Water-based coolants are used to cool down machine tools and flush away metal chips. Fluids harbor bacteria and fungus that can cause severe lung disease and rashes.

Picture this: A dark room filled with heavy machinery, workers toiling away at their stations, the sound of equipment filling the air with the view as thick as mud. You can barely see the workers because the air they’re breathing into their lungs is foggy with the mist of metalworking fluids. Proper ventilation is practically nonexistent.

This is how a typical machine shop that used metalworking fluids looked in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Ronald Kline doesn’t have to use his imagination to go back to that time. He’s seen it firsthand.

“People would breathe in these chemicals. The chemicals would get into their lungs, filter throughout their bodies, and then they would cough them up,” he said.

Poor ventilation and lack of uniform standards or knowledge about the chemicals wreaked havoc on workers’ health.

Kline, 66, is a 45-year member of UAW Local 171, an amalgamated local representing roughly 800 members at the Volvo Powertrain facility in Hagerstown, Md. He’s been a safety representative there for the past 17 years.

Working conditions have improved somewhat for people who work with metalworking fluids, but Kline said the UAW’s April 28 request that the federal government set a comprehensive standard to protect workers against dangerous exposures to metalworking fluids (MWFs) is needed.

“Everybody knows what happened with OSHA in the past eight years. That’s why this issue got put on the back burner,” said Kline, referring to the eight years of oversight neglect during the Bush administration.
The petition with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says government intervention is required because of substantial evidence of severe health effects from occupational exposure to MWFs.

Health problems from exposure, said Kline, include asthma and hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP).
“My facility went through eight cases of it from 2000 to 2004,” said Kline.

Exposure to the chemicals, as well as the bacteria and fungus that grow in water-based metalworking fluids, are linked to HP, a disease whose symptoms include severe inflammation of the lungs, shortness of breath, cough, fever and chills. Exposure to metalworking fluids is also linked to cancer in published studies that focus on historical exposures endured by UAW members.

“Since we learned what HP is, we haven’t had new cases,” said Kline. “We added local ventilation for all equipment, enclosed and cleaned the machines, and monitor the type of metalworking fluid that is used. Any chemical or liquid [used at that Volvo Powertrain facility] has to be approved by me now. We have full disclosure of the composition of the material from the manufacturers.”

So why do workers at Volvo Powertrain need government intervention for a comprehensive metalworking fluid standard, especially if some fluid standards are already in their UAW contract language?

“It would reinforce the need for a comprehensive standard before we go into our next contract negotiation,” said Kline. “That means when I go into negotiations, if the federal government has a set safety and monitoring standard in place, I won’t have to argue so much to get it into the contract.”

“Some of the custodians that aren’t aware of dangerous fluids will be helped by this, too. I remember conducting safety training at [the Walter and May Reuther UAW Family Education Center] Black Lake, and there were several students who were unaware of metalworking fluid dangers,” he said.

“All workers, union and nonunion, need to be protected by a consistent, rational federal standard for exposure to metalworking fluids,” UAW President Bob King said. “These fluids are dangerous substances that can cause life-threatening conditions.”

It’s estimated that more than 1 million workers – many of them UAW members in manufacturing facilities – are exposed to metalworking fluids and lubricants.

The UAW is calling on labor and other health and safety organizations to join its petition to protect workers from MWFs, now and in the future.

“I’m worried about the next guy in the workplace – the guy having to create a safe work environment without those standards or the protection of the federal government,” Kline said.

Joan Silvi