Hearing to Focus on Asbestos Safety

(Washington, D.C.) – Tomorrow, March 1, U.S. Capitol Tunnel Shop supervisor and GAP client John Thayer will testify at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, which is under the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. The hearing, Asbestos: Still Lethal/Still Legal – The Need to Better Protect the Health of American Workers and Their Families, will be held at 10 a.m. at Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 430. Thayer’s ten-person tunnel crew maintains the plumbing and electrical infrastructure in the underground utility tunnels that supply steam and cooling water to the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court and multiple other federal buildings on Capitol Hill. The crew is also represented by Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP.

Thayer’s appearance before the subcommittee marks the first time a member of the tunnel crew has been invited to testify before Congress. Last March, the crew wrote letters to several senators and representatives revealing that they faced life-threatening levels of asbestos and other workplace hazards while working for the Architect of the Capitol (AoC) in the tunnels. These hazards included dangerously high levels of airborne asbestos being present inside the tunnels. Other dangers included falling slabs of concrete and temperatures exceeding 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Office of Compliance has cited the AoC for allowing the unacceptable levels of asbestos and other hazards in the tunnel, and for not monitoring worker health. The workers have since visited an advanced occupational health clinic, which has diagnosed them with various occupational diseases, including asbestos-related diseases.

Thayer, who will attend the hearing accompanied by the other tunnel crew members, will testify in support of a bill that Senator Patty Murray (D-Wa.) will introduce on Thursday to prohibit the use of asbestos in the United States.

“If workers at the heart of the U.S. government are being put at risk,” Thayer said in explaining his support for the bill, “then imagine what it must be like for the millions of unseen workers in private industry.”

Thayer will also ask Congress to compensate the tunnel crew for the occupational injuries that he and his crew have suffered while working in the tunnels. According to the tunnel crew’s lawyer, David Marshall of Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP, the workers have filed a retaliation complaint with the Office of Compliance, and are preparing to file a lawsuit against the AoC in federal court. The lawsuit will seek damages both for asbestos-related injuries and the retaliation the workers have suffered for raising their complaints with Congress.

Thayer will take part in a press conference starting at 2:15 tomorrow afternoon in the same room as the hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 430. Senator Murray and other lawmakers are expected to attend.