Episode 10: Urge Cal-OSHA to adopt WOEMA petition and Congress to Reject HR 5437
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of From Dust to Verdict. I'm your host, James Nevin, a partner at the law firm of Brayton Purcell LLP.
This podcast is dedicated to the epidemic of accelerated silicosis in artificial stone countertop fabrication workers. In each episode, we explore important topics and issues about this occupational health epidemic as well as the associated lawsuits.
Today in Episode 10, we urge the Cal OSHA Standards Board to adopt the Western Occupational and Environmental Medicine Association, or WOEMA Petition to prohibit artificial stone slabs containing more than 1% crystalline silica, and we urge Federal Congress to reject the HR 5437 bailout of foreign artificial stone manufacturers.
So, let's start today with an analysis of exactly who opposes the WOEMA Petition and supports the HR 5437 Foreign Manufacturer Bailout.
The vast majority of countertop fabrication workers are not members of any union. Various groups that are opposing the WOEMA Petition to ban crystalline silica artificial stone in California are the same foreign slab manufacturer lobby groups that are behind the proposed Federal HR 5437 to bail out foreign crystalline silica slab manufacturers by banning civil product liability lawsuits against them for their toxic artificial stone products.
These lobby groups do not represent the interests of the U.S. fabrication workers. These lobby groups, who oppose the WOEMA Petition and support HR 5437, vaguely state that they represent the fabrication industry, but they absolutely do not. They are the silver-tongued mouthpieces of the foreign artificial stone slab manufacturers and also Cambria USA.
The first group of lobbyists that oppose WOEMA and support HR 5437 are foreign slab manufacturers. 99% of the crystalline silica toxic artificial stone slabs are made by foreign manufacturers in 17 countries: China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Iran, Turkey, Czech Republic, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Austria, Canada, and Israel, and then dumped here by foreign distributors, after which U.S. fabrication shops must prepare them for installation as countertops.
These foreign manufacturers are making over $25 billion a year while young fabrication workers in the U.S. are dying. There is only one major U.S. based manufacturer, Cambria USA in Minnesota, and they only have approximately 1% of the global market.
The next lobby group that opposes WOEMA and supports HR 5437 is the International Services Fabrication Association or ISFA. ISFA holds itself out as a fabricator’s association, but according to its own website, it does not have any fabrication workers who are members. Further, it only has 157 fabrication shop owners as members, generally from large fabrication shops. The rest of the members are actually foreign crystalline silica artificial slab manufacturers and distributors, equipment suppliers, and of course Cambria.
The next lobby group that opposes WOEMA and supports HR 5437 is the Natural Stone Institute or NSI, led by Jim Hieb. According to its website, the deceptively named Natural Stone Institute has about 2,000 members, but only about 800 are actually fabrication shop owners. And to be clear, they're the mostly large shop owners, not the actual fabrication workers
The other 1,200 NSI members are the foreign crystalline silica artificial slab manufacturers, Cambria, and other large companies who profit from manufacturing and supplying crystalline silica artificial stone. Further, NSI offers a free training course for fabricators that misstates the effectiveness of wet methods and other controls when fabricating crystalline silica artificial stone.
The next lobby group that opposes WOEMA and supports HR 5437 is ATSA Worldwide. ATSA Worldwide is simply a lobby group for its ten foreign crystalline silica artificial stone slab manufacturers and Cambria.
The next lobby group that opposes WOEMA and supports HR 5437 is Cambria USA. Led by Marty Davis based in Minnesota, Cambria is the only major U.S. manufacturer of crystalline silica artificial stone. However, globally it controls only about 1% of the market.
In response to the Australian ban, most of the foreign manufacturers began also manufacturing a non-toxic recycled glass or amorphous silica slab product. Thus far, Cambria has not done so and allegedly fears losing all of its market share in California if crystalline silica artificial stone slabs are prohibited. And Cambria has reported to various media outlets that it owns the quartz mines and the quartz crushing facilities that it uses to manufacture the crystalline silica artificial stone slabs.
Furthermore, Cambria boldly asserts that its own workers in its state-of-the-art facilities in Minnesota do not have silicosis.
However, robots do not get silicosis. In Cambria's slab manufacturing facilities, and in its limited slab fabrication facilities, the dust producing operations are done by robotic machines in sealed chambers, totally separated from the few human workers. Cambria well knows that the vast majority of fabrication shops, in the web of distribution that it has created for its product, do not have the many millions of dollars required to facilitate that level of automation. Also, Cambria has never produced high resolution CT scans, which would definitively demonstrate whether any of its workers actually have silicosis or not.
While Cambria claims that engineering controls can eliminate all visible and invisible toxic dust from crystalline silica artificial stone, countless studies from NIOSH, Safe Work Australia, and many others demonstrate that Cambria's claim is false.
The next point to understand is that adoption of the WOEMA Petition and the rejection of HR 5437 will not result in any job loss. Certain labor organizations mistakenly believe that Cal OSHA adopting the WOEMA Petition to ban crystalline silica artificial stone will lead to job losses. Similarly, they fear that if Congress passes the HR 5437 foreign manufacturer bailout bill, it might result in U.S. job losses. In fact, the opposite is true given that 99% of the global crystalline silica artificial stone slabs are manufactured in foreign countries such as China and Iran, and only 1% is manufactured in Minnesota– even in the worst case scenario where slab manufacturing jobs were lost, at most 1% would be in the U.S. and Minnesota, since 99% of it is made in foreign countries.
Moreover, the Australian market reaction to the Australian ban demonstrates that not even foreign jobs will be lost if the WOEMA petition is adopted and if HR 5437 is rejected.
With the exception of Cambria, all the major crystalline artificial stone slab manufacturers simply adjusted their recipes to also make non-toxic recycled glass slabs. It is now all they sell in Australia, and it's already sold in the U.S. alongside their toxic crystalline silica slabs. And the Australian fabricators simply switched to fabricating non-toxic recycled glass slabs.
The Australian consumer simply switched to buying non-toxic recycled glass slabs for their kitchen and bathroom countertops. The various Australian building trades did not lose their jobs. Australian construction did not slow down. There was no slippery slope of job loss at all. None. Nobody, anywhere in the chain, lost their jobs.
In contrast, the foreign crystalline silica artificial stone slab manufacturer alternative proposal of self-policing or more OSHA enforcement of fabrication shop, can only possibly work if human beings were replaced by robots. Human being workers with jobs can safely fabricate recycled glass slabs and natural stone slabs.
Over 100 published peer-reviewed global studies over the last decade demonstrate that crystalline silica slabs cannot be safely fabricated by human beings. Therefore, denying WOEMA’s Petition to ban crystalline silica artificial stone in California or passing the federal HR 5437 Foreign Manufacturer Bailout would actually result in gradual U.S. job loss as the human fabricators are slowly replaced by robots, since that is the only way that crystalline silica slabs can continue to be fabricated in the U.S. without causing silicosis.
If we want to keep U.S. fabrication workers employed and alive, the fabrication industry must quickly switch to fabricating recycled glass slabs and natural slabs, which can only be achieved, like in Australia, with a prohibition on crystalline silica slabs, as WOEMA proposes.
And if the HR 5437 foreign manufacturer bailout is passed, U.S. fabrication workers will continue to get fatal disease because, without civil product liability lawsuits against them, the foreign crystalline silica manufacturers would have no incentive to stop dumping their deadly toxic product on U.S. workers.
Now let's talk about the doctors and actual fabrication workers who support WOEMA’s Petition and oppose HR 5437. Here at Brayton Purcell LLP, we represent approximately 500 California fabrication workers and almost 200 fabrication workers from 22 other states with silicosis and other silica related diseases.
These 700 fabrication workers support WOEMA’s Petition to ban crystalline silica artificial stone in California, and they oppose the federal HR 5437 Foreign Slab Manufacturer Bailout that would instead ban civil product liability lawsuits against them. And the hundreds of other fabrication workers represented by a few of our colleagues feel the same way.
They do not want any more of their brothers, sons, and friends dying like they are from fatal silicosis caused by foreign manufacturers’ crystalline silica artificial stone slabs. 600 occupational medicine doctors of WOEMA who are on the front lines trying to address this emergency epidemic of dying workers have presented the petition to the Cal OSHA Standards Board to ban crystalline silica artificial stone, and they also oppose the HR 5437 bailout of foreign manufacturers.
The Los Angeles Department of Public Health agrees as well. The California Department of Public Health agrees. The Cal OSHA medical staff agrees. The occupational medicine doctors of UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, Cedar-Sinai, USC, University of Chicago, and so many other hospitals around the country agree. Doctors around the world who have studied and published on this epidemic for over the last decade agree. Everyone who actually cares about the lives and jobs of human workers in the U.S. instead of the $25 billion profits of foreign slab manufacturers agree.
So why is that? That is because the crystalline silica artificial stone is a uniquely, extremely toxic product. Throughout the many decades when only natural stone slabs were used to fabricate countertops, not a single case of a countertop fabrication worker developing silicosis was ever published in the global peer reviewed literature.
All this changed when foreign companies began to make and sell crystalline silica artificial stone slabs. This epidemic starts and stops with crystalline silica artificial stone. It is entirely the uniquely toxic product that is the problem, not the countertop fabrication process. Before artificial stone became popular in the United States, countertops were largely made from granite, which contains only 30% crystalline silica and marble, which contains just 3% crystalline silica, and that silica in natural stone is regular sized rather than nano-sized.
In contrast, high content 95%, ultra fine, and nano size silica toxic metals, and resins, which produce volatile organic compounds or VOCs, are the ingredients used to manufacture crystalline silica artificial stone slabs. And therefore, those same components are in the extremely toxic dust that is released when later the slab is fabricated into a kitchen or bathroom countertop.
Numerous peer-reviewed studies demonstrate that engineering controls, mainly water, and local exhaust ventilation and personal protective equipment such as masks and respirators, which work reasonably well when fabricating natural stone and recycled glass stone do not prevent silicosis in workers fabricating crystalline silica artificial stone.
Contrary to the sensationalist rhetoric of the slab manufacturers, a very small minority of fabrication shops are so-called dry shops. The vast majority of shops actually use wet cutting machines, and then they have varying levels of sophistication for other tasks such as grinding and polishing.
However, countless fabrication workers and even the most sophisticated fabrication shops are still getting silicosis because not even the most sophisticated methods are effective for crystalline silica artificial stone.
There is an evolution of this global artificial stone pandemic. This is not a new problem, but rather the foreign crystalline silica artificial stone slab manufacturers knew this was the inevitable outcome. Long before artificial stone became popular in the United States, the foreign slab manufacturers knew that their crystalline silica artificial stone slab product is uniquely deadly.
Since the late 1990s, many artificial stone fabrication workers in Italy, Israel, Spain, Australia, and China have died from accelerated or acute silicosis. Within a few years of crystalline silica artificial stone slabs displacing natural stone slabs in any geographic market of human being countertop fabricators, an epidemic of artificial stone accelerated silicosis soon follows.
In 1987, Caesarstone opened the first artificial stone slab manufacturing factory in Israel. As Caesarstone became popular in Israel and displaced natural stone in the market, the new disease now known as artificial stone accelerated silicosis began to emerge. According to a prominent 2012 published Israeli medical journal article by Dr. Kramer, originally called Caesarstone Silicosis, by 1997, the first Caesarstone countertop fabrication worker developed accelerated artificial stone silicosis. And by 2010, 24 more workers had it with 10 receiving lung transplants.
Similarly in Spain, Cosentino opened its first artificial stone slab manufacturing factory in 1988 and by 2011 Spanish doctors reported that 25 Spanish Cosentino fabrication workers had developed artificial stone silicosis.
And in 2012, another Spanish doctor reported another 255 patients. This would eventually result in the criminal conviction in Spain of Cosentino as a company in 2019, for failure to warn fabrication workers of the hazards of artificial stone, causing them to develop fatal silicosis. And later in 2023, the criminal conviction in Spain of Francisco Cosentino himself for similar crimes.
The foreign crystalline silica artificial stone slab manufacturers in countries like China and Vietnam experienced similar outbreaks. Since the Australian natural stone countertop fabrication market was hijacked by the foreign crystalline silica artificial stone slab manufacturers a few years before this occurred in the United States, the next artificial stone silicosis outbreak was in Australia.
In 2019, Australia reported 260 cases of artificial stone silicosis, followed by, in 2022, another 579 cases. After extensive testing, review and analysis, Safe Work Australia concluded that wet methods and other engineering controls do not prevent disease during artificial stone countertop fabrication.
And if no action were taken, they estimated that 100,000 Australian fabricators would get silicosis and over 10,000 would get lung cancer from artificial stone. So, as a result in 2024, Australia banned the importation and use of artificial stone slabs.
The first artificial stone silicosis case in the United States was reported in 2015 in Texas.
However, California has become the epicenter of the disease in the United States, with the disease now rapidly spreading to other states. As crystalline silica artificial stone slab becomes popular in each geographic market, it displaces natural stone and the silicosis rates and fabrication workers rapidly increases from a baseline of zero.
California is simply the first state in the U.S. where artificial stone became popular. The California Department of Public Health now maintains an engineered stone silicosis dashboard, which tracks the artificial stone silicosis epidemic in California. The dashboard is updated weekly, tracking diagnosis and deaths.
The epidemic in California began in 2019 with only 13 cases, rising each year, and as of this week, the number of confirmed cases is now a staggering 481. The data shows a rapidly worsening epidemic. Other states are also seeing increased rates of artificial stone silicosis as the demand for artificial stone countertops grows there. However, none have a tracking program like the CDPH. But for example, Massachusetts just issued its first alert in December 2025.
The WOEMA Petition is well-researched. In support of their petition, the 600+ occupational medicine doctors of WOEMA from the seven Western states of California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico rely on over 100 published peer reviewed medical and scientific studies from the last 10 years, focused on the artificial stone silicosis epidemic.
And therefore, they have petitioned the Cal OSHA Standards Board to urgently revise 8CCR5204 to prohibit all fabrication and installation of countertops made from artificial stone slabs containing more than 1% crystalline silica, citing to a continuing epidemic of silicosis among California countertop fabrication workers exposed to dust from such products.
Based on extensive published literature and epidemic tracking tools, WOEMA clearly states that crystalline silica artificial stone slabs are too toxic and hazardous to fabricate into countertops or install safely even with enforcement of workplace regulations. They advocate for expedited prohibition on crystalline silica artificial stone slabs to stop the epidemic and replace the market with safe alternatives.
They remind us that according to NIOSH, OSHA, and countless global peer reviewed studies, the most effective method to prevent occupational disease is elimination of hazardous products and substitution with safer materials. And yet, despite all this crystal-clear evidence from hundreds of actual specialist doctors who spent over 10 years researching the artificial stone silicosis epidemic, the lobbyists behind the HR 5437 Foreign Slab Manufacturer Bailout, absurdly claim that crystalline silica artificial stone is not inherently dangerous. So again, the U.S. and global occupational doctors all state that crystalline silica artificial stone is too toxic to be fabricated by human being workers under any conditions– and yet the foreign slab manufacturer lobbyists behind HR 5437 bailout claim that it is not inherently dangerous. Who are you going to believe?
WOEMA points out that these same foreign artificial stone slab manufacturers and suppliers already make and sell recycled glass slabs made from amorphous silica, which is much safer, but has the same quality look and feel as the toxic crystalline silica artificial stone. This product is already sold in the U.S. and it's all that is sold in Australia since they passed the ban on crystalline silica artificial stone.
I urge ALL of you to reach out to the Cal OSHA Standards Board and Governor Newsom to urge them to support and adopt WOEMA’s Petition to ban crystalline silica artificial stone in California, and hopefully the rest of the U.S. will soon follow.
And I urge you to reach out to your congressmen and women and urge them to reject the Foreign Slab Manufacturer Bailout Bill HR 5437, which if passed, would take away the rights of countertop fabrication workers with fatal disease to sue the foreign slab manufacturers and distributors, which is the only way these young workers and their families can get compensation, and which is the only way, absent a national ban on crystalline silica artificial stone, to get the foreign slab manufacturers to stop dumping their deadly toxic product on U.S. workers.
Thank you for turning into this episode From Dust to Verdict. I'm your host, James Nevin from the law firm of Brayton Purcell LLP. Please remember to share, like, and subscribe. Stay tuned for our next episode where we will continue our discussions of the artificial stone silicosis epidemic, as well as the associated litigation.