Laws goals to cease countertop cutters with silicosis from suing : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3175x2381+213+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F36%2Fc1%2F4e76a3be41b1b9d28fd0b3e505df%2Fgettyimages-2165259874.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3175x2381+213+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F36%2Fc1%2F4e76a3be41b1b9d28fd0b3e505df%2Fgettyimages-2165259874.jpg" class="img" alt="Sun Valley, CA: A stone countertop fabricator wears a mask to help protect against airborne particles which can contribute to silicosis at a shop in Sun Valley, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)" fetchpriority="high"/> A stone countertop fabricator wears a masks to assist defend in opposition to airborne particles which might contribute to silicosis at a store in Solar Valley, Calif. Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions disguise caption

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Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions An epidemic of a lethal lung illness amongst tons of of employees who lower kitchen and loo counter tops has regulators on reverse sides of the nation contemplating two drastically totally different responses this week.

In a California listening to on Thursday, office security regulators shall be discussing a proposed ban on chopping so-called quartz or engineered stone, a well-liked alternative for counter tops. That is as a result of this materials creates an uncommon quantity of lung-damaging silica mud when it will get lower or polished, way over pure granite or marble.

In the meantime in Washington, Republicans on a subcommittee of the Home Judiciary Committee convened a listening to to debate a invoice that may as an alternative ban employees' means to carry lawsuits in opposition to the businesses that manufacture and promote the uncooked slabs of this engineered materials.

"They have it backwards. It isn't the lawsuits that ought to be banned, it is the stone slabs that ought to be banned, as a result of they're lethal and so they can't be fabricated safely," says Raphael Metzger, an lawyer in California who represents quite a few countertop employees and says tons of of lawsuits are ongoing.

However Minnesota-based Cambria, the principle producer of the engineered quartz slabs in america, says that along with producing the uncooked slabs that it sells to distributors and countertop fabricators, it additionally runs a number of of its personal fabrication outlets that lower slabs to order whereas controlling the mud with air flow and moist chopping methods.

"This demonstrates that quartz might be fabricated safely," mentioned Rebecca Shult, the chief authorized officer of Cambria within the Wednesday listening to on Capitol Hill. "Our employees are protected."

She pointed the finger at countertop companies that lower uncooked slabs on a budget with out the required protections. "It is outrageous that these American sweatshops will not be being shut down," she mentioned.

Whereas Cambria is dealing with round 400 lawsuits from employees with lung illness who have been employed in different firms, she mentioned, "Cambria has no management over these third social gathering companies and their harmful situations. We do not personal them and we do not function them…The mistaken events are being sued."

Employees' advocates do not buy that stance.

"In my years in occupational well being, I've by no means seen an trade say, 'We promote a harmful product however we've no accountability for it as soon as it leaves our manufacturing facility, and quite than defend employees downstream, we're those who want safety from lawsuits,' " says David Michaels, an epidemiologist with George Washington College and a former director of OSHA, the federal office security company.

"Not sufficient lungs"

The countertop trade is in a disaster that is been rising shortly lately.

Almost 500 employees who manufacture kitchen counter tops by chopping slabs of pure and synthetic stone have fallen in poor health since 2019 with a critical and irreversible lung illness in California alone. There, greater than 50 have wanted lung transplants, and 27 employees have died. Most are Hispanic males of their 40's or 30's, and even youthful.

"We worry the numbers will solely proceed to climb," mentioned Alice Berliner, director of the Workplace of Employee Well being & Security for Los Angeles County Division of Public Well being in a December public assembly. "Every quantity is a companion, a good friend, a mum or dad, a toddler, or a sibling. These are human lives, not simply numbers."

Extra employees have gotten sick in different states, together with Texas, New York, Colorado, and Washington. Massachusetts simply discovered their first case, in a Hispanic man in his 40s who, for the previous 14 years, had labored for stone countertop fabrication and set up firms.

One sickened employee, Leobardo Segura Meza, advised a office security board in California in 2023 that he anxious there have been "not sufficient lungs" for all of the transplants that may be wanted on this trade, which employs about 100,000 individuals nationwide.

Regardless of the current passage of stricter office requirements in California, Berliner mentioned her workforce's visits to small and medium-sized countertop fabrication outlets present that compliance with the principles stays low.

She mentioned that during the last six months, whereas visiting greater than 100 fabrication outlets, the security officers didn't observe any employees carrying the suitable stage of respiratory safety throughout high-risk chopping and sharpening duties.

And despite the fact that chopping the slabs with out utilizing a stream of water to damp down the mud might be extraordinarily harmful, she mentioned that her workplace estimates that "not less than 25% of outlets proceed to dry-cut stone."

Similarities with Australia

The regular rise in critical circumstances of lung illness has prompted the Western Occupational & Environmental Medical Affiliation (WOEMA), a gaggle of office well being specialists in 7 Western states, to petition California's Occupational Security and Well being Requirements Board to easily ban the chopping of engineered stone with excessive quantities of silica.

"The fabric itself is much more harmful than we thought," says Robert Blink, a health care provider in California who makes a speciality of work-related medical issues and who's a former WOEMA president. He says the variety of new critical diseases and deaths is "unimaginable to tolerate."

Even in outlets which have put mud controls in place, he says, researchers have measured unsafe ranges of silica.

He says there's an estimated 4,000 countertop employees in California, which implies thus far, about 12% have developed critical diseases. "As time goes on, and these circumstances proceed to be recognized, the quantity is approaching the Australia numbers," he says, noting that after an identical disaster started in Australian countertop employees, that nation banned engineered stone fully.

Such a ban is "more likely to be the simplest technique for the first prevention of silicosis, because it doesn't depend on controls carried out by particular person employers and employees," based on one report.

Cambria's Shult disputes that, saying the quartz product is not the issue—the issue is unsafe chopping processes. "We've got no real interest in promoting to unsafe outlets," she advised lawmakers, saying the corporate was making an attempt to work with regulators to advertise employee security.

The impact of lawsuits

Throughout Wednesday's congressional listening to, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., questioned why Congress would successfully grant a type of authorized immunity to the makers and suppliers of a trendy countertop materials.

He famous that the CEO of Cambria, Marty Davis, is a Republican donor, and mentioned the obvious purpose of the proposed laws "was to present a handout to a millionaire good friend of none aside from Donald Trump" whereas countertop employees "battle to make ends meet, battle to remain alive, truly."

Gary Talwar, vice chairman of Pure Stone Sources, a family-owned stone distribution firm in Anaheim, California, advised lawmakers that his firm is dealing with dozens of lawsuits, regardless of being a distributor that doesn't lower, grind, or polish stone. He says distributors are more and more being named in lawsuits for accidents tied to chopping engineered stone.

"We're simply being hammered," he advised lawmakers. "Over the previous week I've spoken with mates and colleagues throughout the trade. A lot of them have been named in 50 and as much as 100 totally different lawsuits. A number of have already spent tons of of hundreds of {dollars} simply making an attempt to defend themselves, whereas paying greater insurance coverage premium renewals or not even being supplied a renewal in any respect."

"My hope is that we will refocus accountability the place it belongs," he says, "on office security, OSHA compliance, and the events who management fabrication practices."

Michaels, the previous OSHA director, says there merely aren't sufficient office inspectors to go to hundreds of countertop fabrication outlets and guarantee that they're following the principles, and OSHA is dealing with funding cuts.

He hopes this proposed laws to ban the employees' lawsuits by no means involves a vote in Congress.

"This laws is a dying sentence for employees on this trade," says Michaels. "If there is no such thing as a obligation of those producers and distributors to make sure that the downstream customers of their merchandise are secure, we'll proceed to see increasingly more circumstances of silicosis, increasingly more lung transplant circumstances, increasingly more deaths."