Posted on 04/28/2009 5:57:59 AM PDT by carolgr
It has long been a community concern about the toxic waste that auto and other factories emit, but consider for a moment how much more potent these toxic chemicals, solvents and substances have been at ground zero for the workers and retirees who spent decades working with and closely around them. Since autos were first produced more than a century ago, workers have been exposed for long periods of time to a vast chemical soup of health hazards unique to building those vehicles. Those hazards included breathing paint vapors and solvents, the production and plating of die cast parts, welding fumes, foundry work, pattern maker carcinogen exposure, asbestos exposure, cutting fluids and many other potentially serious health dangers where identifiable toxic chemicals and/or carcinogens were present. In his 1993 book, Who Will Tell the People, author William Greider talks of a worried group of autoworkers from GM’s Lordstown division called WATCH (Workers Against Toxic Chemical Hazards). They were concerned about toxic chemical hazards at their GM factory and became alarmed at how many coworkers in their plant were dying prematurely. In 2006, the Baltimore Sun reported that a scientist at (OSHA) was warned that he would be suspended if he would not remove “asbestos” warnings from a certificate about the use of asbestos in automotive brake linings. In the article, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), said that the attempt to change the OSHA document is what the auto industry and brake industry is doing to defend itself against lawsuits from people who died from occupational exposure to asbestos. American based multi-nationals have exported American jobs to less developed countries that allowed the exploitation of their labor with low wages and dreadful working conditions. They have also exported the horrifying toxic soup that accompanies this work to these locations.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecuttingedgenews.com ...
Wow.
The left is starting to use the same ham-handed propaganda as the old Soviet style.
Signed: a running dog.
Fortunately, environmental liability is joint and several, meaning anyone who ever bought anything from GM is responsible for the entire cost of the clean up.
No matter how bad it might actually be, GM is “pure as the driven snow” compared to the China and the Former Soviet Union.
Funny... the picture they use is about 25 years old..
Have you ever been to some of the more unsightly parts of Michigan, such as River Rouge, Cadillac, Flint? What the rivers carry away is one thing...What stays, in the ground ever since car plants were put there is what’s really scary. Our fearless leader, has taken over what’s probably the largest Superfund Site of all, the entire southern half of Lower Michigan.
I've thought for sometime that the folks I know who worked for GM and died of cancer of many different types can thank the generious motors slimeballs for the carcinogens.
Or, knowing the typical lifestyle of the average UAW “line rat”, maybe it’s something they ate, drank or smoked?
Nah.
Much easier to blame GM.
River Rouge-Yes, Flint-Yes, Cadillac?-No. Cadillace is a beautiful city in Northern Michigan. Add to your list Saginaw, Bay City, and large parts of Lansing.
I’ve been to the Rouge plant. Coming up the river, an ore boat boils up quite a soup.
Well said Dixie Yooper you are absolutely right! Our communities, our workers and our schools are paying a tremendous price.
Funny. I thought there were other auto companies making cars the same way with the same materials. I guess I got that wrong.
Did these companies ever consider the families living around these plants? Remember Love Canal?
I used to do some work in GM foundries in Saginaw, MI. There was so much particulate in the air, you would sneeze black for a couple of days after working a shift there.
IMHO metro southeast Michigan’s problem isn’t industry.
It’s poverty, and unemployment. And a massive population which holds an entitlement mentality.
Both of which, are being made (worse) by those currently in charge there.
Even River Rouge would be fine, if only the area around it weren’t the economic equivalent of Bangladesh. Detroit as a whole is broken.
I’d say it’s too bad the UP can’t secede and join with Wisconsin. Except I’m not sure WI is that much better.
Both states suffer, from the crime and poverty in their largest cities.
Posting from CA, which suffers most, from our second-largest city. But LA’s bad enough.
I wish Michigan’s economy and govt weren’t such a mess. I’d move there.
Beautiful, beautiful state.
The Left has long been afflicted with the Chicken Little syndrome. To know a leftist is to know a very unhappy individual.
Hear, hear.
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