Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2003
article on-line
Alida Hernandez and Jim Moore didn't know much about the emerging computer industry in Silicon Valley in the '60s and '70s. They both came from working-class families.
But when they each got a job at IBM's manufacturing plant in San Jose, they realized it was a big deal.
"I thought it was the greatest company to work for," said Hernandez, 73, who joined the company in 1977. "I never thought I would be hired by IBM."
Moore, 62, thought he had it made when he was hired in 1966. "Back then, once you started working for Big Blue, unless you really messed up, you got a job for life. As long as you kept your nose clean and did your job, you had a future."
Now, about a decade after they left Big Blue, their futures look bleak.
Both have cancer. Hernandez has lost a breast to the illness, while Moore has been told that he may have only a few years left to live.
This week, Hernandez and Moore, who were not acquainted with one another as fellow IBM workers, face their former employer in a Santa Clara County trial in which they accuse IBM of causing their illnesses by negligently exposing them to dangerous chemicals. Jury selection is expected to begin Wednesday.
Big Blue has denied the charges. "These are sad, tragic cases, but there is no scientific evidence to back up the claims," said IBM spokeswoman Kendra Collins.
But Amanda Hawes, an attorney with Alexander, Hawes and Audet, the San Jose law firm representing Hernandez and Moore, said the former IBM workers "are taking their employer to court for having defrauded them and concealed from them that their work environment was making them sick." She said the two are seeking unspecified damages.
Both sides are expected to present testimony from medical and environmental experts who will try to sort through claims and counterclaims in a trial that will probably delve into complex scientific and health issues.
The trial may be the first of many involving 40 former San Jose workers who have filed suits against the company for allegedly creating a hazardous workplace that caused them to develop cancer.
The cases have not been consolidated into a single class-action suit because each one is unique, involving ex-employees who worked at different sites at different times and have different types of cancer, said Mary Ellen Powers, an attorney representing IBM.
IBM is facing about 200 similar complaints in other states. The company settled one case in New York in 2001.
Two weeks ago, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Baines threw out cases filed by two other former IBM workers, saying there weren't enough factual claims to go before a jury. Those two, Suzanne Rubio and Maria Santiago, still have pending claims against IBM's chemical suppliers.
However, the judge said the claims of Hernandez and Moore are strong enough to merit a trial before a jury.
The plaintiffs have a tough task ahead of them. James Felton, associate director for cancer control at the UC Davis Cancer Center, said proving that a group of people developed cancer because of specific working conditions won't be easy, because so many factors can cause a person to develop cancer.
"It's all very complicated," he said. "How you will prove it came from your exposure to an industrial environment is really hard. ... It's hard to say if they got exposed due to something at their workplaces, rather than to what they do the rest of their lives."
Still, Craig Bloomgarden, an attorney with Steefel, Levitt & Weiss who has defended companies in similar cases, said a jury might find the plaintiffs' testimony compelling. He speculated that IBM's attorneys will urge the jury not to "decide this case on emotions or any sympathy they may have for the plaintiffs" but on scientific fact.
To be sure, Hernandez and Moore both tell moving stories of how they felt betrayed by their employer after devoting many years of their lives to the giant corporation.
For Hernandez, the trial has also become a personal battle.
"I get angry," said the white-haired great-grandmother in a soft but defiant voice as she sat in her attorney's office in San Jose. "I get angry at IBM for lying to me. Not only to me -- to everyone. I feel that sometimes these big companies think they are so big that they are beyond the law."
Hernandez, who was born in Texas, moved to San Jose with her family when she was 3. Her family earned a living working on a big Santa Clara Valley farm.
At the age of 14, she began working for a fruit company, making 30 cents an hour sealing packing boxes. She stayed with the company more than 30 years, eventually moving up to become a manager.
When the company moved to Yuba City in 1977, she decided to quit because she didn't want to uproot her family.
Instead, she applied for a job at the IBM disk drive plant, even though she wasn't familiar with what the company was making.
But she knew of IBM's reputation. And when she got the job, she felt she had become part of a major firm in an important industry. "I never thought that someone like me could be doing something like that," she said.
Her job entailed working with complex machines and industrial chemicals to assemble computer disk drives.
There was one thing she didn't like about the job: the smell of the chemicals, which she said sometimes gave her headaches and a dry throat.
One day, she passed out at work and was later diagnosed with herpes zoster, a viral infection also known as shingles. She also suffered from blackouts and sleeplessness.
Hernandez thought the headaches and other symptoms were "just part of the process. I never related it to the work," she said. "I thought it just came with the job. ... All the time, we were told that IBM was concerned about safety. I trusted them."
Hernandez retired in December 1991 after 14 years with IBM. Two years later, doctors found a lump in her breast that was later diagnosed as cancerous. She underwent a mastectomy shortly afterward.
Hernandez told only her husband, Jose, about the operation. She kept it secret from the rest of her family, including her two sons, a daughter and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"It was like a nightmare -- it still is," she said. "You don't get over that. When you lose part of your body, you don't get over that. You're constantly reminded, daily -- when you bathe, when you dress."
When she later read a news story about former IBM workers suing the company for allegedly exposing them to cancer-causing chemicals, she contacted Alexander, Hawes & Audet, the San Jose law firm handling the suit. The firm filed the case on her behalf and on that of three other ex-workers, including Moore, in 1998.
Hernandez's family found out about her operation and the trial only a few weeks ago, after it was reported in the media. "It's not easy for me," she said. "As a woman, this is very embarrassing."
But said she's helping wage the legal battle for her children and grandchildren and other young people. "I want them to be aware of what is out there, to ask questions -- something I didn't do," she said.
Like Hernandez, Moore also grew up in farming communities in the San Joaquin Valley.
After short stints owning a gas station and working for moving companies, he got a job at the IBM plant making big boards for disk-drive computers.
He felt lucky because IBM was known as "just a prestige type of company to work for.''
Like Hernandez, he often became ill on the job, enduring headaches and profuse nasal discharge.
But like her, he didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with him.
He left Big Blue in 1993 after 27 years of service. The following year, he went to see a doctor to have a hacking cough checked. In January 1995, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and was told he had roughly 10 to 12 years to live.
"I'm hoping for longer," he said. "I told the family, 'In 10 to 12 years, they're going to have a cure before the end anyway, so let's not worry about it.' "
He, too, heard about the lawsuits against IBM from news reports and signed up as one of the plaintiffs.
He started reading about the chemicals he and others used at the IBM plant. "I can't pronounce one or two of them," he said.
"You feel betrayed," he said.
Still, to some extent, he is still loyal to the company: For example, he uses an IBM desktop PC.
During an interview, he showed off his Rolex watch, a gift from Big Blue to mark his 25th year with the company. "I'm not going to quit wearing it just because I got it from IBM," he said. "It's a good watch, you know."
Looking back, though, Moore wonders if he would have stayed that long at the company, given what he knows now.
"I don't know what I would have done," he said. "I probably would have quit or found another job where I wouldn't be working with chemicals."
Copyright 2003 - San Francisco Chronicle
