welding

i work in a papermill, i recently obtained a millwright position, but now because of my pacemaker defib. management wants to pull me off of the millwright job which means i have to go back to swing shift work, which at 49 yrs of age and a worn out heart sucks. the millwright position a 7-3:30 m-f job. because of the welding aspect of the job, they said it would be unsafe and they don't want the liability if something goes wrong. i have all the info from medtronics to reduce the risks of interaction with welding and presented them with a copy but they still didn't budge. they are willing to get an outfit in to check out and get readings of the maximum allowable field strengths of electromagnetic sources its a table for measuring an electromagnetic fields that i got from medtonics. any help from welders out there with similar problems please reply asap. thank you. time running out.

3 Comments

Not a welder, but...

by edmondme - 2010-03-27 05:03:25

I am really not in the same position, but isn't that considered discrimination. If the company and the doctor clear you, then the employer has to be able to use you, otherwise you have a legal case and can sue the employer for lost wages. (Unless the wages future and present are the same)

The precedence would be pregnancy cases, where women are asked not to perform work deemed dangerous, but it's up to the medical experts, not the company making the decision.

If I were you, and you want an answer, I would call an employment lawyer in your state, and get an opinion and if you have the case, I would approach the management in your company and inform them. You can sue them in the long term.

Can't say but...

by Hoosier - 2010-03-28 03:03:24

I certainly hope you work it out, swing shift is a killer. You should be fortunate that they are willing to have an audit of readings in the plant. I work in a coal fired power plant and when I approached the safety dept. before PM implant they gave me a study done in '02 for a guy with a defib which showed danger areas (mainly just overhead lines, switchyard and coal handling magnets, probable not even valid for me.

My job doesn't require much work inside the plant really but I kinda suspect that my PM was affected a couple times that I was out there. I suppose I'll find out next appointment. If it was I'll request another audit, will get the union involved if they balk. If you're in a union that would be a help.

I wish you all the best, hope it works out for you. Please let us know what the outcome is.

Terry

Hope it works out...

by Linky - 2010-04-02 08:04:35

Hi
At least your employer is willing to do an audit, if you are in a Union it would be beneficial for them to be part of the negotiations. I work at a power company & at the moment they are investigating the bucket trucks frequencies on the new trucks that have suddenly starting affecting me with EMF. They could have taken the option of moving me to another part of the building but our Safety Dept said no it needs to be investigated as what would they do if the trucks were parked outside a hospital or nursing home for a day and affecting patients with PM's. I know there is a posting somewhere else on this site about welding & probs with fields etc as I read it about a month ago while looking through the different topics. I will see if I can find it & let you know. Good luck & hang in there, it is so hard with a PM in the workplace sometimes but if your employer is willing to come to the table to check levels against Medtronics data that has to give you some hope. Maybe if you look on the affiliates tab on this site there is a site that sells meters for EMF that are set to PM's. I live in Australia & contacted them & they can be used worldwide apparently. My workplace has offered to buy me one to use when I go to different depots etc so that we can use it as another tool for making the workplace safer for me. Good luck & I hope it all works out for you.

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