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IBM Government The Courts News Science

Semiconductor Employees Suing IBM 273

Posted by michael from the more-of-your-life-than-you-bargained-for dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to the NYTimes's Bob Herbert, IBM has been killing its employees by exposure to dangerous chemicals - evidence is being offered by stricken employees that unusually large numbers of men and women who worked for the giant computer corporation over the past few decades have been dying prematurely."
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Semiconductor Employees Suing IBM More

Semiconductor Employees Suing IBM

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  • I've been dying to get one as just as long as you've been dying to make them!
    • I've been dying to get one as just as long as you've been dying to make them!

      Very slowly.

    • Re: So where's my G5? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by invi ( 198857 )
      Ok, I'm not going to discuss wheter or not the above comment is funny by any definition. The point is that people have been and still are dying. Marking a comment making fun of these facts as +5 funny is just *plain* stupid.
      • Funny isn't determined by whether something is "appropriate" or not. It's based solely on the reaction of people to the joke/situation/whatever. Some of us think that finding humor in a generally depressing world is good. Just because your sense of humor is different does not make us wrong.

  • Non-Registration Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by sparkhead ( 589134 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:34AM (#6867639)
    As usual....Same article without registration [nytimes.com]

  • yer kidding. . (Score:4, Funny)

    by NetMagi ( 547135 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:35AM (#6867646)
    and I was always jealous of everyone with an "IBM" job. .

    at least working in the pr0n industry I'll only go blind. .

  • industry problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by n0mad6 ( 668307 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:38AM (#6867661)
    Does anyone know of exposure to harmful substances in other companies that do similar manufacturing? I mean, surely, IBM does not have dramatically different methods of manufacturing hard drives and semiconductors from the rest of the industry.

    • Re:industry problem? (Score:4, Informative)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:46AM (#6867722) Homepage
      For a while the company WAS the industry. Not too many computer manufacturing companies that have been around long enough to show these statistics.

    • Re:industry problem? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda.etoyoc@com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:17AM (#6867938) Homepage Journal
      They use the same stuff as everyone else. To tell you the truth though, having WORKED in semiconductors, you are exposed to a lot more nasty stuff in an auto-body shop. That's not to say a lot of the chemicals aren't nasty, but it's generally in a controlled environment. You can't just slop chemicals around and expect to etch circuitry a few angstroms wide.
      • One of my proff's sister worked for Intel. She wanted to have a baby. They told her she had to stop working on chips for at least 18 months before getting pregenant. I don't know much about an autobody shop...but do they wear bunny suits? And are they not allowed to have children?
        • It was corporate CYA.
        • I have also worked in both auto repair garages and semiconductor labs, and I'm not sure which chemical agents the original poster was referring to as being worse in the auto repair world. Well, there is asbestos dust in brakes, and perhaps some solvents like brake cleaner and bad things in used motor oil. I once saw a leaking lead-acid battery, and once a battery blew up when a guy was charing it (had no liquid to spew out as it blew up, which was why it blew up in the first place). But I don't think tha

    • Problem? What Problem... move the plant to China (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HighOrbit ( 631451 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:50AM (#6868245)
      Although this kind of threat to workers' health is an outrage, in the real world, companies just move overseas when the US cracks down with safety/anti-pollution regulations or if the lawsuits start to pile up. Instead of fixing the problem, it is much cheaper to just move overseas and keep on doing what they have always been doing. There is practically *ZERO* enforcement of workplace safety regulations, environmental pollution regulations, and workers rights in China. The right to sue your employer in China only exists on paper and there are no independent labor unions.

      What is needed here is both strict safety regulation and a ban or heavy tariff on goods from countries that do not enforce a basic level of similar reguations. This will force IBM and others to clean up their act and prevent them from just transfering the plants overseas.
      • What is needed here is both strict safety regulation and a ban or heavy tariff on goods from countries that do not enforce a basic level of similar reguations. This will force IBM and others to clean up their act and prevent them from just transfering the plants overseas.

        Mod parent up.

        It should not be possible to reduce manufacturing costs by offshoring in order to skirt basic workplace safety, child labor, or environmental regulations.

      • Re:Problem? What Problem... move the plant to Chin (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 04, 2003 @10:43AM (#6869393)
        Agreed, but it isn't fair for you to blame IBM for this. Their competitors do it, so if they don't, they go out of business. It really is that simple. Sometimes the government tries to erect tariffs to balance the playing field a bit, but then everybody starts screaming about protectionism and corporate welfare. It's a no-win situation for all involved.

        I think a stronger case can be made, though: all of these countries which have weak employee protection laws now will get stronger laws and start having retroactive lawsuits (ala tobacco or asbestos) which will probably cost the companies a lot more down the road than it would cost them to avoid those areas now. And I'll bet they're not factoring that risk into their cost analyses.
    • I was looking around for an article I read a few years ago, I thought in one of the valley papers, but stumbled on this [junkscience.com], which seemed to cover the same points and might have just been republished out there. You might also want to take a look at this from the EPA. [epa.gov]
    • The short list:

      Chromium and Chromium oxides (Cr3 not Cr6 as in Erin Brockovich but still nasty stuff)
      High Strength Acids (Hydrofluoric, Hydrochloric, Acetic)
      High Strength Bases (Potassium Hydoxide, Sodium Hydroxide)

  • wouldn't surprise.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:38AM (#6867665) Homepage Journal
    after all, semiconductor industry isn't _that_ old (few _decades_) and generally usage of chemicals a few decades ago wasn't often so well thought and their long term effects weren't usually that well laid out in ANY industry. and even more common is that employees in those old times didn't care themselfs at all about protection("what, i can't see it it cant hurt me don't tell me boy how to do this i've been doing this for 30 years") and general awareness about such things wasn't exactly stellar.

    -

    • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda.etoyoc@com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:24AM (#6868013) Homepage Journal
      White mice exposed to flourscent lights die.
    • semiconductor industry isn't _that_ old (few _decades_)...long term effects weren't usually that well laid out in ANY industry.

      On a more general note, I am amazed at the amount of potentially dangerous stuff people expose themselves to on a daily basis because some government think-tank deemed it safe while ignoring the fact that repercussions such as cancer or birth defects are unlikely to show up immediately and may result not from initial exposure but from very long term exposure.

      Those depleted Urani

      • Depleted Uranium are called "depleted" because they have been depleted of radioactivity. Thus, they are inert, and non-radioactive. Depleted Uranium is just a metal. I wouldn't recommending eating the stuff, but for the purpose of what it does, it's safe. (If you call a huge bullet hitting the side of a tank "safe", of course...)
        • You can't just "deplete" something of radioactivity. It is called that because most of the gamma-radiation-generating materials have been leached out for use in weapons or fuel rods. That doesn't mean it isn't radioactive. It's just less radioactive than unprocessed uranium out of the ground.

          The health danger is largely from ingestion or inhalation of small particulate uranium resulting from its use. If you get enough of it in your body, it can cause problems.

  • Same thing in other companies. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thbigr ( 514105 ) <thebigr314@NOsPam.gmail.com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:39AM (#6867668) Journal
    Whe I worked as a software Engineer for a small manufacturing company, many of the Electrical Engineers had many many problems relating to exposure to chemicals.

    One had an enlarged liver, another had a nerveous dis-order. There was cancer. I think it stems from an over all lack of knowledge of hazordous chemicals.

    When I worked there OSHA (Sp.?) had done a lot to make things better. A LOT of chemicals where removed and cleaned up. I was still nerveous about standing next to a pot of molten solder, etc.

    • You know you're on Slashdot when... (Score:5, Funny)

      by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:42AM (#6868166) Journal
      "When I worked there OSHA (Sp.?) had done a lot to make things better."

      You know you're on Slashdot when someone is unsure of the spelling of "OSHA".

    • Usual Media Hype? (Score:5, Informative)

      by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @11:35AM (#6870034) Journal
      These things are usually statistical anomalies - of course if you gather a group of people w/ cancer it looks like they have a higher risk/rate - it's because of a SELECTION BIAS!. You need to look at ALL of the employees who worked with these chemicals.

      2 If it is workplace related exposure, then the people exposed to it should generally come down with the SAME TYPE of cancers/diseases(e.g. radium watch makers all came down with bone tumors, aniline dye workers all came down with bladder cancer) . If someone has esophagous cancer (prob from smoking+drinking) and somebody else has a bone tumor and someone else has brain cancer then these things DON'T ADD UP.

      We need to see a GOOD epidemiological investigation before IBM is accused of increasing the cancer risk in it's manufacturing divisions. These things are almost always related to
      Selection bias [consort-statement.org]

  • Weird Quote (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:40AM (#6867680)
    "If we'd known all this from the beginning," he said, "we'd never have gone to work for I.B.M. We'd all have become shoe salesmen or something."
    This seems like an odd statement to me. I mean, if I had found out that I had gone to school for 4-12 years, and that my chosen field would involve toxic materials, I likely would have said "Hey, can I get some safety equipment to shield me from this stuff? Maybe some gloves and some lead garments?" not "Ah, well...I think its time to go sell women's shoes."

    Despite that, I think the employees have a fairly good point. Even if IBM didn't know about the toxic conditions, it was IBM who put the employees there, and they should likely have to deal with the consequences. Its really sad that it had to turn out this way.

    • It says he developed cancer in his leg in 1985.

      Maybe he did spend some time as a kid selling shoes:

      http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/shoexray.htm [mtn.org]

    • Re:Weird Quote (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rich0 ( 548339 )
      I mean, if I had found out that I had gone to school for 4-12 years, and that my chosen field would involve toxic materials, I likely would have said "Hey, can I get some safety equipment to shield me from this stuff? Maybe some gloves and some lead garments?"

      Are you kidding - back then they practically fed benzene to the chem lab students! Remember - we're talking the 50's and 60's here. It was NOTHING like chemical safety nowadays.

      The universities haven't improved all that much since. Industry, on
    • The work is done in clean room environments, where the same air is recirculated all day. You would need respirators and full body bio-suits to not breathe in the chemicals.

      There's also the fact that many places just dumped the toxic waste into the ground, which is why many cities in Silicon Valley have questionable water and why a measurable percentage of all California lettuce had some toxins.

  • Dammit! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:40AM (#6867682)

    I went to news.google.com to search for the google partner link, but "IBM lawsuit" turned up all this shit about some company called SCO. Who are they, anyway? They say they've got some sort of Unix, but I've never seen or even heard of anyone who runs it.

    Must be some two-bit company...wonder why they're getting so much press.

  • More hazards in IBM cafeteria! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:48AM (#6867737)
    Original found on Usenet. [google.com]

    okra - sterculic acid (anti-metabolite)
    celery - psoralins (light-stimulated carcinogens)
    crucifers - goitrin (turns off your thyroid)
    litchee - hypoglycin-A (L-a-amino-b-[methylene
    cyclopropyl]propionic acid)
    peanuts - aflatoxcins (fungal metabolites; hepatic carcinogens)
    lima beans - cyanogenic glycosides
    carrots - carotatoxin (neurotxin)
    mushrooms - hydrazines (carcinogen; holy Alar, Batman!)
    tomatoes - tomatine (neurotoxin), quercetin glycosides (carcinogens)
    broccoli - benzpyrene (carcinogin), goitrin (shuts down thyroid)
    potatoes - solanine (toxin; causes spina bifida), chaconine
    (neutrotoxin), isoflavones (estrogens), arsenic
    cassava - linamarin (cyanogenic glycoside)
    broad bean - vicine (hemolytic)
    chick pea - beta-N-oxalylamino-L-alanine (lathyrogenic factor)
    fiddlehead - ptaquiloside (leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, hemolysis;
    bladder and intestinal carcinogen)
    comfrey - pyrrolizidine alkaloids (hepatotoxin)
    cabbage - thiocyanates (shuts down thyroid)
    spinach - phytanic acid (chelates iron adn zinc - no absorption)
    soy - genistin, daidzin, coumesterol (phytoestrogens)
    wheat germ - phytoestrogens
    nutmeg - myristicin (hallucinogen, spasmodic)
    mustard - allyl isothiocyanate (war gas)
    alfalfa sprouts - canavanine (arginine mimic; highly toxic to growing
    mammals)
    • Well, I'll still eat these things, as most of them have been nutritious staple foods for centuries. Sure, things like tomatoes and potatoes have been contriversial off and on, but I don't see the Italians and Irish dropping like flies. Perhaps, just perhaps, eating a potato is less dangerous than eating nothing at all?

  • List of chemicals (from memory) (Score:5, Informative)

    by xyote ( 598794 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:55AM (#6867795)
    Typical chemicals used back then as far as I can remember (unless my memory was affected) were; hydrofloric acid (maybe mixed with nitric acid so you would know if it splashed on you), arsenic and phosgene used as dopants, various solvents mostly zylene which is a known carcinogen (but you can buy it at Home Depot so it must be safe for you), acetone, and silane (methane with Si instead of C) which burns on contact with air to make silicon dioxide (glass).
    • The zylene is sold as Goof Off [goof-off.com], and available in the paint department at Home Depot [homedepot.com]. It has a nasty smell to it.

      I find that for many purposes, WD-40 [wd40.com] (warning: audio on site) does the same trick, is cheaper, not smelly, and (perhaps?) not as carcinogenic.

  • The secrets out! (Score:3, Funny)

    by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @07:56AM (#6867801) Journal
    evidence is being offered by stricken employees that unusually large numbers of men and women who worked for the giant computer corporation over the past few decades have been dying prematurely."

    Somebody leaked the "Logans Run" experiment, NOW someone is going to pay! Just wait until everyone finds out what's going on over at Intel!

  • Holy hyperbole, Statman! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:00AM (#6867821) Homepage

    "statistical analyses", "troubling elevations", "younger than the U.S. average", "chilling", "sadly", "Incredibly", "More than 200 plaintiffs", "serious illnesses", "vehemently denied"

    Phew, with all those emotive phrases, I'm finding that I have strong opinions on this, despite not having access to the data behind the complaint, and not seeing the phrase "standard deviations" appearing once. I guess because IBM are a big company, they must be evil and therefore guilty, except that they're being sued by SCO, so perhaps they're good and therefore innocent.

    One thing's for sure though, I'm not going to wait for them to muddy this with boring old "facts" before jumping to my conclusion.

  • How long before IBM shuts down all their manufacturing plants and moves them to places where such employee problems aren't IBM's problem?

  • Statistics don't add up (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda.etoyoc@com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:04AM (#6867846) Homepage Journal
    IBM has employed millions of people over the past 100 years. Logic tells you that out of that population a few thousand WILL get sick. Not from negligence, they just get sick.

    Now, if you can show me a few hundred people with the SAME ailment, you might have something. But this suit is fishing with a gill net.

    • millions? somehow I doubt that.

      Depends on the type of sickness. I mean tens of tousands will get sick. most of which will live through it.

      Toxic exposure doesn't always cause the same ailment to different people.

      I can not speak to the validity of the suit, however, perhaps you should think more before posting.

      • From their annual report in 2000 [ibm.com] IBM employed 316,000 people in 2000. Assuming they have an average turnover rate for the industry at about 20%, they cycle through 60,000 people per year. Over 50 years that's well over 3,000,000.

        Granted, I don't have a good historical accounting of how many people worked there throughout history. That sort of minimal research would require me to go back through at least 50 annual reports.

        I just wanted you to see the sheer numbers involved.

      • Yes, of course...you can't dismiss it when thousands of people are showing symptoms of heavy metal toxicity and radiation damage to the lungs. You can't dismiss it as "Well, some people get sick. It's a fluke." or "They are making it up to defraud us out of money. You're not really dead! GET UP!" Just like you can't dismiss the fact that these people have heavy levels of toxic heavy metals in their blood, lungs, and sometimes even semen. "Well...who knows how that got there...Besides, its not danger

  • More Fuzzy Math (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda.etoyoc@com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:12AM (#6867905) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Richard Clapp, a respected epidemiologist from Boston University who was hired by a group of 40 plaintiffs in San Jose, said statistical analyses he has run from data provided by the company have shown troubling elevations of breast cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain cancer among I.B.M. employees. He also said the cancers appeared to be occurring in I.B.M. employees at ages younger than the U.S. average.

    This is statistical hogwash. You can't take a sample like "all IBM employees" and compare it to "all the people in the United States." Analysis needs to be tuned to a population that has a similar demographic. Age, geography, economic background, pollution, family history, smoking, and even diet affect cancer rates tremendously.

    • I survived Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma myself. Doctors do not yet know what causes this disease. They only have a list of 7 possible causes, only one of which is hazardous chemicals.

      And in my case, that was one cause that was totally eliminated, due to lack of exposure.

      One the other causes listed was STRESS!

      Ages younger than the US average - try 36 for me. But how about sitting next to a kid in the waiting room, who at 17 was one his second go round for cancer?

      This sounds more like lawyers trolling for dol

    • You can't take a sample like "all IBM employees" and compare it to "all the people in the United States." Analysis needs to be tuned to a population that has a similar demographic. Age, geography, economic background, pollution, family history, smoking, and even diet affect cancer rates tremendously.

      We're not talking about a small age difference here. Quote:

      All of them died after contracting malignant illnesses, most of them succumbing in their 30's and 40's.

      People dying of cancer in their thirties i

    • Has it not occurred to you that "tuning this analysis" to similar demographic might entail comparing this group of IBM employees to people who experience frequent exposure to hazardous chemicals? The claim IBM stands to prove is that IBM semiconductor employees face no more risks than average people. I don't see how "all the people in the United States" functions as a legitimate control group.

      As for your other post [slashdot.org], the defendants are presumably dealing with similar ailments with the same cause. Moreove
    • Considering the large number of IBM employees in a variety of locations, that statistic is far from meaningless. If it were one little shop in the middle of nowhere, that would be one thing. But we are talking about thousands of people in dozens of sites.
      • Actually Millions of people at dozens of sites. But if you are comparing computer professionals to, say, wheat farmers, they both have different ailments.

        One would find Wheat farmers are far more prone to melanoma. And we all know wheat is very dangerous stuff.

  • workers fault ?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ian 0x57 ( 688051 )
    Could it be the workers fault ?? I know here where i work many safty procedures are in place, including masks for some substances but rarely do I see people using them.
    All the time I see people breathing fumes, will they one day turn around and sue ?? Probably. People are trained, equipment is offered free, people ignore the rules, people sue.
    • But the point is, these employees were not trained in the dangers of the chemicals with which they were working. Such safety procedures did not [yet] exist, perhaps because the dangerous natures of the chemicals were not known.

      But it's true that if such procedures did exist as they do now, then there's no case: nobody can prevent you from hurting yourself if you want to, and refusing to follow safety procedures is a concious acceptance of that risk.

    • Re:workers fault ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by allism ( 457899 )
      I hate to be a gomer here, but in this case I would still think it's the managers' fault - managers are responsible for enforcing workplace policies, whether it's 'get your job done' or 'follow the safety procedures'. If someone's not following safety procedures, they should be reprimanded or fired because they are posing a liability to themselves and others. Ultimately, management is responsible for everything that goes on in a workplace.

      OTOH, I am not a sue-happy type person - I think most of the produ

  • Of course we don't want to hear this. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:15AM (#6867930)
    We want faster processors and more memory at all costs. If there's an environmental or human toll caused by getting a new CPU and video card every year so I can play the k00lest new gamez, then I say screw 'em :P
  • And you thought that your Deskstar was just committing suicide...

  • Pick your poison (Score:5, Funny)

    by zephc ( 225327 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:22AM (#6867985)
    Go into hardware, die from nasty production chemicals

    Go into software, die from a Doritos or Mountain Dew overdose.

    Either way, you're screwed

  • Strange headline (Score:3, Funny)

    by SgtXaos ( 157101 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @08:44AM (#6868188) Journal
    After all, aren't ALL employees 'semiconductors'? My boss got across the 220VAC line once and didn't completely short it. The affect on *his* shorts was undesirable...

  • Overclocking humans.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jamesjw ( 213986 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @09:14AM (#6868472) Homepage

    I guess this is what happens when IBM tries to overclock humans.. halfs their lifetimes..

    -- Jim
  • All the pictures I've ever seen of semiconductor fabs has shown all the workers in environment suits to keep the machinery as totally clean as possible. So how exactly are the chemicals supposed to have gotten in to these "victims"?

    • Re:environment suits (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The chemicals get into these "victims" by breathing in the fabs. Chemical spills also are another common way.

      As for environmental suits. These are really just coveralls for "high tech" workers made of a thin nylon. The "bunny suits" are meant to prevent things like hair and flakes of skin floating around in the air. People are the single biggest source for particlulate contamination in any fab.

      The "bunny suits" protect the wafers from the people, they are not meant to protect the workers from hazards

  • Caution: This is Op-Ed (Score:2, Informative)

    by onree ( 680951 )
    I can't speak to the merits of the case either way, but for some perspective it might be helpful to note that this is an OP-ED piece, and not a news story, from the NY Times. So although everything stated in the article may in fact be plain vanilla truth, your usual spin filters should be engaged.

  • It's perhaps true of the whole early industry (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tsu Dho Nimh ( 663417 ) <abacaxi@ho t m a il.com> on Thursday September 04, 2003 @09:49AM (#6868827)
    "an extraordinary number of workers were employed in the older facilities as the computer industry grew with breathtaking speed to become one of the dominant forces in American life in the last half of the 20th century."

    At that time, the long-term dangers of those chemicals were not appreciated. However, can they clearly pin it on the IBM process lines? How about the Reynold's plant, auto body shops, plating factories, and the rest fo the crap that was being dumped into the Silicon Valley air, dirt and water?

  • The questions:

    Was the company reasonably able to know the danger and effects of the chemicals within a given environment?

    Were the employee's reasonably able to know the danger and effects of the chemicals within a given environment?

    I do not agree with lawsuits against companies because we later find that a given environment wasn't as safe as we once thought. If we suddenly find that some specific type of blue paint causes skin conditions after it has been used for twenty years is it reasonable for
    • Even if IBM didn't know, they still deserve compensation for harm that IBM exposed them to. Just because IBM didn't know, shouldn't mean that these people are screwed.
      That's my opinion. My other opinion is they if IBM did know, and didn't tell the workers, the people responsible should face jail time for criminal negligence. But that could never happen because in the US, corporations are people, and since it was the corporation that did it, only the corporation can be charged with anything. Yay!
      • "Even if IBM didn't know, they still deserve compensation for harm that IBM exposed them to."

        This is where I tend to disagree with people. I believe that people need to take responsibility for there own actions and companies cannot be held responsible for all the worlds' ills. IBM may have had a harmful environment and they may have paid people to enter into that harmful environment. They did not force anyone. Anyone who entered into that environment did so of there own free will and was paid to do s
    • If IBM has reaped the profits of business operations that wound up poisoning and killing their employees, why should the employees (or their survivors) not sue for compensation?

      Everything that you do involves risk. Apparently for you, this means that the risk is shifted to the employee when things go badly, but stay with the company when things go well (as the company keeps the reward associated with the risk).

  • Dateline Interview (Score:3, Informative)

    by devnull17 ( 592326 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @10:34AM (#6869295) Homepage Journal

    A group of IBM fab workers (presumably the same group) made an appearance on NBC's Dateline to discuss this very issue five years ago. Here's a transcript [svtc.org].

  • Recent news: IBM lays off 15,000 workers Translation: 15,000 workers fired for dying on the job.

  • I love this: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @10:50AM (#6869493) Homepage
    Companies that provided chemicals to I.B.M. are also defendants in the suits. The workers were not told of the risks, according to the lawsuits, even after they began showing symptoms of systemic chemical poisoning.

    This show's they are after money, and not information. IBM bought these chemicals.... why is it the fault of the company that sold them to them?
    • This show's they are after money, and not information.

      Of course they're after money! What do you think they're filing a lawsuit for--IBM to use their time-mahcine to go back and undo the exposure?

      Nearly every lawsuit filed in the US is a damaged party seeking monies in compenstion for their damage. Many times this is just "to pay the bills".
  • This is a NY Times expose. Please check Snopes for factual accuracy...

  • I Worked at IBM East Fishkill (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LeOTheLip ( 621881 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @11:46AM (#6870145)
    For a year as a contractor in the late eighties. There was always a nasty stink of fumes around the entire plant. It would hit you as you drove up to the place.

    I didn't work in a clean room, although I spent my 12 months there slicing silicon wafers and then bathing them in a solvent (do not remember exactly what it was) that dissolved the bond between each wafer and a strip of caulk. The protection I was given was for my eyes (goggles) and hands (rubber gloves).

    I do remember that my lungs would burn after shifts, particularly by the end of the week. I don't have cancer, yet, but I do have diminished lung capacity and chronic bronchitus now. Are they fallout from my stint at IBM? Possibly. Doctors always ask me if I smoke (never have) when they give me lung capacity tests and get back these crappy results.

    Do I suspect I was taken advantage of? Again, possibly, but you need to understand that at the time it was a big deal to get any job at IBM in Duchess county. Seven dollars an hour was considered a king's ransom since just about all the other work available was for minimum wage. All of the contractors I worked with applied to become full-time employees, and a "lucky" few were accepted when their temp stints ran out. Hopefully, since I wasn't one of the "lucky" ones, I'll be one of the truly lucky ones that doesn't develop a serious illness from my time spent there.

    Overall I'm a little worried but as I said, I don't have cancer yet and I take care of my health. I feel bad for my co-workers who are very sick now or who have died. There were a lot of good people working there and I think IBM is no different than any other large corporation in the borderline craven way they put profits above all other considerations.

    Be careful out there, is all I can say.

  • Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition: IBM is Okay (Score:3, Interesting)

    by reporter ( 666905 ) on Thursday September 04, 2003 @12:05PM (#6870345) Homepage
    One thing that distinguishes the United States of America (and other Western countries) from non-Western countries is that Americans try their best to seek justice even if the process of justice is not perfect. Clearly, IBM and the manufacturers of dangerous chemicals used in processing semiconducters have committed an injustice against some of the employees at IBM. IBM should pay significant financial compensation to those employees or to the surviving relatives of the deceased employees.

    Justice does not stop there. Since we require American companies like IBM to abide by stringent environmental and work regulations that protect both the environment and American workers, we must also require foreign companies like Acer from Taiwan province (located in China) to abide by the same stringent environmental and work regulations. Otherwise, IBM will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies like Acer. Acer products are cheaper than IBM products simply because Acer does not pay the cost of protecting the environment or the employees.

    At the same time, non-Westerners like the Koreans and the Chinese simply do the care about the environment or the health of employees. Please read the environmental report card [svtc.org] produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition [svtc.org]. All the Taiwanese and Korean companies received a failing grade on the issue of poisoning both the environment and their workers.

    How can Westerners force non-Westerners like the Taiwanese and Koreans to enact and to enforce the same stringent environmental and work regulations that Westerners apply to Western companies like IBM? Simple. We boycott products made by Taiwanese or Korean companies. Please remember that when you buy products make in a particular country, you effectively support the value system in that country. Do not buy products made in either China or Korea.

    If you have qualms about this boycott, please re-read the environmental report card [svtc.org] produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition [svtc.org].

    ... from the desk of the reporter [geocities.com]

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