USW 2020 looking for employees who got sick working at Neelon Casting

The United Steelworkers Local 2020 in Sudbury is searching for former employees of Neelon Casting, to assist in workplace compensation claims if they are sick.

The manufacturer of brakes and motor parts operated on Foundry Road between 1976 and 2007. It was also called Affinia and Dana Brake Parts during its operation.

Jessica Montgomery, the disability services representative with the union, was contacted recently by WSIB to help a former worker who used to be employed at Neelon Casting. USW 2020 used to represent those employees when the company was operational.

Montgomery says the former worker had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and was palliative. He had tried to file a claim but couldn't because the company didn't exist anymore.

Montgomery says because the company is closed, the onus is on the worker to prove they were exposed to harmful substances.

She says she filed a freedom of information request with the province.

"The workers were exposed to very high levels of CO [carbon monoxide]," she said. "I also found out that they were exposed to silica."

She had found a Facebook group of former workers and discovered many of them had the same illness the first worker did.

"I spoke to one worker who used to get in trouble for falling asleep at work," she said. "He wasn't falling asleep. He was being poisoned by CO."

Montgomery says COPD and certain cancers are recognized by WSIB as workplace injuries and says some of the former workers have submitted claims that have been approved.

Now, she's looking to find other former workers.

"There was a lot of different sections in the plant. I'm finding that a lot of the COPD claims right now I'm getting out of that where they worked on a melt deck where the CO levels were much higher," she said.

'Deserve justice'

"So it's basically where in the plant they were working, what they were doing, what they were exposed to and do you remember any of the procedures that you did."

Montgomery is launching a virtual intake clinic for former workers to speak with her on Oct. 1. She's looking to get information about their health and what they did at the plant.

"I'm asking people to remember what happened 50 years ago," she said. 

"And to ask one worker what they did 50 years ago is also not possible, but if everybody remembers a little bit, then that goes a long way."

Montgomery says she's also looking to speak with family members whose relatives worked at the plant and have died.

"These workers and their families deserve justice," she said.

"Many of these families have lost their husbands very young, their kids have lost their parents because of what they were exposed to at work."