Johns-Manville, Your Job with Johns-Manville, Draft Employee Handbook (1943)

A typed draft of "Your Job with Johns-Manville," a handbook for new Johns-Manville plant employees, filed with the papers of a 1943 meeting of J-M's factory and industrial relations managers. It covers the company's history and plants, employment and wage policies, safety, health, insurance and employee services, and ends with a list of questions each plant was to answer for its own edition. Under "Respirators" it tells workers: "Respirators are supplied for all operations where needed. They are provided at no cost, and you must use them when specified."

What it shows

The health section promises physical examinations for all applicants and re-examination of all employees "at intervals of three years or less," calling them "for your protection in minimizing physical ailments." It says the company employed a full-time industrial hygiene engineer to survey and inspect every plant, and spent "thousands of dollars" a year keeping the plants "clean and healthful." The handbook does not say what the respirators or examinations were for: it does not mention asbestos dust or any lung disease. A section on the company's background lists J-M's factories and mines, including Asbestos, Quebec, and Chrysotile, Arizona.

About this copy

This is a microfilm copy (reel JSZ017). A handwritten note on each frame files it under the 1943 factory and industrial relations managers' meeting, "comments on agenda," and the last section is a blank questionnaire for each plant, so this appears to be a draft circulated for comment rather than the handbook as issued.