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News Briefs

Date Posted: August 6 2004

Both sides closer on asbestos talks 
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said negotiators “have never been this close” to an agreement on the creation of a huge new trust fund that would compensate workers who are suffering from exposure to asbestos.

That comment, which appeared in the Construction Labor Report, was made a few days before Congress took a six-week adjournment on July 23. Republican and Democratic negotiators were said to be only $1 billion apart on a $140 billion compensation package that narrowed a gap that seemed insurmountable earlier this year.

The amount seems to be moving closer to the higher figure being pushed by Democratic negotiators, and reflects a greater willingness by the business community to pay a higher share. Other money for the fund would come from insurers. The matter will again be taken up by Congress in the fall – but both sides said there were a number of other issues that still must be settled.

Pay hikes down for U.S. Hardhats
First-year U.S. wage and benefit increases negotiated so far in 2004 in new construction labor agreements average $1.38 per hour or 4 percent, compared with $1.45 per hour or 4.3 percent for the same period in 2003.

So said a report issued July 2 by the Construction Labor Research Council, which also found lower average increases in the second and third year of new agreements compared to a year ago. According to the report, the region that includes Michigan had a slight improvement compared to the national numbers, with average construction industry wage increases so far in 2004 averaging $1.47 per hour (or 4.2 percent) in the first year.

Old caulk found to be a new hazard 
Here’s another substance that most of us didn’t know we had to be worried about: old caulk.

The Harvard School of Public Health investigated 24 buildings in the Boston area and found eight of them contain caulking materials with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) exceeding 50 parts per million in weight. Numbers above 50 exceed the EPA’s specified limit to be considered PCB bulk product waste.

The greatest hazard created by the PCB-laden caulk is in dust. In one building the air sampling was sufficiently high that the EPA mandated removal of the caulk. PCBs are a known carcinogen. The information was published in the July 2004 Environmental Health Perspectives.

“Production of PCBs was halted in the United States in 1977,” the report said, “however, their persistence in the environment and tendency to bio-accumulate have been well documented.”
The report added: “Buildings that were constructed or refurbished before 1977 may still contain caulking with elevated levels of PCBs. Caulking has been analyzed only rarely for PCB content; therefore, it is poorly recognized as a hazard.”

The study said the PCB-laden caulk “may pose a significant public health hazard” and recommended that testing be conducted where it is likely such caulk will be found, along with “comprehensive control” programs to eliminate it.”