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Re: Without Honor in Their Own Country
Why in the world should individuals be compensated without having to prove causation? Isn't that what the legal system is all about? If you don't link exposure to causation before awarding damages, the entire system fails. Instead, the system becomes a meaningless free-for-all, where anybody with enough stamina is eligible for money damages, regardless of whether their purported job-related injury is "more probable than not." Anybody who can legitimately prove causation should be entitled to damages to compensate them for their injuries. Otherwise, as the court stated in Brock v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., "speculation unconfirmed by epidemiologic proof cannot form the basis for causation in a court of law." This 1989 case is still good law today.
DLoeser@larsonking.com
>>> <EASlavin@aol.com> 04/06/00 04:24PM >>>
Dear Steve:
Exactly my point -- they are exactly like veterans. They are heroes. My
father won three Bronze Stars and still receives VA benefits for his service
as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne in World War II. The South Jersey
Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Division Association is named after him (CPL
Edward A. Slavin Chapter). He is honored at parades. He is invited to
speak at schools. People still shake his hand in gratitude (he jumped in
Normandy when he was 30, and they called him "the old man.). Young
paratroopers listen to his stories in awe.
In sharp and marked contrast to veterans, nuclear weapons workers are without
honor in their own country. No one honors the nuclear weapons workers. No
one gives them benefits. No one listens to them. No one "feels their pain."
The President and Vice President have not yet met with them. Their own
Congressman, Zach Wamp, refused to meet with them until Senator Thompson
acted first. How rude.
Meanwhile, DOE has offered selected small groups (beryllium workers, 55 Oak
Ridge workers, Paducah worker) a $100,000 bribe, with no medical benefits, in
exchange for a unilateral disarmament treaty. That's not the President's
doing, its crass Department of Justice and DOE lawyers like Marc Johnston,
DOE Deputy General Counsel for Litigation. Meanwhile, DOE contractors like
Lockheed fight the nuclear weapons tooth and toenail in state courts over
penurious levels of benefits. They are unpleasant and unfair, in sharp
contrast to Union Carbide, which settled more workers' compensation cases.
Our country owes the nuclear weapons workers and Company Town residents in
places like Oak Ridge, Paducah, Piketon, Rocky Flats, Hanford, Los Alamos,
etc. a debt of gratitude. Instead they have been lied to and kicked in the
teeth.
This is not only the practice of DOE and the Federal Government. I also once
heard a prestigious environmental group leader state, "They made their pact
with the devil and so they have to live with the consequences." Some have
been truly hateful, as demonstrated by three years of pejorative comments on
this listserv. Today, those comments have ceased. Senator Thompson held a
hearing on March 22. Nuclear weapons workers are at last being treated with
dignity, respect and consideration. For that we thank you all for your
support.
When the footnoted, endnoted version of my testimony is posted soon, perhaps
some of you could offer suggestions about how to draft the "interim
presumption" for the workers' compensation legislation, so that those who
have illnesses can be compensated without having to prove causation, as Al
Brooks now agrees is necessary, in a way that will be reasonable.
With kindest regards,
Ed Slavin
In a message dated 04/06/2000 5:04:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
steve.rima@DOEGJPO.COM writes:
<< In decades past, nuclear weapons workers were looked upon very
similarly to soldiers on a battlefield. I'm not defending any of what
was done in the past, but let's keep the right perspective on things
that were done long ago under very different circumstances.
Steven D. Rima, CHP, CSP
Manager, Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene
MACTEC-ERS, LLC
steve.rima@doegjpo.com
******************************************************************** >>
Ed Slavin wrote, in part:
As noted by several of you, DOE has been arrogant lord of all that it sureyed
for half a century, creating a colossal wasteland, from sea to shining sea,
from Long Island to Oak Ridge to Rocky Flats to Hanford. It is the world's
worst managers in charge of the world's most hazardous materials.
As noted by several professionals on this list, there is a huge amount of
hubris on the part of DOE nuclear bomb factory managers. In Oak Ridge, some
of the nuclear bomb factory managers and lawyers are the third generation of
their famliies to tell workers to shut up, keep quiet, there's no problem.
There must be a gene somewhere, or a bad seed. :)
DOE does things that no nuclear powerplant in the country does. It's like
the joke about substituting lawyers for lab mice at NIH because, among ohter
reasons, "there are some things that rats just will not do." :) Seriously,
you should not think of DOE as being a part of the nuclear industry -- it is
a pariah. You do not need to defend it any longer.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, DOE is like a baby, "all appetite on the one
end, and alll irresponsibility on the other." As Hazel O'Leary said, DOE
sites are not unlike what your house would be like if you "had a party every
day for fifty years and never cleaned up." Like a baby, DOE also has a
tendency to go WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! to try to get its way. Hence, several years
worth of anti-worker posts on this listserv.
Don't take criticism of DOE as criticism of nuclear powerplants -- they have
nothing in common but the word "nuclear." I appreciate that no one in the
U.S. nuclear power would put 4.2 million pounds of mercury into creeks.
Don't ever again let DOE managers hide behind the nuclear powerplant
industry, using y'all as human shields or indefensible. They don't deserve
defending. What they did was indefensible. You know it, I know it,
Congress knows it, Bill Clinton knows it, Bob Dole knows it, and the whole
world knows it. DOE is not the nuclear industry. DOE is the Nuclear
Weapons industry.
It's real easy to make DOE (and AEC, ERDA, et al) the scapegoat, but
let's consider a little history here. At the height of the cold war,
much of the information that is now coming to light *was* highly
classified and not made available to employees. We can argue now
whether this was proper or not, but it was done in the name of
national security when the real or perceived threat to this country
from the USSR was quite different. Let's also remember that the
present-day DOE is a cabinet level agency of the federal government,
and therefore reports directly to the President.
Just as DOE contractors do what their customer (DOE) tells them to do
(hopefully within the law), the DOE does what the President tells them
to do (maybe not always within the law). There's much more to this
story than just "evil DOE management."
In decades past, nuclear weapons workers were looked upon very
similarly to soldiers on a battlefield. I'm not defending any of what
was done in the past, but let's keep the right perspective on things
that were done long ago under very different circumstances.
Steven D. Rima, CHP, CSP
Manager, Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene
MACTEC-ERS, LLC
steve.rima@doegjpo.com
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