Asbestos: A Lethal Legacy, Podcast Ep. 17
Unions have been fighting since the 1970s for strict regulations in the use of asbestos and decent compensation for those ill and dying from its deadly fibres. People are still getting sick from exposure decades ago. In this episode of our On the Line podcast we trace the history of asbestos exposure in the BC building trades, and learn how unions fought for the health and safety protections that benefit us all.
Publication date: Sept 20, 2022
Podcast length: 23:21
Hosted by: Rod Mickleburgh
Research and writing by: Patricia Wejr and Rod Mickleburgh
Production by: John Mabbott
Special thanks to: Lee Loftus
Despite the near non-existent use of asbestos today, its carcinogenic fibres continue to claim lives decades after exposure. In fact, since 2009, WorkSafe BC has reported more work-related death claims from industrial diseases like mesothelioma than from on-the-job fatalities, primarily due to past asbestos exposure. Lee Loftus, a third-generation member and retired business manager of the Insulators Union Local 118, emphasizes that asbestos remains the leading cause of death in the workplace. Those exposed in the 1950s through the 1990s are the ones falling ill and dying today.
The human cost of this “magic mineral” is heartbreaking. Dave Pritchett recounts how his mother likely died of mesothelioma from asbestos fibers he unknowingly brought home on his clothes from working on the docks, loading bags from the Cassiar asbestos mine. Companies often showed a brazen disregard for these risks, and governments were slow to act.
Workers often had to take action themselves. In 1971, asbestos construction workers at the Pacific Centre project in downtown Vancouver initiated a historic wildcat strike. This strike, which lasted a full day before the Workers Compensation Board intervened, was a pivotal moment in the labour movement’s acknowledgment of asbestos as a carcinogen and a hazard to both workers and the public. It took another nine years for British Columbia to enact regulations to control workplace environments and prevent airborne asbestos.
Lee Loftus, who started working in the industry at 17, witnessed firsthand the dangerous practices and the slow change in culture, where older workers often dismissed the need for protection. He spent his entire career working on asbestos regulations and improving health and safety. While Canada finally banned all uses of asbestos in 2018, it came far too late. Asbestos remains in many industrial and residential settings built before 1990, posing ongoing risks during renovations and demolitions.
The Asbestos Memorial was installed in 2022 by the BC Labour Heritage Centre. The most striking component of the memorial is “Wind Wheel Mobile,” a 23-foot-tall kinetic sculpture by artist Doug R. Taylor. The piece includes thirty-six separate wheels driven by the wind, evoking asbestos fibres driven by a vane which resembles lungs. The memorial also includes an artist-statement panel, and the poem “Magic and Lethal” by Order of Canada recipient John Gray.