Workplace Related Illness: Motley Rice attorney speaks with building trades delegates about active health monitoring
Motley Rice occupational disease and worker safety attorney James Ledlie recently addressed Building Trades delegates at the 55th annual convention of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario. Reporting on his speech, The Daily Commercial News and Construction Record writes that "workers must be actively engaged" in providing information about the details of their work when they are diagnosed with an illness that could potentially be work-related.
Asbestos has been used in thousands of products for a number of applications, such as building and construction materials, textiles, caulking and refractory compounds, automotive brakes, electrical wiring and insulation materials. In addition, asbestos-containing products were widely used across a range of industries including shipping, railways, commercial and residential construction and maintenance, power plants, steelworks, refineries, and manufacturing facilities. Even today in Ontario, asbestos cement piping is being used on some construction projects.As a result, it is important that workers provide full and complete information about their employment history so that all potential workplace exposures can be considered when physicians are evaluating their medical condition.
"As the use of asbestos peaked in the 1970s, we are just now just seeing, hopefully, the peak of the asbestos related disease following that usage . . . It is a growing concern and it is something, still very much something, that is a problem of today, not just a problem of the past," Ledlie said.
Motley Rice asbestos and mesothelioma lawyers have represented more than 100,000 asbestos victims in the U.S. justice system, including work for numerous Canadian worker compensation boards and secondary exposure victims from Canada.