HE SAYS WORK IN CLEAN ROOMS WAS `DIRTY JOB'
By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News
Posted on Wed, Dec. 03, 2003
A former IBM engineer testified Tuesday that working in the company's San Jose clean rooms was a ``dirty job,'' where hazardous chemicals stained floor tiles, discolored machines and splashed workers.
William Sprague took the stand in Santa Clara County Superior Court in a case brought against the computer company by two former employees who contend chemicals used in IBM's manufacturing processes caused them to develop cancer. IBM maintains its plants are safe.
Testimony in the suit filed by Alida Hernandez, 73, and James Moore, 62, has been constrained by the requirements of California workers' compensation law. The law allows employees to seek civil damages under a specific set of circumstances: They must prove that they were injured on the job, that their employer knew of their injuries, concealed that knowledge from them and that their injuries worsened as a result.
Jurors didn't hear
Because the information was deemed not relevant, Sprague was not allowed to tell jurors about a conversation he had with his manager about his fear that bad-smelling chemicals in the clean room might be toxic.
``He said nobody cares about their employees more than IBM, and if there was anything wrong we would have found it a long time ago,'' Sprague said in an interview outside of court.
On Monday, two other former IBM employees who also worked in the clean rooms at the company's Cottle Road facility gave similar testimony. Christopher Ramm, 41, and Gregory Sisk, 46, said dangerous mixtures of chemicals would get on their wrists and arms.
Both men subsequently developed testicular cancer, but they were not permitted to share that information with the jury. Both Ramm and Sisk have sued IBM separately. They are represented by Richard Alexander, the same attorney who represents Hernandez and Moore.
About clean rooms
On Tuesday, Sprague gave jurors a detailed explanation of how a clean room functioned. He testified that chemicals that were sprayed on computer disks by a coating machine would fly everywhere, plugging the drains of the coating machines, getting sucked into air ducts and degrading the ventilation system on the machines.
He also said special air filters were designed to keep dust from contaminating computer disks -- worth up to $110 each -- but that filters had no effect on chemical fumes. Sprague said the air in the disk-coating room was recycled again and again.
However, on cross-examination, IBM attorney Robert Weber established that the exhaust exiting from the coating machine that Hernandez had used was scrubbed with charcoal filters. Sprague also admitted the exhaust from the machine was replaced by fresh air.
Copyright 2003 - Mercury News
