A free reference published by RightsWatch Media, an independent publisher. This page is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to UA Local 562, the United Association, or any union. It is sponsored by a law firm, which is how it stays free to read. We are not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice.
Why this page exists
There is a good public record of which St. Louis plants and refineries had asbestos in them. There is almost no record of who was sent there.
A pipefitter who worked out of a St. Louis hall from the 1960s through the 1990s carries a map of this city that exists nowhere else — which powerhouse was down for an outage in which spring, which contractor had the mechanical package, which shops were the dirty ones. That map is the missing half of the record, and it disappears with the men who hold it.
This page collects what the documents already show, and asks for the rest.
What the work involved
Pipefitting and steamfitting put men directly against asbestos-containing materials for most of the twentieth century. Documented trade practice for the era includes:
- Cutting into insulated line. Pipe covering had to come off before the fitter could work, and it went back on after. Sawing, snapping and stripping lagging released dust into the fitter’s own breathing zone.
- Gaskets and packing. Valves, pumps and flanges were sealed with materials that public records and litigation testimony describe as asbestos-containing. Removing a spent gasket usually meant scraping or wire-brushing it off dry.
- Boiler and vessel work. Tear-downs and re-bricking put fitters inside equipment lined with refractory and block insulation.
- Working under the insulators. On an outage the lagging crew was often a separate outfit working overhead. Fitters below caught what came down without ever handling the material themselves.
- Outages and turnarounds. Shutdown work concentrated years of tear-out into a few weeks — hot, crowded, and by most accounts the dustiest work on the job.
St. Louis-area sites in the documented record
These are sites we publish pages for, where asbestos work is documented in publicly filed litigation records, regulatory abatement filings, or both. The witness column is the number of individuals who appear in the public case record connected to that site — an indication of how well documented it is, not a count of anyone’s claim.
An important limit: this is a list of sites, not a list of Local 562 jurisdictions. Men travelled, contractors pulled from several halls, and a card in one local says nothing about which jobs a man actually worked. Which of these you were on — and under which local — is the question we’re asking, not something this page assumes.
| Site | Individuals in the public record |
|---|---|
| Monsanto Queeny | 317 |
| Labadie Power Plant | 295 |
| Sioux / Portage des Sioux | 237 |
| Anheuser-Busch Brewery | 236 |
| Meramec | 173 |
| McDonnell Douglas | 148 |
| Nooter Corporation | 129 |
| Mallinckrodt | 128 |
| Procter & Gamble | 118 |
| Chrysler Fenton | 116 |
| Laclede Gas | — |
| Emerson Electric | — |
| Rush Island | 36 |
| Ralston Purina | — |
Who asbestos claims are actually brought against
These claims are brought against the companies that manufactured and sold the asbestos-containing products — the pipe covering, block, cement, gaskets and packing. They are not brought against your local, against the union, or against the contractors who dispatched and employed you. Sharing a recollection here is not filing anything and starts nothing against anyone you worked with or for.
If you have been diagnosed
If you or a family member has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer or another asbestos-related disease after working around asbestos-containing materials at sites like these, there may be options worth understanding. What those are, and what any deadline looks like, depends entirely on the individual facts — which is a conversation for a lawyer, not a web page.
Resources
- Mesothelioma symptoms and how it is diagnosed
- Treatment options and the cancer centers serving Missouri patients
- How mesothelioma claims work for Missouri workers
For informational purposes only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page. RightsWatch Media is an independent publisher, not a law firm, and is not affiliated with UA Local 562 or any labor organization.