Location: North Carolina
The crew of about 12-20 people I work with has been in and out of a manufacturing plant over the course of the past few months replacing some very old piping. The piping was insulated with asbestos and there were no visible signs or warnings in the area we were working in. The pipe is in an underground pit and to access any of the old piping we would have to crawl on the asbestos insulation, disturbing it. Among that we’ve been removing insulation and removing sections of pipe from the pit.
No one disclosed this information to us and now everyone has been exposed at some point or another.
I’m not sure what our company is going to do about it, but our safety man is already going around saying asbestos exposure takes years to have any negative effects on the body.
Legally how should we, the workers, approach this situation?