"I remember at one point they had us sign a release that we could not pursue legal action for any injuries due to chemicals used in the DVD process. When I asked if I could have it reviewed by an attorney, the late Ethel Snyder told me that it had to be signed right then, or I would be dismissed immediately."
"One Saturday, my floor tech told me he had to go dump the chemical drum. He told me when the drum filled up, whose shift it happened on, had to dump it in the back of the building. He told me it was ok; they had been doing it for a while. I told him NO. He then called his boss, Tony Vanko, and explained the situation. Tony called me and told me it was ok, and "they" knew this was the procedure. I told Tony, NO. He told me nothing would ever be built back there, and it was all woods so there was no harm and he instructed his tech to dump the chemicals and if I stopped him, I would be fired."
"In the beginning, we did not have respirators or proper ventilation when cleaning lacquer off the spin coater rings so yes, we did inhale fumes from acetone and Trichloroethane. UV lacquer must be cured via ultraviolet light. Water or other chemicals do not break down their properties. So, another words, if you got UV ink on your bare hands and you washed it with soap and water, while it may seem like your hands were clean, the UV was still there, just not visible. UV ink and lacquers should never come in contact with your skin, eyes, or be ingested."
"There was a procedure in place that if you somehow got sprayed with UV lacquer, you were to go into the tech room where there was a shower. You would then have to strip down and be washed down. Your clothes would be placed in a bag and properly disposed of. A tech somehow got UV lacquer on him and was immediately ushered into the shower area. Afterwards, I asked, where does that water go for disposal? They told me it went where all the water went. I went to my superiors and told them what I had learned about UV properties not breaking down in water and that they were sending the UV into the water system that people would eventually drink. I told them it needs to be contained and treated as contaminated waste. I regretfully must admit that I did not follow up on that and just assumed they rectified the situation going forward."
"One of my co-workers and I became friends outside of work and would go to lunch together. When this was found out, we were told this was against company policy and given separate lunch times. "
"I worked briefly in the print shop, using UV ink. It was a common thing for a while that you would put your white ink pen down on the machine, pick it up and place it in your mouth because you had your hands filled with product, only to find you had placed your ink pen on white UV ink and had now ingested some of it."
"At some point, employees in the print shop area were told to have a pair of shoes they wore at work and a separate pair to wear home. Not sure if family members were getting sick, but it was stated that chemicals were getting on the shoes and then being taken into homes and children and family members were being exposed to them."
"MSDS sheets were not readily made available at first. It later became a part of all training of new employees. You had to read them and always know where they were located. You never knew when someone from OSHA would be coming in and you needed to be prepared."
"Printers were emptied into barrels in the waste room. They would overflow onto the floor. Lacquer would spill all over the floor."
"I would often feel dizzy, sick, or lightheaded after shifts. I saw barrels being disposed of improperly and spills that weren't cleaned up. There was poor ventilation and I now have skin issues, respiratory issues, and skin cancer."
"One day, a gaylord was brought to the molding floor, and for the first time, I saw painted lettering that was on the gaylord. The painted label in black lettering said 'Poly Vinyl Chloride - Danger, Cancer Causing Carcinogen'. It was the first time I had ever seen that on a gaylord. I brought this to the attention of the foreman; his name was Jerry Pisarcik. He left and went to the Managers office whose name was Pete Ryzanich. Jerry came back to me and said, don’t worry about it, it was from another material and it was the wrong label. The gaylord was removed and all gaylords that came after that did not have any markings."
(Both Jerry and Pete have passed from Cancer)
"A line blew off and UV lacquer spilled all inside what I would call an enclosed cubbie. Cleaning it would involve heavily suiting up and climbing inside the cubbie and using acetone and some trichlor to remove the excess lacquer. When the tech refused to clean it, I called his supervisor but only got a voice mail. I suited up as best I could but could not find any respirators in the room, so I just put on a mask. I was cleaning for about a half hour or so when the tech supervisor returned my call. He told me to get out of the cubbie NOW and go outside until he arrived. Upon his arrival he asked how I was feeling. Was I dizzy, nauseous, vision impaired? I told him I felt fine. He asked me did the tech supply me with a proper respirator. I told him no. He told me if I felt the least bit sick, I was to go to the emergency room. He then went in to talk to the tech. I don't know what was said, but the tech walked out and quit."
"Back to my days in Record/Tape Finishing. When I was on second shift, and there was a snowstorm, they would sometimes shut off the radio being played throughout the plant so we could not hear the weather forecast. As a supervisor, I was told if my employee came to me and said they wanted to leave because of the snow coming down, I could not stop them but I was to tell them, if they left, they would lose pay for the hours they did not work and that if we worked overtime, they would lose overtime pay. That was meant to deter them from wanting to leave. As a Shift Supervisor, I was not allowed to leave until my last employee left. I had one employee that was within walking distance and would stay and do handwork. I had to drive home on dangerous roads more than once."
"There was no ventilation or fresh air on the original press floor at 210 North Valley Avenue. Once I brought in a thermometer to measure the temperature with the lack of no fresh air. It was 103 degrees. My foreman seen that I had brought a thermometer to work. He took it away from me and told me to never bring one in again."
"There was one eyewash station for the entire production floor. We always joked about how phony it was because it was always covered in pvc dust and other debris that was around us."
"There were rainbow colors on my pillow when I would wake up in the morning. That ink got everywhere on your clothes then went into the washer and dryer with the rest of your families clothes. Your steering wheel too. You brought the chemicals home on your shoes."
"Another duty was when the nose cone on the extruders would not purge out melted polycarbonate, the nose cone had to be heated to 250+ degrees and removed. To remove, we unbolted the nose cone and pushed the purge button. Eventually the nose cone separated from the extruder and as the nose cone came off a massive amount of gas from the bubble created from the gas build-up exploded in your face taking your breath away. I personally experienced this process and distinctly remember falling to the floor and the gas took over my lungs. Another co-worker helped me up from the floor to catch my breath again telling me don’t worry, your ok. No mask, no ventilation, no instructions were provided, no breathing apparatus."
"Adjacent to the molding area was the grinder operation that grounded the excess polycarbonate called flash that was trimmed off the phonograph record. The flash was collected in barrels at the molding machines and taken to the grinder where a grinder grounds the flash back into small pieces to be re-used. The grinding process produced a large amount of polycarbonate dust that traveled throughout the press floor area. No mask, no air protection. No windows."
"We used chemicals to clean the molds to insert the stamper and also clean the stamper. We used isopropanol and acetone. Latex gloves were provided to keep dust and skin particles from your hands contaminating the product. When cleaning was done with the chemicals, this process was done with bare hands because it was very difficult to clean the parts with the gloves. There were no guidelines or requirements to wear or not wear gloves. The acetone was very cold on your fingers sometimes losing the sense of touch on my fingertips. No protective eyewear was provided or required. No education on the use of chemicals or impact of those used. They simply told us to use these chemicals and just do the job."
"But I know they were using that trichloroethane religiously. Not just in our department, but throughout the plant. Most likely for years too. Come to think of it I remember working in record poly and that chemical was used in squirt bottles to clean the presses. The ones I remembered, I don’t think had the MSDS label on it (they removed the labels). Nobody wore PPE lucky if someone wore gloves. That’s what I mean, it was used religiously until it was banned. I really remember it because of the sweet smell."
"The empty lacquer containers were thrown in the trash, some were not always 'empty' same with rags and pig mats used to clean up spills, thrown in the regular trash."
"I worked at Technicolor from 2013-2014, as a printer. I had several episodes of feeling lightheaded, bad migraines, and violent vomiting during my time when working there, with no reasonable explanation from doctors. I was constantly exposed to toxic chemicals (mostly the UV ink and lacquer) and PPE was not sufficient (ink leaked through gloves, no masks, etc...) In 2023, I was diagnosed with Stage 1 Colon Cancer, with no genetic cause."
"I worked at Specialty/ WEA for 20 years and worked with vats of trichloroethylene (TCE) cleaning ink wells and printing parts from my cd modeling machine. Even as an employee who worked with these materials every day, I could often smell what I believed to be UV lacquer while walking from my car into the plant. Having worked directly with UV lacquer, the odor was very familiar to me and closely resembled what I encountered inside the facility."
"I feel like I'm a walking time bomb I feel like my friends who worked there are walking time bombs just waiting to explode with some kind of cancer. I'm really ready to move away I don't feel safe living here anymore. I've lived on Fern Hill Olyphant for my entire life, and I have seen many young people die of cancer, it is worrisome."