- Led ofof ive he 7.4 of ers ers in- ial Sandblasting regulations are stronger now safer products often substitute for silica sand Modern conditioned blastingGoods increase production while oviding the best protection for the blaster The future promises more stringent controls more moni- toring and perhaps even a ban of crystalline silica But whether or not silica is banned IBPAT must be ready to defend the interests of its members . ed rs he az est le- on ee rd . Chromate and cancer is a big concern because of the large amounts of chromate pigment in green yellow and red paints The NJSHC researched chromates thoroughly The conclusion chromates cause cancer IBPAT's efforts led to tougher OSHA standards for chro- mate But hundreds of other sub- stances still need IBPAT's informed attention - Early in the Decade of Job Safety rk Dr. Selikoff also examined 1,400 B other IBPAT members throughout er- the United States In Toledo 200 INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 239 members in St. Louis 750 and in Kansas City 100 members were examined findings The published as In- vestigations of Health Hazards in the Painting Trades and widely distributed throughout IBPAT and the government in a six- part series in the Painters & Allied Trades Journal in 1976 and 77Taking the message to the mem- IBPAT had to compete with nearly 50 other organizations including universities and research groups for the chance to provide education to its own members IBPAT won the contract Why Because IBPAT's concept was better its program more efficient its ability to deliver unparalleledand it would take the message where it was needed to the worker bers March 28 IBPAT receives its first award 143,000 to develop All this early activity delivered a : materials to educate painters and conclusive bundle of facts A allied tradesworkers in the recogni- paint- er's life span is 11 years shorter tion and avoidance of the hazards of their occupations than the average worker And the risk of cancer is three times greater No wonder OSHA classifies painting as a high occupa- : tion IBPAT knew it didn't have to be this way No problem on the IBPAT'S OSH Project is unique among occupational health and safety programs It is unique be- cause it works It works because it uses programmed learning in printed texts and videotape mod- ules . jobsite is beyond a solution Many would take time and research but for others solutions already existed Educating members and informing the public of the hazards of paint trades became a top priority of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades Presi- dent Raftery and the General Ex- Practical tradesworkers identify with the modules because visuals show real jobsites General painters abrasive blasters drywall tapers paint makers and floorcov- erers trade receives specific modules for its own special hazards -and general modules for all trade groups ecutive Board sought practical ways to deliver this urgent message December 1977 OSH Project pilot tests its phase materials for 25 floorcovers in San October IBPAT submits to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration an unso- licited proposal for education and training of 25,000 members The Jose California 50 sandblasters in Houston Texas 75 paint makers in Kansas City Missouri and 90 general painters in Buffalo New . York The bugs are ironed out wheels of government turn slowly and not until November 1976 more than a year after submitting the proposal did President Raftery hear any word IBPAT receives its second OSHA award 200,000 to upgrade existing modules develop new mod- ules and to deliver training in spe- cial nationwide seminars ' 240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION The second award demonstrated OSHA's faith in IBPAT's innova- tion give the training directly to tradesworkers Producing new modules publishing the page IBPAT Health and Safety Education Book and designing the delivery system took the Summer of 1978 In September IBRAT is awarded another OSHA grant for additional special training materials for Glaziers The 50,000 Glaziers program is modeled on the already produced materials which have proven so successful Then September 17th through the 21st at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies IBPAT trains twelve top General Representatives to deliver the message In one rigorous week they are readyGeneral Representatives George Jones and Alphonse Betker First District James Ellenberger and John Waters Second District John Damery and Edward Crowley Third District Ralph Mitchell and Terry Lins Fourth District Herb Beard and James Love Fifth District and David Petersdorf and Robert Brush of the Sixth District The 12 returned home to schedule seminars On October 21 1978 in Sacramento California General Repre- sentative Ralph Mitchell trains the first 40 tradesworkers Eight months and 67 seminars later over 6,000 members to coast- know how to deal with the hazards of the paint and allied trades Some had said IBPAT members were not interested in health and safety Others had predicted they would not turn out for training sessions But even during a winter that saw blocking blizzards all across the midwest and north- east the seminar attendance figures ~ said otherwise Had the seminars succeeded The 6,000 participants thought so one or two short interviews with trainees And so did the press The nationwide training was well publicized- meeting IBPAT's goal to create public awareness and understanding Some instructors were inter- viewed by television reporters for local TV news broadcasts such as this one WHP Reporter's voice Cosponsored by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the national painters union today's session was a new on the job safety program ... designed to teach IBPAT members ways of protecting themselves from harmful effects of toxic chemicals If successful Ellenberger says the program will help the union members and their employers learn how to avoid using the more damaging toxic materials But beyond the accolates the training was paying real dividends At an IBPAT seminar in Texas City Local 585 Business Representative Michael Cook real- ized his members have a serious occupational health problem Ane- mia among Local 585 members is unusually high The OSH Project examined 20 years of Local 585 death certificates and found many early deaths from respiratory and . coronary causes NIOSH Johns INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAI Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and the I ical Mount Sinai School of Medicine are now verifying and evaluating the facts in this situation This in- vestigation would not have hap- pened without IBPAT's serious aga -- it a tio wh concern for the health and safety of its members ten Government agencies the press trade associations medical schools { and other unions are frankly 7 amazed at what IBPAT accom- gra plished in so short a time From IB research to program design tiv and development to deliver in 18 SO months pl m -- The IBPAT Project is a startling measure of what this bi m union can do when it rolls up its sleeves to marshal its energies and ba resources Only five years in the Decade of Job Safety IBPAT has taken a quantum leap forward No other union has trained as many workers in health and safety And in the year ahead IBPAT will train 8,000 more ... the paint trades the last fifty years have seen revolutionary changes in the products of the trade and in the techniques for making and using these products Some of the ingredients in paints have only now been in use long enough for their harmful effects to become visible . " om --, t t I mw prema In May with training seminars in full swing IBPAT developed a new jobsite monitoring surveillance program to protect members round FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION .ed would not turn out for training 7a- sessions But even during a winter to that saw blocking blizzards all across the midwest and north- east the seminar attendance figures said otherwise Had the seminars succeeded The 6,000 participants thought so one or two short interviews with trainees And so did the press The nation- wide training was well publicized meeting IBPAT's goal to create public awareness and understanding Some instructors were interviewed by television reporters for local TV news broadcasts such as this one WHP Reporter's voice Cosponsored by the federal Occu- . pational Safety and Health Admin- istration and the national painters union today's session was a on the job safety program . esigned to teach IBPAT members ways of protecting themselves from harmful effects of toxic chemicals If successful Ellenberger says the program will help the union members and their employers learn how to avoid using the more damaging toxic materials But beyond the accolates the training was paying real dividends At an IBPAT seminar in Texas City Local 585 Business Representative Michael Cook real- ized his members have a serious occupational health problem Ane- mia among Local 585 members is unusually high The OSH Project examined 20 years of Local 585 death certificates and found many early deaths from respiratory and - coronary causes NIOSH Johns INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 241 Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine are now verifying and evaluating the facts in this situation This investigation would not have happened without IBPAT's serious concern for the health and safety of its members Government agencies the press trade associations medical schools and other unions are frankly amazed at what IBPAT accomplished in so short a time From research to program design and development to deliver in 18 months The IBPAT Project is a startling measure of what this union can do when it rolls up its sleeves to marshal its energies and IBPAT's jobsite monitoring medical surveillance program once again first of its kind for any occupational group OSHA regards it as a prototype in the construction and maintenance industries where the lack of standard monitoring and hazard evaluation on temporary worksites concerns many workers i OSHA gave IBPAT an initial 75,000 to develop the new pro- gram As part of the new program IBPAT will train its representatives to identify evaluate and resolve occupational health and safety problems using state monitoring equipment such as combustible gas meters noise dosimeters and this passive monitor badge for sampling organic vapors resources Only five years in the Decade of Job Safety IBPAT has taken a quantum leap forward No other union has trained as many work- ers in health and safety And in the year ahead IBPAT will train ahead , 8,000 more In the paint trades the last fifty years have seen revolutionary changes in the products of the trade and in the techniques for making and using these products Some of the ingredients in paints have only i now been in use long enough for their harmful effects to become visible ... ... In May with training seminars in full swing IBPAT developed a new jobsite monitoring surveil- lance program to protect members round A trained representative records exposure start time on the monitor badge and attaches it near the breathing zone of the tradesworker white face outward At the end of the work day the representative records the end time on the monitor removes the white face and replaces it with a snap cap The monitor is then sealed in its package and ready for analysis in the chemical laboratory The jobsite monitoring corps will also observe workplaces and record findings on specially designed forms These forms along with sampling data worker questionnaires and onsite photographs will be analyzed for hazard evaluation and abate- ment At the same time leading researchers at Johns Hopkins Univer- sity are completing an epidemeologi- 242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION cal study of a nationwide population of painters and allied trades- it points the direction of the future IBPAT its Local Unions and Dis- workers Morbidity and mortality data produced by this study will allow the OSH Project to locate areas of immediate concern in IBPAT's jobsite monitoring ical surveillance activities trict Councils working together gathering and compiling informa- tion on the health and safety of members for their protection . . . fleshing out the skeleton that now exists into a neal live and viable force Information gathered by IBPAT'S jobsite monitoring together . with the morbidity and mortality data from Johns Hopkins will enter IBPAT'S IBM System III computer for processing and print in formats compatible with those of OSHA NIOSH medical schools and trade associations IBPAT's part plan for the future is this complete and accurate labels all paint and allied products 2 thorough testing of products prior to their introduction into the workplace 3 assistance for Local Unions and District Councils to establish their own health and safety programs Also needed for early detection of harmful exposures to the most hazardous and most commonly used substances of the paint and allied and 4 national certification standards for painters and allied tradesworkers and union alike ' trades is a battery of appropriate medical examinations - Current paint trade labels are inadequate The label says only Although current OSHA standards require sponsored medical examinations for workers handling many substances used in the paint and allied trades most IBPAT members do not receive regular medical surveillance cause of the transient mobile ture of their employment be- na- contains -which happens to be a carcinogen Or harmful if swallowed but nothing about the term effects of inhalation and skin absorption Most labels list no methods for controlling exposure to the product engineering controls no administrative pro- cedures and no recommendations for personal protective equipment Employers can't keep permanent medical records for temporary employees But IBPAT keeps perma- nent records for all its members Now IBPAT wants to obtain medical examinations for members and information All this should be on every along with the known consequences of failure to take pre- cautions IBPAT its Local Unions and District working to- gether make this all happen - maintain permanent medical rec- ' ords with the continuity so neces- sary to their usefulness Jobsite monitoring surveillance is a fledging program as we move into the second half of Up until now most health and safety testing of paint trade products is the field testing that happens right in our own workplaces Painters and allied tradesworkers are not guinea pigs our Decade of Job Safety But IBPAT can eliminate many work- INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF P. place hazards through demands for more thorough testing of products prior to their introduction into the workplace by testing many substances on its own . Local Unions and District Coun- cils are growing increasingly con- cerned with job safety and health : But it's a complicated and very technical area Affiliates need the ' scientific educational and informational support of IBPAT They may also need help finding outside funds _ to get their efforts underway res -- ch po OV th its St. Louis District Council 2 is the first IBPAT affiliate to open its own : Health and Safety Department with two time staff DC 2's program : includes a battery of ongoing medical tests and a system of jobsite monitoring modeled on the one designed by the IBPAT Project The OSH Project has also assisted DC 2 in publicizing its health screening program . When IBPAT affiliates negotiate health and safety clauses in collective bargaining agreements and when Local Unions and District Councils want to set health and . safety departments or committees : IBPAT wants to be ready with the - valuable assistance and support . they need m -- k -- Finally IBPAT believes the complexity of health and safety hazards | and the depth of technical knowlst edge required for safe and healthful S work in the demand certifi- cation of painters and allied tradesworkers National certification is an ambitious undertaking But work C conditions death and suffering =: hardships and severe economic im.. pact on productivity and inflation- all of these things challenge our Cs FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION ila- it points the direction of the future .es- IBPAT its Local Unions and Dis- ity trict Councils working together vill gathering and compiling informa- ate tion on the health and safety of in members for their protection .. . ed- fleshing out the skeleton that now exists into a real live and viable force T's her ity ter IBPAT's four plan for the future is this 1 complete and accurate labels on all paint and ter allied products 2 thorough testor- ing of products prior to their intro- of duction into the workplace 3 ind assistance for Local Unions and District Councils to establish their own health and safety programs of and 4 national certification stand- ost ards painters and allied trades- sed workers and union ied alike # te ate . Current paint trade labels are in- adequate The label says only ad- contains -which happens to be a carcinogen Or harm- ers in ost ive bena- al swallowed but nothing about the term effects of inhalation and skin absorption Most labels list no methods for controlling exposure to the product engineering controls ho administrative pro- cedures and no recommendations for personal protective equipment ent All this information should be on every along with the known na- consequences of failure to take pre- cautions IBPAT its Local Unions rs di- and District working to- ind gether make this all happen ftir. ec- Up until now most health and otamirp safety testing of paint trade prod- ucts is the field testing that hap- pens right in our own workplaces Mii ur- Painters and allied tradesworkers as are not guinea pigs of But IBPAT can eliminate many work- INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 243 place hazards through demands for more thorough testing of products prior to their introduction into the workplace by testing many substances on its own Local Unions and District Coun- cils are growing increasingly concerned with job safety and health But it's a complicated and very technical area Affiliates need the scientific educational and informational support of IBPAT They may also need help finding outside funds to get their efforts underway resourcefulness and our energies IBPAT Local Unions and District Councils a team meet this challenge as we have met all important challenges in other areas over the last 92 years Already IBPAT has spent half a million dollars finding solutions to the health and safety problems of ; its members OSHA has matched that expenditure with 470,000 in grants St. Louis District Council 2 is the first IBPAT affiliate to open its own Health and Safety Department with two time staff DC 2's program includes a battery of ongoing medical tests and a system of jobsite monitoring modeled on the one designed by the IBPAT Project The OSH Project has also assisted DC 2 in publicizing its health screening program But this is not enough To get more we must do more And there is a lot more yet to be done What happens five years from now Will the new chemical and mineral substances of the trades ... and the new materials and equip- ment make what we know obsolete Will we return to the task of basic research of each chemical it . kills our members Or will we have When IBPAT affiliates negotiate health and safety clauses in collective bargaining agreements and when Local Unions and District Councils want to set health and safety departments or committees IBPAT wants to be ready with the valuable assistance and support they need a system as capable of handling the new product Y as the old product X IBPAT needs the commitment of Local Unions and District Councils to continue its successes in educa- tion and jobsite monitoring medical surveillance to meet its new goals Finally IBPAT believes the com- plexity of health and safety hazards and the depth of technical knowl- ' edge required for safe and healthful work in the demand certifi- cation of painters and allied trades- workers National certification is an ambitious undertaking But work conditions death and suffering hardships and severe economic im- pact on productivity and inflationall of these things challenge our 1 . Because the second five years of the Decade of Job Safety must see even greater progress As delegates to the 24th General Convention you now hold the keys As you decide the vital and impor- tant issues before you do not for- get beyond butter -fundamental to them all is health and life 244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION Let us continue to break new ground together legitimize our strong and fine foundation . Let us lay the cornerstone and with renewed and vigorous commitment let us begin now to build Safe and Secure Tomorrows Today Applause DIRECTOR BURKHARDT How's that for five years Applause ) I think there's one other individual that's done a lot We mentioned in this film that the future lies in the local unions and district coun- cils They're going to take the knowledge and the information that we've put together in this first half and turn in programs of their own I think it's noteworthy as you noticedin that particular film that St. District Council and Ray Raftery particular has put to- gether such a program and he has with him here today the young lady a registered nurse that pulled all that together and she's sitting right down here with the delegation Virginia Lepping medical surveillance program and we think in the labor movement and especially in our union that we can deliver that kind of pro- gram and if the nonunion sector can't well I think we've got an edge up on them I believe now the chair will call the Law Committee GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX The Chair recognizes the Chairman of the Law Committee Harold Rohr COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ROHR The resolutions that we will discuss this morning will start in Pamphlet No. 3. Everybody got Pamphlet No. ? Page six GEB Resolution is grouped with Resolution 33 and that will be foundin Pamphlet No. 1 page nine a We will be reporting on GEB Resolution No. 11 RESOLUTION No. GEB ^' SUBJECT Establishment IBPAT Department of and Safety of an Health Applause All right You can see that we've got a lot do in the next five years The certification of workers the idea that we have that all workers should be certified that they're one trained to handle the equipment knowledgeable about how to use the materials and how to pro- tect themselves and secondly that they have an ongoing continuous WHEREAS one of the objects of this Brotherhood is to secure im- proved working conditions for our members and . WHEREAS two recent studies place the paint and allied trades in the top five of trades at risk to cancer and WHEREAS lost time and injury for all painters and allied trades INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PA workers is nearly double the average lost days for all other private business and _ WHEREAS the chemicals used the Industry have changed dras- tically and will continue to change in years to come and * WHEREAS 252 chemicals cur- I an * tig the to est He an ne lems for painters and allied trades an workers and WHEREAS current investiga- tions show the need to examine gl diagnose protect and inform mem- bers concerning these hazards ec therefore IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED that this Brotherhood establish a re Department of Health and Safety to accomplish the following bi 1. To investigate the causes of unhealthy and unsafe working go conditions C 2. To encourage examinations of members personal health and the conditions of work site t 3. To promote education of members on the causes of accidents and illnesses how to protect themselves and 4. To assist Local Union and d District Council Health and Safety Programs The Committee feels that at the last convention the delegates strongly endorsed the principle of the National Health Act and noth- ing has been accomplished in this area FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION .ew Our - Let ith nt ind medical surveillance program and we think in the labor movement and especially in our union that we can deliver that kind of program and if the nonunion sector can't well I think we've got an edge up on them T I believe now the chair will call the Law Committee GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX The Chair recognizes the Chairman of the Law Commit- tee Harold Rohr ned in un- the hat alf wn yol hat lay tohas ing led ing ga- COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ROHR The resolutions that we will discuss this morning will start in Pamphlet No. 3. Everybody got Pamphlet No. ? Page six GEB Resolution is grouped with Resolution 33 and that will be found in Pamphlet No. 1 page nine We will be reporting on GEB Resolution No. 11 . RESOLUTION No. GEB SUBJECT Establishment IBPAT Department of and Safety of an Health I've five ers rk- re lip- ' to ro- hat ous WHEREAS one of the objects of this Brotherhood is to secure im- proved working conditions for our members and WHEREAS two recent studies place the paint and allied trades in the top five of trades at risk to cancer and . tg WHEREAloS st time and injury for all painters and allied trades ! a INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 245 workers is nearly double the average lost days for all other private business and WHEREAS the chemicals used in the Industry have changed drastically and will continue to change in years to come and WHEREAS 252 chemicals currently used in the paint trades are documented to cause health problems for painters and allied trades workers and WHEREAS current investigations show the need to examine diagnose protect and inform members concerning these hazards therefore IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED that this Brotherhood establish a Department of Health and Safety to accomplish the following | 1. To investigate the causes of unhealthy and unsafe working conditions Recent studies show that Painters and Allied Trades have seriously -serious safety problems Investigation of various chemicals and their effects point out that we need to take the bull by the horns and establish our own Department of Health and Safety for the good and welfare of all our members This resolution points out the need and sets up the machinery and goals to achieve this purpose By setting out these proposals the Brotherhood cannot assure or guarantee safety in the workplace nor can we hold out that we will educate our people sufficiently to remove safety problems - oe a " We don't have the expertise nor resources to give such assurances We maintain that legal responsibility for safety at the workplace remain with the employer and the government and we do not and cannot assume such responsibility 2. To encourage examinations of members personal health and the conditions of work site 3. To promote education of mem- bers on the causes of accidents and illnesses and how to pro- tect themselves and 4. To assist Local Union District Council Health Safety Programs - and and But we can and we do assure our membership that in setting up this i department we will help our con- tinuing effort to do our very best to educate and protect our members in all aspects of safety Safe and secure tomorrows to- day is the motto of this convention The adoption of this resolution will move towards those ideals and I so move Mr. Chairman The Committee feels that at the last convention the delegates strongly endorsed the principle of the National Health Act and noth- ing has been accomplished in this area a Seconds from floor GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX You have heard the motion and a second Any discus- sion . 246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION ~. Question called for Question called for All those in favor let it be known by the usual _ voting sign Chorus of ayes . needed monies through the Department of Labor and other federal agencies So without further ado I present George Taylor Director of the Department of Health and Safety for the AFL Those opposed ? tive Applause ) No response) Hearing none the motion is adopted COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ROHR This will conclude our partial report at this time Thank you DIRECTOR BURKHARDT Well that should help us a great deal in getting the second half of this Decade of Job Safety going DIRECTOR TAYLOR Frank President Raftery distinguished guests delegates to your 24th General Convention it is a pleasure and an honor for me to appear here today I thought maybe I was going to have to do a little lobbying for that resolution that just passed but there doesn't seem to be any neces- , sity I The next speaker we have with us today is one I have personally . been acquainted with for the last 12 years In fact I got my start- All say on behalf of the AFL- CIO heartiest congratulations for establishing this Department and great success to it working in the AFL ment of Research when Taylor was there DepartGeorge And I might also on behalf of the AFL that we have a staff subcommittee on occupational He was running the safety and health programs and environmental and natural resources programs safety and health and we are here- by extending the invitation for the Director of the new department or anyone he designates to come to George Taylor spent his entire life representing and devising pro- grams that would make both the our meetings and we will be very happy to have him and have his contributions for the betterment of the labor movement in this field work environment and our living environment better for trades workers such as us I know that the Painters have been working for several years with He is a friend of our union has both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Na- been particularly helpful in this program that we have been putting together for the first five years in tional Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to find out more about the various toxic materials getting and assisting us getting the that threaten the health and lives INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF i of painters in the midst of rapid . technological evolution of your in- dustry and that you are approaching the second year of your de- velopment grant under the OSHA New Directions Training and Education Program From the beginning of your new projects in this field we have at- tempted to be of some assistance ~ to Frank Burkhardt and Don Cagle in development and delivery of your excellent training program which I know has been of great assistance to your membership to enable them to assess safety and health hazards and deal with them not merely to abate them but prevent them Painters in general are exposed to toxic materials covering almost as wide a range as almost any skill that can be mentioned among our unions acetone benzene chromates acids pigments lead sol- vents alkalis this is by no means a complete list Paint spraying can affect painters who are forced to inhale or come in skin contact with toxic pigments such as cadmium chromates and lead and various kinds of solvents 1 In this regard you constitute a ae part of the total life and death ON problem to some 60 million Amer- ican workers in this plan S I know Dr. Selikoff is here to 1 go into greater detail about the j toxic substances and the hazards that painters face and I'm not oN going to try to upstage him be a hard act to upstage He'd But in looking at the occupa- } } tional safety and health situation in America although this Act which we all suported worked hard " FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 247 needed monies through the Department of Labor and other federal in agencies al So without further ado I present George Taylor Director of the Department of Health and Safety for the AFL Applause) DIRECTOR TAYLOR Frank is President Raftery distinguished guests delegates to your 24th Gen- eral Convention it is a pleasure and an honor for me to appear here today I thought maybe I was going to have to do a little lobbying for that solution that just passed but there doesn't seem to be any neces- sity ... .st .rt All I say on behalf of the AFL- CIO heartiest congratulations for establishing this Department and great success to it of painters in the midst of rapid technological evolution of your industry and that you are approaching the second year of your development grant under the OSHA New Directions Training and Education Program From the beginning of your new projects in this field we have at- tempted to be of some assistance to Frank Burkhardt and Don Cagle in development anddelivery of your excellent training program which I know has been of great assistance to your membership to enable them to assess safety and health hazards and deal with them not merely to abate them but prevent them Painters in general are exposed to toxic materials covering almost as wide a range as almost any skill that can be mentioned among our unions acetone benzene chromates acids pigments lead solvents alkalis this is by no means a complete list Paint spraying can affect painters who are forced to for both in getting it across signed by the President of the United States and also in the implementation over the last eight years there are still more than 4,000 reported accidential deaths and 2.6 million injuries of workers whose em- ployees are covered by this Act One hundred thousand workers are killed every year from occupational illnesses according to estimates of the Department of Health Education and Welfare Twenty million workers are in jobs which ex- pose them to toxic substances of which many are industrial carcinogens Another 50 million workers have been exposed in the past How long these toxic agents will take to destroy healthy tissue is still a question To use an ex- ample the 11 million workers who have been and are presently exposed to asbestos the period of latency under chronic level exposure can be 25 to 30 years before the adverse effects are felt by the person t And I might add also on behalf ? of the AFL that we have a staff subcommittee on occupational safety and health and we are here77 by extending the invitation for the al Director of the new department or anyone he designates to come to our meetings and we will be very go happy to have him and have his inhale or come in skin contact with toxic pigments such as cadmium chromates and lead and various kinds of solvents ; In this regard you constitute a part of the total life and death problem to some 60 million American workers in this plan In August of last year the for- mer Secretary of HEW Joe Califano released the findings of a study conducted by the National Cancer Institute which concluded that at least 20 percent and perhaps a greater proportion of can- cers in the United States were caused by occupational exposures go contributions for the betterment of go the labor movement in this field so en I know that the Painters have ce been working for several years with ita University both the Occupational Safety and aang Health Administration and the Na- stepnars is tional Institute for Occupational ig Safety and Health to find out more srcaipnlese in about the various toxic materials le that threaten the health and lives I know Dr. Selikoff is here to go into greater detail about the toxic substances and the hazards that painters face and I'm not going to try to upstage him He'd be a hard act to upstage But in looking at the occupational safety and health situation in America although this Act which we all suported worked hard / The validity of this study has been widely attacked by the chem- ical industry but recently it's con- clusions were accepted by a special study team at the , of Texas Workers are still being killed because of conventional safety hazards As I said a moment ago 4,000 died in 1977 and there was an increase of 500 deaths in the 248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION construction industry in 1977 as against 1976. So we have not licked the safety problem either children and to live out his life Are we to continue to say Rest in peace You paid in the proper You may recall that a few years ago when the Administration and the Congress fell victim to the swine flu syndrome they hurriedly currency job? It was your life for your The budgets of three Presidents to provide the financial and man- appropriated 136 million to com- power resources to administer the bat this great epidemic an epidemic Occupational Safety and Health which never happened Does it ever occur to youlaws youlaws somehow this nation's leaders hav turned topsy turvy their sense of what is important to people This great nation of ours prides itself on its concern for human values and dignity It daily prides itself Act reflect this mentality among those who make and administer our youlaws The OSHA Act covers some five million workplaces and about 60 million workers After eight years of its history it has achieved a spending level which allows about 2.60 a worker on the quality of its health services yet there is raging a silent epidemic of illnesses in the places where men and women work out their productive life Year after year it kills more people than did the black death in medieval Europe and cumulatively produces more casualties than have all the wars fought by this nation during its entire history Isn't it an irony that a nation that can stop the construction of a dam to save a species of fish at the A similar federal program to protect the safety and health of mine workers enjoys a budget providing about 250 per worker In making this comparison I am not implying that miners don't need an adequate budget for administering the Mine Safety and Health Act What is evident however is that . both the President and Con gress are quite willing to continue their nickel and dime approach to making workplaces covered by OSHA safer same time cannot stop the nation's employers from continuing industrial processes that produce thousands of accidental deaths millions of incapacitating injuries and hundreds and thousands of deaths each year from occupational ill- nesses What kind of a monument If it had not been for the con- tinuing efforts through the years by the AFL and its affiliated unions to persuade the Congress to increase OSHA appropriations in terms of manpower and money resources the situation would be even are we erecting to the worker who has died needlessly from accidents that never should have happened from materials that cause cancer attack the nervous system disrupt digestive and metabolic processes grimmer than it presently is This year we asked the Congress to increase the Carter budget for OSHA by 44 million to provide funds for 1185 additional personnel of which 915 would have been in- and destroy reproductive organs spectors and industrial hygenists What of his family its grief and anguish his hopes to educate his Needless to say we didn't get them Every year since neither this INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF Administration nor the Congress is . willing to discuss the real needs of . OSHA Organized labor therefore must shoulder this responsibility on behalf of the workers they repre- sent and we'll have to do the best we can with it Our national leaders are afflicted with tunnel vision which prevents them from seeing that in the field of workplace safety and health an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Ignoring rather than preventing and eliminating health hazards on the jobs creates far reaching costs beyond those of employer compli- ance These include the loss of earning power in families where the wage earner has been killed or in- capacitated the loss of productivity of billions of dollars annually : There is the added cost of health care the hospital bed the equipment and services required to treat injured or ill patients These are the costs of the health insurances of every worker and those borne by the employer to pay workers compensation insurance premiums It should also be pointed out that half a million recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance are on those rolls because of work- connected reasons and that the Black Lung Pension program for coal miners under the Mine Safety and Health Act is approaching 1 billion in annual cost Isn't the time far overdue for this nation to face up to the prob- lem of attacking abating and pre- venting this enormous epidemic where costs both in money and hu- man suffering is so enormous It is too late to prevent too many workers who have passed over the FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 249 children and to live out his life Are we to continue to say Rest in peace You paid in the proper currency It was your life for your job The budgets of three Presidents Administration nor the Congress is willing to discuss the real needs of OSHA Organized labor therefore must shoulder this responsibility on behalf of the workers they represent and we'll have to do the best we can with it watershed of exposure to toxic sub- stances in whose systems there now is the growing and unstoppable seed of his death or incapacitation But we can work to prevent the younger generation of workers as well as those who can be saved to provide the financial and man- power resources to administer the Occupational Safety and Health Act reflect this mentality among those who make and administer our at laws The OSHA Act covers some Te five million workplaces and about of 60 million workers After eight is years of its history it has achieved lf a spending level which allows about es 2.60 a worker If V- A similar federal program to pro- nt tect the safety and health of mine es workers enjoys a providing ut about 250 per worker In making ar this comparison I am not implying Our national leaders are afflicted with tunnel vision which prevents them from seeing that in the field of workplace safety and health an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Ignoring rather than preventing and eliminating health hazards on the jobs creates far reaching costs beyond those of employer compli- ance These include the loss of earning power in families where the wage earner has been killed or incapacitated the loss of productivity of billions of dollars annually before they reach the point of no return from the risks of suffering the same fate as so many of their parents We must realize that the OSHA Act our act is facing an accentuation of a continuous fight to emasul^teour unions On any quiet night in Washington if one listens there can be heard the sounds of knives and hatchets being whetted to cut the heart out of OSHA and dis- : member its body An alliance of convenience be- tween the far right and supposedly that miners need an adequate ad budget for administering the Mine U- afety and Health Act ht What is evident however is that re both the President and the Con- gress are quite willing to continue their nickel and dime approach to making workplaces covered by There is the added cost of health care the hospital bed the equipment and services required to treat injured or ill patients These are the costs of the health insurances of every worker and those borne by the employer to pay workers compensation insurance premiums respectable business organizations has consistently sought to weaken undermine and untimately destroy OSHA This is the alliance that fought against labor law reform that pushes right and is now seeking to eliminate the DavisBacon Act It is apparent that in the continuous effort to destroy OSHA safer If it had not been for the con- tinuing efforts through the years by the AFL and its affiliated unions to persuade the Congress to increase SHAappropriations in ill- terms of manpower and money resources the situation would be even grimmer than it presently is This its year we asked the Congress to It should also be pointed out that half a million recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance are on those rolls because of work- OSHA this unholy alliance has elevated their target Not merely is it out to break unions but to make it impossible for workers to do connected reasons and that the Black Lung Pension program for coal miners under the Mine Safety anything effective about the safety and health hazards which they face in their places of work every day and Health Act is approaching $ billioinn annual cost This unholy alliance has wrapped itself in the red white and blue Isn't the time far overdue for . banner of constitutional rights- increase the Carter budget for OSHA by 44 million to provide funds for 1185 additional personnel ses of which 915 would have been in- i IS spectors and industrial hygenists this nation to face up to the prob- lem of attacking abating and pre- venting this enormous epidemic where costs in money and human suffering is so enormous It the apple cheeked gingham aproned appeal of small business being overwhelmed by a souless bureaucracy in far Washington and on the other flank OSHA is .nd Needless to say we didn't get his them Every year since neither this is too late to prevent too many attacked by the delay and frustra- MEANS workers who have passed over the tion of large business.. ! 4 250 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION Every time a standard to pro- tect workers against lead benzine arsenic and cotton dust is promulgated the big business community funds a series of delaying legal actions in the federal courts to frustrate and diminish each of these actions by OSHA And in this Congress there have been probably 20 proposed amendments to the Act anyone of which weaken it and several specifically called for its elimination with an regulatory mentality which has been whipped up by private business One amendment introduced by Senator Schweiker as a substitute for Senator Church's more drastic amendment pattened on the one last year by the late Senator Bartlett of Oklahoma was passed by the House and the Senate in Con- gress That was the only way we escaped the Bartlett amendment which was introduced by Senator Church of Idaho But we haven't heard the last of either Senator Church or Senator Schweiker Senator Church has a bill which is exactly like the bill he attempted to have passed as Rider to the appropriations appropriations this year It's 1684 Senator Schweiker has a draft bill which has not been printed yet but which we have received yester- day a copy of Both of these bills are going to be heard next week before the Subcommittee of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor the Senate Committee on National and Human Resources Chaired by Senator Williams of New Jersey Just a bit about the Church Bill It would exempt from coverage by ; the Act all workplaces with 10 or fewer employees and standard dustrial classification categories where the Annual Statistical Sur- vey of Occupational Illness and Injuries published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a rate of seven or fewer deaths illnesses or accidents for 100 employees The effect of this amendment would be to remove 9 milion total of 11 million workers in work- places of 10 or fewer employees from all protections under the OSHA Act The effect on workers employed in residential construction would be felt throughout the industry I needn't point out to you that painters would be out in the cold in most cases as far as OSHA is concerned if the Church Amend- ment should pass Apparently the good Senator Church would like us to believe that most small establishments and construction sites are as safe as a church if you'll pardon the expression The second amendment by Sena- tor Schweiker is such an adminis- trative monstrosity that I don't want to take up your time in trying to go through it since we're still in the process of trying to get the thing properly analyzed which I hope we'll be able to do by tomorrow because we're going to have to testify next week sometime on it but it is really a problem Among other things that it does is to require employees in general if they wish to escape some of the requirements of this Act to organize safety committees Well you can imagine the rest Organized paper safety committees would be INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF 1 great on this and I think you t should be warned this would be something you would really have to take into consideration in the ap- proach by your International in assisting us to fight this act : In addition telling you all 2 the bad news I don't have very much good news to tell you It's 43FE2 sort of like a soap opera that has 43FE2 nothing but situations which never 43FE2 get resolved but crises every day 43FE2 Last Friday Senator Bumpers of 1 Arkansas in a surprise move got I an amendment passed by the Sen- ate the effect of which according to Senator Muskie of Maine who is trying unsuccessfully to stop it me would stop the federal government f in its tracks The Bumpers Amendment to a housekeeping bill for the federal judiciary states quote There shall be no presumption that any rule or regulation by agency valid The amendment provides that if the validity of a federal rule or regulation is called into question the Court shall not uphold its validity unless it's established by the preponderance of the evidence shown Senator Muskie also had this to say about that part of the Bumpers Amendment The Federal Regulations apparently are not worth the paper they are written on They accord no respect at all to the federal court rules You can imagine what this will do to the safety of the mem- bers in the labor laws such as the Wage Bacon and Minimum Law which all are under constant | attack and litigation There is also the danger that is introduced on FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION 0- the Act all workplaces with 10 or le fewer employees and standard inIl- dustrial classification categories ty where the Annual Statistical Sur- al vey of Occupational Illness and Into juries published by the Bureau of of Labor Statistics shows a rate of seven or fewer deaths illnesses or accidents for 100 employees ... ... The effect of this amendment ch would be to remove 9 million ly total of 11 million workers in work places of 10 or fewer employees ch from all protections under the te OSHA Act The effect on workers employed in residential construction would be felt throughout the industry I needn't point out to you that painters would be out in the cold in most cases as far as OSHA is concerned if the Church Amendment should pass Apparently the good Senator _Aurch would like us to believe that most small establishments and construction sites are as safe as a church if you'll pardon the expression The second amendment by Senator Schweiker is such an administrative monstrosity that I don't want to take up your time in trying it to go through since we're still in the process of trying to get the it thing properly analyzed which 1 hope we'll be able to do by tomor- , row because we're going to have k to testify next week sometime on it but it is really a problem ke Among other things that it does is to require employees in general if they wish to escape some of the requirements of this Act to organ- " ize safety committees Well you can imagine the rest Organized paper safety committees would be INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 251 great on this and I think you should be warned this would be something you would really have to take into consideration in the ap- proach by your International in as- the floor of the House as a Rider as its legal bill it can get the votes to pass Now that is what we are up sisting us to fight this act In addition telling you all the bad news I don't have very much good news to tell you It's sort of like a soap opera that has nothing but situations which never get resolved but crises every day against at the moment Organized labor has its work cut out for it this year as never before Every possible attempt is being made to destroy its ability to function While we applaud the efforts of Ray Marshall and Eula Bingham to turn the OSHA program around Last Friday Senator Bumpers of Arkansas in a surprise move got an amendment passed by the Sen- ate the effect of which according to Senator Muskie of Maine who is trying unsuccessfully to stop it would stop the federal government in its tracks and give it the direction that it has lacked in its early years there is only so far that OSHA can go with no stimulation by a commitment from the President and the Con- gress to administer and enforce OSHA the way we in the labor movement conceived of when we fought the legislation through the - The Bumpers Amendment to a Congress housekeeping bill for the federal judiciary states quote There shall be no presumption that any rule or regulation by any agency is valid Problems persist OSHA's ene- mies will continue to attack and we must be vigilant in other proposals even those made in good faith do The amendment provides that if the validity of a federal rule or regulation is called into question the Court shall not uphold its val- idity unless it's established by the preponderance of the evidence shown not do damage The White House asking Congress for legislation establishing a agency federal regulatory council to act on all proposed regulations to be issued by federal agencies Senator Muskie also had this to say about that part of the Bumpers Amendment The Federal Regulations appar- ently are not worth the paper they are written on They accord no respect at all to the federal court rules You can imagine what this will do to the safety of the mem- bers in the labor laws such as the Bacon and Minimum Wage Law which all are under constant attack and litigation There is also the danger that is introduced on This legislation was submitted after we met with the President's drafting staff We made it quite clear that we believe regulations should be designed to meet the goals of the Congress when it wrote the legislation . GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX Delegates let's have some order DIRECTOR TAYLOR They should be precise and stated as simply as possible and they should 252 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION never be promulgated for the sole purpose of harassment of an industry or a company We have been studying this leg- islation with care and will oppose any sections that could undermine the intent of the Congress to protect workers against any of the dangers of today's industrial world When workers health and lives are at stake the experts among the lawyers and the economists denounce the standards by OSHA as inflationary if they involve expenditures by business Their rationale is that such spending removes funds from production to profit making activities that they say fuels the fires of inflation Business comes into hearings on OSHA standards with grotesquely swollen estimates of the cost of compliance It's latest claim was to comply with OSHA standards covering causing chemicals would cost 89 billion a completely ridiculous figure . During the fight over Cotton Dust Standard the Council of Eco- nomic Advisors and the Council on Wage and Price Stability claimed that the cost of engineering con- trols to reduce concentrations of cotton dust were too heavy a burden for the textile industry to bear They said it would be more cost effective to encase textile workers in constricting respirators for the rest of their working lives in order to bring the cost of compliance to bargain basement levels dards have begun to be implemented Costs of compliance have been far below industry's hysterical initial estimates and production has actually gone up And yet the clamor goes on in industry to limit engineering controls to the persons of workers the respirator the hard hat the safety shoes the ear plugs or ear muffs But a gas mask is no substitute for getting the poisons out of the air Ear muffs are no substitute for cutting noise to less than deafening levels That is why we in the labor movement must do everything we can to overcome the account- ing mentality and see that OSHA remains free to develop as a preventive agent as well as an enforcer of standards for a new generation of workers We have heard it said that a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing and by that standard the critics of OSHA are very cynical indeed The cynics in government and in business scream endlessly about the dollar costs of complying with OSHA standards But they never complete the equation They never notice how much the worker and his family paid in lost earning power how much the public pays in added health care costs and work- ers compensation They never compute the benefits and savings to be achieved by protecting workers We have heard all that before The same forecasts of financial ruin accompanied the vinyl chloride standard and others But we have heard no reports to substantiate those warnings since those stan- They don't count added produc- tion reduced absenteeism work force stability lower compensation claims and insurance claims and fewer lawsuits These represent real benefits real savings that far out- a INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF 1 i weigh the cost of compliance with OSHA standards ' What I have said to you today if anything is an understatement of the perils that beset OSHA and threaten not only its viability but its very existence Yet it is my belief that the labor movement and its friends will hold t the line and prevail with united ". purpose and united efforts As the late Eugene Debs wrote many years ag let the people 014 take hope and heart everywhere for the cross is bending the mid- 0230 night is passing and joy cometh with the morning Thank you Applause ) ost k DIRECTOR BURKHARDT me Thank you very much George for O offering our new department a seat on the AFL Committee on O.O Safety and Health ctr h am sure that General President Raftery will want our new director to work very closely with you F This department that you just created has got a lot to do We only h h mentioned a few of the things in r the film there before you We haven't completed our glaziers contract for example There's P a lot to be done in that particular area and we hope to input most of a our materials that we are working i on into the apprenticeship program a in the glazing industry The same is true with our Can- adian members Canada has a very e good health and safety program for + e samne workers We have got to input more into that particular program work + C with the existing government offi- cials in the various provinces there NIY-FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION in- begun ENTY FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION CONVENTION CONVENTION ENTY FOURTH GENERAL of imple- compliance dards dards have imple- " mented Costs compliance hiysmtperlicea-l been far below industry's eg- initial actually estimates up ose has actually gone oes on in he And And yet clamor in td. the clamor engineering con- industry to limit engineering engineering the trols to the persons hat the safety 2 respirator respirator respirator the hard hard ear muffs shoes the ear no substitute substitute for io But gas mask poisons out air y. getting the poisons poisons substitute substitute le Ear Is levels cutting why we in the labor That why why ls the labor Is That movement do everything is movement overcome the cost account- base can mentality mentality and that that OSHA ing remains free to develop develop pre134 ventive agent as well enforcer Nvweow@ standards We workers workers it Said that that S We have have heard said that 3 cynic who knows the price of everything everything and the value nothing nothing and by critics standard standard indeed cynics in government government and The cynics government government about business business scream endlessly about dollar costs of complying they never OSHA OSHA standards But They complete complete the equation worker worker his notice how how much lost earning er, his family paid the public pays added how much care costs and ers compensation compensation They never pute ers compensation benefits and savings savings compute achieved protecting workers They They don't count added tion, They absenteeism absenteeism force force stability compensation fcelwaeimrs claims and insurance claims fewer lawsuits These represent benefits benefits real savings that far INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD weigh the cost of compliance and weigh cost standards standards standards said you today today What have said said understatement anything anything anything understatement understatement there the perils beset beset viability and threaten threaten only OF PAINTERS ALLIED TRADES 253 253 membership make sure that everything have learned learned this everything country that and and everything know gets com- com- municated our membership municated Applause) very existence existence existence belief the labor labor Yet my belief friends hold hold movement movement and prevail with united line and prevail efforts purpose the late Eugene Debs wrote cometh As years ago let the people many years ago heart take hope everywhere cross is bending the mid- for is passing and joy night the - morning environmental Thank you health and safety concern our our members of paramount paramount concern our Brotherhood Brotherhood - workers next guest stands out improve those are fighting improve fighting improve health health safety safety workers workers everywhere . Dr Irving Irving Center New York mt. Sinai Medical for work in City best known medicine his work work in environmental hazards Applause) DIRECTOR BURKHARDT Thank you very much George for offering our new department a seat on the AFL Committee on Safety and Health am sure that General President Raftery will want our new director to work very closely with you This department that created has We only got lot to do things in mentioned mentioned few of the things in the film there before you industry We haven't iers example example There's contract done that particular @ a lot to done hope to most area area materials hope that are working working our materials apprenticeship apprenticeship apprenticeship program on on into in in glazing industry program with application bestos has made him the best bestos doctor in occupational occupational as- known the basis occupational dation the new new OSHA f standards o standau rds sn tand- ards asbestos asbestos His investigation investigation and diagnosis diagnosis been responsible for technological changes changes products for have greatlmyethods methods which posure workers ex- unhealthy unhealthy substances ex- posure urging urging Brother- such hood's insistence insistence asbestos asbestos com- mixing drywall eliminated eliminated pounds has virtually virtually eliminated killing that practice had killing health amounts of time the haz- and diagnosing diagnosing diagnosing health ards in trades the health haz. For For the greater goaodidan members members members Canada has very health safety program program good workers We program have input more into that particular particular program program work decade assisted our Brotherhood Brotherhood Brotherhood identifying identifying assisted symptoms in symptoms members Symptoms and I len ms of our AFL Executive Executive In 1979, the AFL-CIO Executive 254 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION Council unanimously chose Dr. Selikoff as the recipient of the 1979 Phillip William Green Award That's labor's highest , honor Applause ) Our General President Bud Raf- teriyn fact nominated Dr. Selikoff for that award Applause ) He wrote General President wrote the letter that accompanied the nomination of Dr. Selikoff to the Executive Council something I believe is probably where we are going and hopefully where this union has been for the last ten years He said in the letter The time is long overdue for the American labor movement to recognize that science and scientists are important allies of working people as they battle against disease and death No one scientist has been more for the American worker in this decade than Dr. Irving Selikoff Please welcome Dr. Selikoff Applause DR SELIKOFF Thank you I am sure that I am adding my congratulations to yours for the remarkable work that has been done in these past five years by Mr. Raftery Mr. Burkhardt Mr. Wolford and their colleagues and that seen in the film we saw this morn- ing Congratulations By the way they didn't tell you everything They didn't tell you all the reverberations of what your Brotherhood has been doing For example Mr. Raftery had me meet with the National Paint and Coating Manufacturers Association . several years ago to raise questions about the whole new paint type technology What I was brought up with you know turpentine and linseed oil and so forth well there's no such thing anymore and paints are chemicals now They are no longer the old fashioned paints And as a result that association has begun research within its own paint manufacturing plants to see actually what is going to happen with what they are producing in terms of human health Next month October 4th through 6th there is an international meeting in Stockholm that was stimulated by what you people have been doing in which the building trades almost throughout the world will meet specially on the health hazards in the painting trade This is being hosted by the Swedish Building Trades Union and in preparation eooperation with scientists at our institution but also with the cooperation of Du- Pont which has assigned a fulltime toxicologist to it Mobil which has been reviewing the whole ques- tion of solvents and with a number of doctors a complete review is now being undertaken of modern paint technology of the materials that you have been using So that I think congratulations are due you not only from the labor movement here but really throughout the world Everyone is going to benefit Applause) I'd like to add one more not only congratulations but really an expression of gratitude And this . INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF may come somewhat as a surprise to you E It is the gratitude of all sci- E entists and all physicians in re- Z sponse to what you have been doing C k I was brought up in a sort of , different world I have got to accustom myself to this one because I was taught it was important to find the cause of disease I knew that when we discovered f t the tubercle bacillus we would be able eventually to get drugs to , treat it to prevent infection and in large part this has worked We have much less tuberculosis now than we did when I was intern almost 40 years ago When we learned the cause of diphtheria diphtheria bacillus we almost wiped that out When we learned the cause of polio we learned how to get vaccines We were taught that it's important to learn the causes of is disease in order to prevent disease it and that's the way we grew up And now we have come into this ti new world that it's not what we have been taught because we are finding the causes of disease and that knowledge is not being used We don't quite understand it In 1954 we learned that chromates caused lung cancer and we were told today saw today in the video tape presentation ) that chromates are still with us A hundred years ago we learned that lead causes brain symptoms kidney disease anemia and we are still having lead poisoning . We learned over the last years that benzene could cause leukemia and I still hear arguments going FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION Dr. the een est afoff esi ac- Dr. icil Association Coating Manufacturers several years ago to raise questions about the whole new paint type technology What I was brought up with you know turpentine and linseed oil and so forth well there's no such thing anymore and paints are chemicals now They are no longer the old fashioned paints And as a result that association has begun research within its own paint manufacturing plants to see actually what is going to happen with what they are producing in terms of human health the ortney ore his " onreone Mr. Tolhat rn- you you Dur Next month October 4th through 6th there is an international meeting in Stockholm that was stimuated by what you people have been doing in which the building trades almost throughout the world will meet specially on the health hazards in the painting trade This is being hosted by the Swedish Building Trades Union and in preparation and cooperation with scientists at our institution but also with the cooperation of DuPont which has assigned a fulltime toxicologist to it Mobil which has been reviewing the whole ques- tion of solvents and with a num- ber of doctors a complete review is now being undertaken of modern paint technology of the materials that you have been using So that I think congratulations are due you not only from the labor movement here but really throughout the world Everyone is going to benefit Applause ) me and I'd like to add one more not only congratulations but really an expression of gratitude And this INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 255 may come somewhat as a surprise to you It is entists sponse doing the gratitude of all sci- and physicians in re- to what you have been : I was brought up in a sort of different world I have got to ac- custom myself to this one because I was taught it was important to find the cause of disease I knew that when we discovered ~- the tubercle bacillus we would be able eventually to get drugs to __. treat it to prevent infection and ~~ - in large part this has worked We have much less tuberculosis now than we did when I was an intern almost 40 years ago on Should there be a benzene _ standard or should workers paint- ers continue to be exposed to benzene . And we have learned over and over again that scientific informa- tion work like mine is necessary but it's not enough In our lingo it's called necessary but not sufficient And it's for that reason that we are grateful to you for having set up a program such as you have done to take information that's available hard one and you get some of it and put it to use And you really make our work worthwhile Applause ) When we learned the cause of diphtheria diphtheria bacillus we almost wiped that out When we learned the cause of polio we learned how to get vaccines We were taught that it's important to learn the causes of disease in order to prevent disease and that's the way we grew up And now we have come into this new world that it's not what we have been taught because we are finding the causes of disease and that knowledge is not being used We don't quite understand it In 1954 we learned that chromates caused lung cancer and we were told today saw today in the video tape presentation that chromates are still with us A hundred years ago we learned that lead causes brain symptoms kidney disease anemia and we are still having lead poisoning We learned over the last 30 years that benzene could cause leukemia and I still hear arguments going And therefore I extend to you the gratitude of physicians and scientists everywhere Applause ) I'm going to show you something of what happens when information is not used of what happens when it's ignored because such ignoring should not go on again in the fu- ture The Toxic Substance Control Act says that as of January 1 1977 no more chemicals should be intro- duced unless they have been tested beforehand And you saw the little guinea pig running around so that we could afford guinea pigs on the construction site That wasn't always the case , : a Many of you were in Los Angeles five years ago I have seen lot of old friends here today And you taught us a great deal among the 500 delegates that were examined May have the first slide please 256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION I will skip this first one No let me tell you about it just to show you really what's going on and how difficult it is to get information and why it's so important that it be used This is a study that we are now completing in New York in which we made a list of all 7,500 mem- bers of District Council 9 in 1960 who were there for at least 10 years and we are tracing them to 1980 to see what happened to 7,500 men in order to find out what happens to painters This is the kind of work that goes on in order to determine the various facts that the gorgeous film you saw was able to condense so well But in Los Angeles we learned that taping and spackling compounds patching compounds were being used by everyone in the painting trades Now we wondered for a long time since 1950 in fact why the statistics show that painters die more often than all other workers of cancer We just didn't know the statistics were there and our government nobody paid them much mind And after we spoke to you people in Los Angeles we got five different compounds from every area in the country and five different in an- other and these are the ten and we found that nine out of the ten had asbestos in them The underlying part of the could you put the lights out totally Chrysolite is the technical name for the usual kind of asbestos We then went to the construction sites and just as you had told us when looked at workers who spackling were - this is a dust- testing instrument there found extraordinary amounts of asbestos large numbers of fibers in the air A painter or taper who would be working would be inhaling some- where around oh about a billion fibers in a working day About 99 percent are so small that couldn't even be seen with the usual microscope We have just published about three weeks ago our most recent studies of drywall tapers in New Jersey and New York and we found that of the men who were there in the trade for more than 20 years and there weren't too many because as you know the drywall industry began primarily after World War II that 51 percent had abnormal rays You people had predicted this to us back in 1974 and what you pre- dicted was correct Now how do we come on this We have a long history of ignorance inattention unconcern not malevolence not that people wanted to kill others because when the asbestos industry began around 1880 we had used very little asbestos somewhere around 65,000 tons in the decade between 1890 and 1900 I use that time because it was in 1898 that the first autopsy was done in Great Britain on a man who had been exposed to asbestos by Dr. Montague Murray and this is the actual slide of the asbestosis that was seen We have retrieved this from the files of the Charing Cross Hospital in London and it shows intense scarring INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OI This pink material these are fibers of asbestos in here and this man died in 1899 And in 1906 when a departmental committee was set up by the British Parliament to discuss work- ers compensation they said Well one hears generally speaking that considerable trouble is now taken . to prevent the inhalation of dust and so the disease is not likely to occur heretofore And the British Parliament refused to give workers compensation for asbestosis wasn't going to occur anymore It wasn't going to occur any more because we now knew what could happen So knowing this the industry went right along and instead of using 65,000 tons in a decade the next decade it used 265,000 tons by 1910 And in 1911 one of the inspectors of factories in Great Britain Miss Simpson visited some of the : plants and she says Very defective provisions for exhaust in ' the dusting processes in asbestos manufacture But she said Oh a but we're not bad off because long before any possible further growth of the trade I hope that exhaust ventilation will be effectively ap- plied 1911. She said Well now we know but thank God not too many workers are being exposed It's a small trade We haven't used - much asbestos and now that we know things will be better And so for the next 10 years instead of 265,000 tons of asbestos we used 986,000 tons and again nothing was done Nothing was done despite what we knew in 1899 despite what we knew in 1911 and despite the fact that in 1918 Dr. Hoffman who was Vice President of the Prudential Insurance Com- FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION 'when we looked at workers who > w ere spackling this is a dust- > testing instrument there found > extraordinary amounts of asbestos large numbers of fibers in the air A painter or taper who would be working would be inhaling somewhere around oh about a billion fibers in a working day About 99 percent are so small that they couldn't even be seen with the usual microscope We have just published about three weeks ago our most recent studies of drywall tapers in New Jersey and New York and we found that of the men who were - there the trade for more than 20 years and many because there weren't as you know too the rywall industry began primarily " ter World War II that 51 percent had abnormal rays You people had predicted this to us back in 1974 and what you pre- dicted was correct Now how do we come on this We have a long history of ignor- ance inattention unconcern not malevolence not that people want- ed to kill others because when the asbestos industry began around ple jer- 1880 we had used very little asbestos somewhere around 65,000 tons in the decade between 1890 sce an- and 1900 N: and I use that time because it was ten in 1898 that the first autopsy was Pace done in Great Britain on a man who had been exposetdo asbestos by Dr. Montague Murray and this is the actual slide of the asbestosis that was seen We have retrieved this from the files of the Charing Cross Hospital in London and it shows intense scarring INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 257 This pink material these are asbestos fibers of in here and this man died in 1899 And in 1906 when a departmental committee was set up by the British Parliament to discuss work- ers compensation they said Well one hears generally speaking that considerable trouble is now taken to prevent the inhalation of dust and so the disease is not likely to occur heretofore And the British Parliament refused to give workers compensation for asbestosis wasn't going to occur anymore pany said The U.S. insurance companies are not going to give insurance policies to asbestos workers They knew something And in 1918 Dr. Pancoast who was the Chief Radiologist at the Philadelphia General Hospital University of Pennsylvania did the first rays We had just about invented the ray machine then and he found that workers who had been exposed to asbestos had abnormal rays so again we learned something It didn't make any dif- ference It wasn't going to more because we now occur any knew what could happen So knowing this the industry went right along and instead of using 65,000 tons in a decade the next decade it used 265,000 tons by 1910 And in 1911 one of the inspectors of factories in Great Britain Miss Simpson visited some of the plants there and she says Very defective provisions for exhaust in the dusting processes in asbestos manufacture But she said Oh but we're not bad off because long before any possible further growth of the trade I hope that exhaust ventilation will be effectively ap- plied 1911. She said Well now we know but thank God not too many workers are being exposed It's a small trade We haven't used . much asbestos and now that we know things will be better And so for the next 10 years instead of 265,000 tons of asbestos we used 986,000 tons and again. nothing was done Nothing was despite done what we knew in 1899 despite what we knew in 1911 and despite the fact that in 1918 Dr. Hoffman who was Vice President of the Prudential Insurance Com- And in the next 10 years from 1920 to 1929 instead of using 986,000 tons we used almost 2 million tons and again nothing was done until 1924 when the first case of asbestosis was reported in the British Medical Journal and this upset the British government so much that they did a survey in Great Britain and lo and behold about thirds of all the workers they saw were abnormal Now you would think Well now we know Now we know that this can kill people and this can injure them But the survey finished by Well the outlook is good Now that we know the outlook is good In the space of a decade or thereabouts the effect of energetic application of preventive measures should be apparent in a great reduction in the incidence of fibrosis That was 1930. That was the British government's report 1930 Remember that date And now that we know now that we know that workers could be killed things are going to be all right - And therefore for the next 10 years in the next decade we again 258 PROCEEDINGS OF TH TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION used almost 2 million tons of as- bestos now that we knew it was going to be safe The asbestos workers the pipe coverers in the building trades heard about this in Britain not in the United States in the ; United States Despite the fact that the asbestos industry commissioned a study in 1929 by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company nothing was published until 1935. Somehow it failed be published but the pipe coverers heard of what was going on in Great Britain and in 1930 in their trade journal they published an article called The Pulmonary As- bestosis Menace They raised these questions Look what's happening in Great Britain And they were told Stop worrying Now that we know there will be no more difficulty In 1938 the U. S. Government ya did survey in North Carolina and You know there's trouble here and they made recommendations Let's not have too much dust Unfortunately these recommendations had no force of law They were quote for guidance ' And just about that time a new problem was added Lung cancer Apparently there was more than one way for a worker to die He could either die by scarring of his lungs or he could die peculiarly with the advent of lung cancer And in 1935 Kenneth Lynch a Professor of Pathology at the Medical University of South Carolina said " have done a postmortem on a man who had lung scarring due to -that's these fine scars at the bottom- also has ; a lung cancer He said There must be some association and this was denied but now that we knew that not only could you die of asbestosis but you could die of lung cancer Well it's going to be all right and Dr. Dreessen finished his report of the Public Health Service in 1938 with It appears if asbestos dust con- centrations are kept well below this limit new cases of asbestosis would not occur Now that we know now that we know it will be all right and because it was going to be all right in the next decade from 1940 to '49 instead of using two million tons we used more than 4,500,000 tons of asbestos and each time the total number of workers exposed to this dust increased and increased and increased During that decade 1941 this little plant was set up in Paterson New Jersey Dirty old plant It was originally the Nicholson File Plant before they moved to Bridgeport and because of the need during the war for insulation and other products 933 men were employed from '41 to '45 altogether about 1,662 until the plant closed in '54 It was around that time as these 1,600 men innocently went work with virtually no precautions the British government had further worries because they said when they reviewed every death with asbestosis that they knew of from 1924 the first to 1946 they found that 13 percent of all the men and women who died with asbestosis had lung cancer This was at a time in Great Britain when in general somewhere INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF around one percent died of lung cancer and a study was done in one of the factories by Richard Doll who's now the Dean of Oxford Medical School and he said Gosh in this factory we have 10 times as much lung cancer as I would , expect For example among women which was you know cancer of | women in the 40s 30s was al- . most nonexistent it was rare even in the 50s Now they're beginning to catch up with us But 8 percent even of women had lung cancer We got further bad news in 1955 when something unusual happened Now the lining of the chest or the lining of the abdomen is technically known as the mesothelium and because it's so deep it rarely gets involved with anything When it becomes cancerous this meso- thelium gets a tumor that we naturally label as mesothelioma In the past it was very rare How rare Well it's hard to tell because it was so rare that it was not even coded in the International Classifi- cation of Causes of Death or in the mortality statistics of our National Center for Health Statistics Some- where around 1 out of 10,000 deaths Well in 1955 this very rare tu- mor was found in an asbestos worker and in 1960 in fact there . were 47 such cases reported some of them with no more exposure than living on a road along which the donkey carts were taking bags of asbestos to the mill or among * kids who had played on the tailings heaps outside of these mines Now the lining of the chest this is at post mortem and these are placques scars and they don't occur in general but we began to FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION scars at the bottom- also has a lung cancer He said There must be some association and this was denied but now that we knew that not only could you die of asbestosis but you could die of lung cancer Well it's going to be all right and Dr. Dreessen finished his report of the Public Health Service in 1938 with It appears if asbestos dust concentrations are kept well below this limit new cases of asbestosis would not occur Now that we know now that we know it will be all right and because it was going to be all right in the next decade from 1940 to '49 instead of using two million tons we used more than 4,500,000 tons of asbestos and each time the total number of workers exposed to this dust increased and increased d increased During that decade 1941 this little plant was set up in Paterson New Jersey Dirty old plant It was originally the Nicholson File Plant before they moved to Bridgeport and because of the need during the war for insulation and other prod- ucts 933 men were employed from '41 to '45 altogether about 1,662 until the plant closed in '54 that age W It was around time as these 1,600 men innocently went to work y with virtually no precautions the British government had further worries because they said when they reviewed every death with bestosis that they knew of from 1924 the first to 1946 they found a that 13 percent of all the men and women who died with asbestosis n had lung cancer time This was at a in Great g Britain when in general somewhere INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 259 around one percent died of lung cancer and a study was done in one find them very commonly in people who had been around asbestos of the factories by Richard Doll who's now the Dean of Oxford Medical School and he said Gosh in this factory we have 10 times as much lung cancer as I would expect For example among women which was you know cancer of women in the 40s 30s was al- Now when they're just limited ' like this they don't cause any trou- ble They are simply an indication that asbestos was there and when you see an ray it shows you this fine scarring like that and it sim- ply indicated to us that something was going on with the pleura most nonexistent it was rare even Well starting around the begin- in the 50s Now they're beginning to catch up with us But 8 percent even of women had lung cancer ning of the 60's what was going on with the pleura was not simply these scars but this cancer This We got further bad news in 1955 when something unusual happened is the mesothelioma and this is the lung in the middle and you can see why this cannot be removed Now the lining of the chest or by the surgeon and why drugs are the lining of the abdomen is tech- . totally ineffectual and when this nically known as the mesothelium occurs in a worker it is invariably . ~~ and because it's so deep it rarely fatal gets involved with anything When it becomes cancerous this mesothelium gets a tumor that we naturally label as mesothelioma In the past it was very rare How rare Well it's hard to tell because Sometimes the lining of the abdomen also gets involved as in Arthur Anderson here and as you can see it fills the belly and this is what you see at operation it was so rare that it was not even coded in the International Classification of Causes of Death or in the This is the intestine here little bits of intestine are still open and it's going through but the rest is mortality statistics of our National Center for Health Statistics Some- where around 1 out of 10,000 deaths A Well in 1955 this very rare tu- all cancer totally surrounding it and again you can see why it is impossible to cure Through all these years again now that we know now that we mor was found in an asbestos worker and in 1960 in fact there were 47 such cases reported some know that it could cause scarring that it can cause lung cancer that it can cause mesothelioma of the of them with no more exposure pleura that it can cause meso- than living on a road along which the donkey carts were taking bags of asbestos to the mill or among kids who had played on the tailings heaps outside of these mines Now the lining of the chest this is at post mortem and these are placques scars and they don't oc- cur in general but we began to thelioma i that we done of the peritoneum know still nothing now was The first law the first standard that applied throughout U.S. industry and exposure to asbestos was only passed in 1971. 1971. You can see now why scientists have been exasperated All the informa- 260 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION tion that was being collected was not being used and as a result from 1950 to 1959 instead of 4 . 500,000 tons of asbestos we used 7,500,000 tons Now how was this found The information did not come from the asbestos companies It came from the Building Trades of the United States in considerable part This as you well recognize is a pipe coverer It was a little union in New York on 23rd Street East 23rd Street Local 12 of the Asbestos Workers which in 1943 had 632 members When we rayed them in the early 60's we found something which gave us the key to the problem And as a result by 1977 from 1943 to 1977 instead of 329 deaths there were 478. Instead of some 56 deaths of cancer there were 210 Instead of 15 13 or 14 deaths of cancer there were 91 One out of every five pipe coverers in this country dies of lung cancer One out of every five Instead of no deaths of mesothelioma you know that's one out of 10,000 you don't expect this instead of no deaths of this invariably fatal tumor there were 38 and there were deaths surprising of cancer of the stomach colon rectum the esopha- gus Well anyone who inhales dust also obviously ingest it Of the 1100 men who were Xrayed of the 725 who were in the union less than 20 years we saw very little Most had normal Xrays The first group almost 90 percent had normal rays It was not until 20 years had passed that most of the rays became abnormal and now you will know why I called your attention to the tapers drywall construction people that we examined with regard to what happened after 20 : years These people entered the trade when they're 18 19 20. They don't die until they're 50 55. There's a quiet period that's lost By 1977 and these are new figures that have not yet been published but just to tell you what happens to men these are the same 632 guys who were actively at work who went to work every day assuming that somebody was taking care of things now that information was known and there was no somebody With this initial information we begin to work at the same time as we begin to work with your Brotherhood with the Pipe Coverers International in Washington On January 1 1967 they had 17,800 members Small as you know it's a small little union By 1977 we've been following these 17,800 men instead of around 1,650 deaths there were 2,271 Now why Well instead of 319 deaths of cancer there were 993 Instead of 106 deaths of cancer of the lung there were 486. There were 175 deaths of mesothelioma instead of none There were many more men who died who had not expected to die of cancer of the larynx of cancer of the tongue cancer of the thoropharynx cancer of the kidney in addition to the stomach colon rectum esophagus Of course there were many men 168 who died of scared lungs when did they die Again they didn't die until 35 or 6 or so years had passed At that time third INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OI 33 percent of all men who died died of lung cancer and this is what it Nothing looks like in a graph nothing for the first 20 years and then it begins to climb Here for example is a business agent and this is one of our problems we can't predict when this is going to happen He has a normal ray and yet a year later he's got mesothelioma I'd like to go back to that pittle plant the innocent men who went to work in 1941. I got this old photograph because they got an E Award Many of you remember during World War II when you did go to work to help our country in its war effort the plant the union et cetera was given an E Award for Excellence an E Award and this was the ceremony that the Navy conducted for these men be- cause of what they did for our country Well we had been facing these 933 men and just the same as the others instead of 19 deaths of lung cancer there were 100 deaths of mesothelioma and and the the deaths of asbestosis but we learned something else here This is why I'm showing it to you because otherwise it's a monotonous unhappy tale Because of war time conditions some of the men worked for only a month oh youngsters waiting to go into service Some men the older men who were too old to go into service worked for two or more years In fact they may have worked until the plant closed in '54 Even one month of work was enough to more than double the cancer risk because they left the plant but the fibers went with them FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION INTERNATIONAL . BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 261 vas alt 4 sed The And as a result by 1977 from 1943 to 1977 instead of 329 deaths there were 478. Instead of some 56 deaths of cancer there were 210 Instead of 15 13 or 14 deaths of cancer there were 91 33 percent of all men who died died of lung cancer and this is what it looks like in a graph Nothing nothing for the first 20 years and then it begins to climb staying forever in their lungs and therefore we learned our first bitter lesson that brief exposur~ if excessive may be hazardous Every day that you're on the job the One out of every five pipe cov- Here for example is a business is important om ted erers in this country dies of lung cancer One out of every five In- stead of no deaths of mesothelioma agent and this is one of our problems we can't predict when this is going to happen He has a normal We learned something else This complicated slide tells you something that when we examined the a ion ast Asad red Ind you know that's one out of 10,000 you don't expect this instead of no deaths of this invariably fatal tumor there were 38 and there were deaths surprising of cancer of the stomach colon rectum the esopha- gus Key Well anyone who inhales dust also obviously ingest it X- With this initial information we he egin to work at the same time as aw we begin to work with your Broth- erhood with the Pipe Coverers In- 90 ternational in Washington On January 1 1967 they had 17,800 members Small as you know it's a ad small little union be- vill By 1977 we've been following ion these 17,800 men instead of around .on 1,650 deaths there were 2,271 ray and yet a year later he's got mesothelioma I'd like to go back to that little plant the innocent men who went to work in 1941. I got this old photograph because they got an E Award Many of you remember during World War II when you did go to work to help our country in its war effort the plant the union et cetera was given an E Award for Excellence an E Award and this was the ceremony that the Navy conducted for these men because of what they did for our country Well we had been facing these 933 men and just the same as the others instead of 19 deaths of lung ' cancer there were 100 and the pipe coverers in 1963 each man was asked about his smoking hab- its There were 87 men who never smoked cigarettes There were 283 that had and by '67 we looked to see what happened . Of the men who had never smoked cigarettes we didn't expect much lung cancer If you don't smoke you tend not to die of lung cancer Not one occurred On the other hand we thought there would be three deaths of lung cancer among those particular smokers Instead there were 24 so it wasn't the asbestos alone None died of lung cancer It wasn't the smoking alone Only three would have died of lung cancer re- deaths of mesothelioma and the The combination of the two Well 20 Now why instead of 319 deaths of asbestosis but we learned the interaction where asbestos in- deaths of cancer there were 993 something else here This is why creased the already high risk of Instead of 106 deaths of cancer of I'm showing it to you because cigarette smoking was devastating .de the lung there were 486. There otherwise it's a monotonous un- and in the men in the international n't were 175 deaths of mesothelioma happy tale there were 12,000 who had instead of none There were more many conditions more men who died who had not Because of war time of the men worked for than 20 years from the onset of their work and therefore they ig- expected to die of cancer of the ib- larynx of cancer of the tongue some only a month oh youngsters waiting to go into service Some were the ones who had risk lat cancer of the thoropharynx cancer men the older There were many who never of the kidney in addition to the men who were too old to go into smoked There were ne at stomach colon rectum esophagus service worked for two or more many more who had a history of cigarette smoking Of years In fact they may have vt + Ly course there were many men worked until the plant closed in '54 168 who died of scared lungs Now By 1977 we found that of the X when did they die Again they Even one month of work was men who never as didn't die until 35 or 6 or enough to more than double the smoked cigarettes so years had passed At that time third cancer risk because they left the plant but the fibers went with we felt there would be one death maybe two of lung cancer There them were eight 262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTYFOURTH GENERAL CONVENTIONCONVENTION smoking Well even not doesn't protect you You still can get lung cancer Five times as much but five times a very low risk is not all that important However mesothelioma you get whether or not you smoke cigar- ettes cancer of the stomach colon the rectum whether or not you smoke cigarettes cancer of the kid- ney whether or not you smoke cigarettes On the other hand with smoking you have five times the tafready very high risk that cigarette smoking itself gives Building Trades workers should never smoke cigar- ettes Applause ) It's even better worthwhile not to breathe this dust The next piece of bad news came in 1965 when Dr. Newhouse in London looked at the 76 cases of mesothelioma that's the tumor that almost always occurs with asbestos in the files of the London Hospital As expected 31 had worked with asbestos Okay But when she visited the relatives because these people are all dead she found that nine had not worked with asbestos but had simply lived in the household of an asbestos worker raising for the first time the spector that it didn't take many fibers to cause these cancers ; Smoking gives enough trouble but you people who are on the jobs with the other chemicals with the dust have a much greater risk than everybody else We can skip those statistics We learned something else It's worthwhile for you to stop smoking Let me tell you why In 1967 there were many men who had given up the habit There were others who didn't In the next ten years those who gave up the habit had only about third the lung cancer risk compared to those who didn't give it up If you give up cigarette smoking those of you who still have this very difficult habit to break a tough habit to break everybody knows that but if you are able to break that habit you will decrease your risk of dying of lung cancer to about third of what it would otherwise be It's worthwhile your stopping Now we have gone to Paterson New Jersey and we have gone to the houses where these asbestos factory workers lived And we have gone to the attics and we have taken the dust in these little houses 30 years later and we find that the dust is still there _ When we sample the air in these houses this is what you find And when we asked the wives and chil- dren who lived with these asbestos workers from '41 to '45 to come in they felt fine to come in for rays We found that of the 626 that we examined third had abnormal rays These are innocent wives and children They had the misfortune of living with a worker who came home without changing his work clothes without changing his shoes and carrying the dust home with ; him And this is the ray of the daughter of the plant manager She INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD O ', has a little scar over here It's nothing It was nothing until the following year when she developed mesothelioma and died But this young man 11 years old . in 1964 lived with his father who worked in the plant for a year and here he is two years ago with his mesothelioma from which he died In that one single plant we have . already seen five deaths of meso- children thelioma among wives and and we have 30 years to go The next piece of bad news that came in '68 when Dr. Harries a - very brilliant young physician at the Royal Navy Dockyard in Dav- enport reported in that shipyard- they call their shipyards dockyards -five cases of mesothelioma ap- peared Well by 1968 that was no great surprise to have mesotheli- oma What was surprising was not one was an asbestos worker They were laborers boilermakers fitters and by 1973 he had 55 mesotheliomas only two in asbestos workers The rest were in all other trades electricians and caulkers One looks inside of a ship you will know why In fact as we have gone to shipyards in Groton Con- necticut Baltimore and elsewhere We find that they have been especially looking at painters we find that virtually every painter 9 out of 10 who have been in the trade for 20 years or more in shipyards now has an abnormal ray Well this is this is Barbara Gurry This is a normal ray four ' years ago and was taken because csaevqmt her mother just died of mesotheli- F oma and her father of lung cancer a He was a shipyard worker And here's her ray in 1977 with me- FOURTH GENERAL CONVENTION i't It's even better worthwhile not to ig breathe this dust ut all The next piece of bad news came in 1965 when Dr. Newhouse in London looked at the 76 cases of et mesothelioma that's the tumor r- that almost always occurs with as- n bestos in the files of the London , ,Hospital As expected 31 had . d- worked with asbestos ke Okay But when she visited the relatives because these people are all dead she found that nine had not worked with asbestos but had simply lived in the household of an asbestos worker raising for the first time the spector that it didn't take many fibers to cause these cancers Paterson le Now we have gone to bs New Jersey and we have gone to the houses where these asbestos sk factory workers lived And we have gone to the attics and we have taken the dust in these little houses 30 years later t's and we find that the dust is still .k- there When we sample the air in these en houses this is what you find And re when we asked the wives and chil- dren who lived with these asbestos workers from '41 to '45 to come in ho they felt fine to come in for rays ut We found that of the 626 that it we examined third had abnork- mal rays is These are innocent wives and children They had the misfortune of living with a worker who came to home without changing his work se clothes without changing his shoes er and carrying the dust home with ld him And this is the ray of the daughter of the plant manager She a INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES 263 has a little scar over here It's nothing It was nothing until the following year when she developed mesothelioma and died But this young man 11 years old in 1964 lived with his father who worked in the plant for a year and here he is two years ago with his mesothelioma from which he died In that one single plant we have already seen five deaths of mesothelioma among wives and children and we have 30 years to go The next piece of bad news that came in '68 when Dr. Harries a very brilliant young physician at the Royal Navy Dockyard in Davenport reported in that shipyardthey call their shipyards dockyards -five cases of mesothelioma ap- peared Well by 1968 that was no great surprise to have mesotheli- oma What surprising was not one was an asbestos worker They were laborers boilermakers fitters and by 1973 he had 55 mesotheliomas only two in asbestos workers The rest were in all other trades elec- tricians and caulkers One looks inside of a ship you will know why In fact as we have gone to shipyards in Groton Connecticut Baltimore and elsewhere We find that they have especially looking at painters we find that virtually every painter 9 out of 10 who have been in the trade for 20 years or more in shipyards now has an abnormal ray sothelioma when she came to our hospital just before she died in 1978. This is what was unfortunate to be the child of a conconstruction worker This is when a plant moved from Paterson New Jersey to Tyler Texas As you can see no precautions were taken They had another plant open in Port Allegany Pennsylvania The company didn't feel it useful to do very much so the Flint Glass Workers Union which represents these men rented a plane and 38 men came to see us last year They flew into Paterson New Jersey where we examined them 38 out of 38 had abnormal rays That plant opened in '64 '64 when we already knew all these things that could happen '64 when nothing was done We knew but the : knowledge wasn't applied And in this decade from '62 '69 we used another 7,500,000 tons of asbestos altogether Altogether from 1890 to 1970 we have put in place we put in place you did your buddies did and the various trades you use it in special paints for ceilings spackle com- pound et cetera you put in place 25 million tons of asbetstos in our industrial plants and our shipyards and our public buildings every- where And that 25 million tons is most- ly still there Your people many times it was the plasterers sprayed the stuff Well this is this is Barbara Gurry This is a normal ray four years ago and was taken because her mother just died of mesotheli- oma and her father of lung cancer He was a shipyard worker And here's her ray in 1977 with me- This is the World Trade Center You've not you but your people put it into hair dryers Ten million hair dryers a year were sold in this decade with asbestos in them You put it onto ceilings of ! 264 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY GENERAL CONVENTION | schools and the kids are in those schools You put it inside of buildings This is a laundry in an apartment house There are 25 million tons in place And as say the first standard of what to do about this is only now applied May I have the lights please You can see then why we are grateful to you because this hard won knowledge in the last 80 years has until now not been used And as a result of its not being used we have death and disease and will have it for decades to come the hearts of the delegates here of . their members and their families and I think in small appreciation they would want me to give you this certificate on behalf of our General Executive Board our Gen- eral President I'd like to read this to the dele- gates It says To Dr. Irving Selikoff Pioneer in Occupational Ally of Workers Researcher and Humanitarian for refusing to accept death and injury as a way of life for working men and women and for substantive contributions to our Safe and Secure Tomorrows Today Delegates to this 24th General Convention But it's programs such as you have put in place and departments such as you have just devoted that we hope will give us a future in which there will be no more ab- bestosis where there will be no more dibromochloropropanes where there will be no more vinyl chlorides and where men will be able to live well with dignity without death and disease and that the knowledge that's being accumulated will be used And for this our gratitude to you Thank you Applause DIRECTOR BURKHARDT Thank you very much Dr. Selikoff I think that the thousands of our own members and more important- ly millions of future workers both in your industry and in the construction trades specifically are in- debted to you for your fine work Dr. Selikoff I am sure you know that you have found the place in Thank you Dr. Selikoff Standing ovation Well to wrap up then our report we have been given two hours by the General Executive Board to report to the delegates on our first half of our Decade of Job Safety and I think that you will all agree - that we have come a long way in those first five years We have trained 6,000 of our members the last year We are working closely now with almost every union that's involved in the occupational safety and health field They are coming to the Interna- tional Brotherhood of Painters for guidance on how to train workers in occupation safety and health We are emarking in the next five years on a very ambitious program a program that's going to find more active involvement on the part of the local unions and district coun- cils in our Brotherhood and more importantly by the delegates to this Convention . INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF We are going to be training busi- ness agents in the area of medical surveillance We are going to be setting up programs to monitor the of health health our members We are . collective going to be recommending for your bargaining agreements negotiation of the proper clauses and battery of tests that are going be required to get us and our members protected in the second half of this Decade of Job Safety So President Raftery on behalf of the people who have worked in this field of safety and health we appreciate the opportunity to address the delegation and we hope that you find our report satisfactory Thank you very much Applause) GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT JAMES COX Frank thank you and the other participants for a very affirmative presentation - I turn the Chair over to Presi- _ dent Raftery * .. Applause) , GENERAL PRESIDENT RAF- TERY Well it was no accident we prepared the program for presentation this morning I thought it would be quite appropriate to lead into our special order of business by letting you know what we have done and the track record that we have in the whole matter of health and safety And one of the best ways we could do that was put on a presentation : involving Dr. Selikoff Brother Tay- ten lor of the AFL and presented by Frank Burkhardt and his staff I think it was a wonderful presentation Don't you Gentlemen Applause )