News

Asbestos timebomb cover-up
Posted: 25-11-2004

A Chronicle probe has uncovered hundreds of the documents which show directors knew workers were being put at risk from asbestos. Papers from the Washington Chemical Company and sister firm Newalls Insulation in Newcastle reveal the extent to which thousands of employees were misled and their lives put at risk. Company documents from the 1930s to the late 1970s have been compiled by a university lecturer in Manchester. The 240 cassettes of microfilm detail the lengths they went to try to stop the Government from extending asbestos restrictions and to cover up the affect of the deadly dust. They reveal more than 20,000 people were exposed to asbestos by working at the chemical company or at Newalls. Only 800 were ever given a medical. Photos of mountains of discarded asbestos towering above nearby homes, given to the Chronicle by a former Washington Chemical Co worker, show how families for miles around lived in their shadow. Children regularly played in the piles of dust unaware of the threat. Minutes from the board of Newalls Insulation show how the company tried to stem the amount of compensation it paid to asbestosis victims by changing employment rules. These included stopping hiring people with chest problems and later those who had worked in mines as they had more chance of getting asbest-os related diseases. Also even though the firm knew the extent of the damage caused by asbestos it never warned employees of the dangers. A letter from parent company Turner & Newall's solicitors to the firm in 1977 said: "It has not been practical for Newalls to adopt a system of warning men of the risk of contracting asbestosis or other respiratory disability." In one set of minutes in 1940, after a man who worked filling mattresses died of asbestosis, the company decided men would be moved around in jobs so they could not claim compensation. The minutes said: "Mr Collins said that this work will not come within the asbestos scheme if it is only occasional and suggested therefore that this fact should continually be borne in mind and that where ever the making of mattresses in the areas became necessary different men should be engaged in the work on difference occasions." The minutes also outline Government factory inspectors' reports which reveal how asbestos dust was piling up on ledges and workers did not wear protective masks. The factory inspectors were introduced after the Asbestos Act, implemented in 1931, laid out restrictions for some workers who deal with asbestos. Unions wanted men who worked with insulation to be given medicals but the firm decided only a handful would, to avoid setting a precedent and to stop the unions from going to the Government. The minutes said: "Mr Collins said he thought that the present problem was largely a tactical or psychological matter for the management rather than a legal problem." Meanwhile calls from factory inspectors for everyone working with insulation to wear masks were suppressed. The directors felt the Government would eventually crack down on asbestos practices but chose to resist any extension of the rules as long as it could. The minutes read: "This suggestion, which in effect would represent a very wide extension of the regulations would be resisted." Workers who were entitled to medicals found the Medical Board dealing with these was so behind in its work it did not attend the factory for more than 18 months. Union protests over the delay were ignored. The extent the board would go to avoid paying compensation was shown when one woman died of asbestosis and lung cancer. Letters between directors agreed to "resist any suggestion that death was due to asbestosis" and say her death was due to cancer. Jack Bedlington, 79, of Viola Street in Concorde, worked at the Chemical Company for 36 years. He was not surprised by the minutes but said people in the factory were just pleased to have a job. He said: "I was never given a dust mask and I was never told of the dangers of asbestos. " Washington Chemical Company made asbestos products including fire proofed mattress for trains, lagging for pipes and spun glass, which could be found in insulation in buildings. The firm's contracting arm Newalls Insulation had workers spraying ships with asbestos mixed with magnesium, many in Tyneside yards.

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