The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is one of the foundational North American construction and utility trade unions. The parent organization was founded on November 28, 1891, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the organizing convention called by Henry Miller and a small group of wiremen working the electrical trades at the St. Louis Electrical Exposition. That founding convention chartered Local 1 St. Louis as the union’s first and historic founding Local — a distinction Local 1 St. Louis has held continuously since 1891. The IBEW today maintains its international headquarters in Washington, D.C. From the first electrified streetcars, arc-lamp streetlights, and central-station generating plants of the late 19th century through the modern digital-substation and utility-scale grid era, IBEW members have wired the electrical skeleton of virtually every commercial high-rise, industrial process plant, fossil and nuclear power station, refinery, steel mill, hospital, university, government building, utility transmission and distribution system, and railroad electrification project in the United States.

The craft is organized around several overlapping classifications — inside construction wiremen (commercial and industrial building wiring, switchgear installation, motor control center installation, conduit and cable pulling), outside linemen (transmission and distribution overhead line construction, pole-line work, transformer setting, live-line work), utility distribution linemen (utility company overhead and underground distribution work), industrial motor rewind mechanics (rewinding motors, generators, and transformers in captive shops and industrial plants), cable splicers (medium- and high-voltage underground cable splicing), substation electricians (utility and industrial substation construction and maintenance, transformer setting, switchgear installation), telecommunications and low-voltage installers (telephone, signal, fiber, and controls), and railroad electricians (locomotive traction motor and railroad electrification). IBEW members pull, bend, terminate, splice, land, rack, rewind, and energize every category of electrical equipment and cable in commercial, industrial, utility, and railroad electrical construction and maintenance.

The asbestos era

From roughly the pre-World War II era through the late 1970s, the low-voltage, medium-voltage, and high-voltage electrical equipment installed and maintained by IBEW members across commercial, industrial, and utility work allegedly contained asbestos in almost every heat-adjacent, arc-adjacent, and voltage-stress-adjacent internal component. Arc-interruption physics, winding-insulation thermal duty, and cable jacket flame-resistance requirements all pushed manufacturers to asbestos in the same era. IBEW members did not choose these materials — but IBEW members were the trade inside the cabinet, on the pole, in the manhole, and on the shop floor while these materials were being racked, wired, split, rewound, spliced, and torn out.

  • The switchgear crew allegedly racked, wired, and maintained metal-clad and metal-enclosed switchgear lineups whose internal arc chute plates and molded De-Ion arc quenching plates were asbestos-fabric and asbestos-molded across the era — Westinghouse De-Ion, GE Magne-Blast, Federal Pacific, Allen-Bradley, Square D Model 6 MCC, I-T-E Imperial HK, and Cutler-Hammer.
  • The motor-rewind crew allegedly stripped, rewound, and re-varnished motors, generators, and traction motors whose winding insulation, slot liners, wedges, and lead-wire insulation were asbestos-fabric — GE locomotive traction motors, GE Frame 5 industrial turbines, GE and Westinghouse substation power transformers, and countless mill and refinery motors.
  • The cable-splicing crew allegedly cut back, split, and terminated medium-voltage underground cables whose insulation and outer jackets were asbestos-fiber — Okonite, General Cable, Anaconda Wire & Cable, and Pirelli high-voltage transmission cable.
  • The substation crew allegedly assembled porcelain transmission-line insulator suspension strings whose cementing compound between porcelain skirts and the metal cap was allegedly asbestos-fiber cement — Ohio Brass, Lapp Insulator.
  • The inside-wireman crew allegedly installed asbestos-cement bulkhead and barrier panels inside electrical rooms, rectifier buildings, and substation control houses, and ran conduit and pulled cable directly adjacent to asbestos pipe covering on power-plant, refinery, and chemical-plant steam mains.

The daily reality on nearly every asbestos-era electrical job was that IBEW members were inside the cabinet with the arc chute plates, at the bench with the winding insulation and taping compound, in the manhole with the cable jacket dust, and on the transmission tower with the insulator cement — all while the same steam mains, boiler externals, and process piping running through the electrical rooms and rectifier buildings were themselves asbestos-lagged.

Switchgear arc chute plates + De-Ion arc quenching plates — a defining exposure

The characteristic exposure profile of the inside construction wireman and the substation electrician is daily proximity to asbestos-fabric arc chute plates and molded De-Ion arc quenching plates inside metal-clad and metal-enclosed switchgear. From the pre-war era through the late 1970s, medium-voltage air-magnetic circuit breakers relied on asbestos-molded arc-quenching plates (“De-Ion plates”) stacked inside a chute to elongate, cool, and de-ionize the arc as the breaker interrupted a fault. The plates cracked, spalled, and shed asbestos fibers with every operation, and with every rack-in / rack-out, every internal inspection, every arc chute change-out, and every high-fault-clearing event.

  • Rack-in / rack-out. Inside wiremen and substation electricians allegedly racked in and racked out breakers whose arc chutes shed dust with every insertion, and blew that dust into the operator’s breathing zone with every operating handle throw.
  • Arc chute change-out. After a fault-clearing operation, the arc chute plates were allegedly removed, inspected, and often replaced — a hands-on, dry, dusty change-out performed inside the cabinet at bench height.
  • Motor rewind + varnish room. In the industrial motor-rewind shop and the utility transformer shop, IBEW motor-rewind mechanics allegedly stripped, taped, and re-varnished windings using asbestos-fabric slot liners, asbestos-fabric coil tape, and asbestos-fabric lead-wire insulation across the era.
  • Cable splicing in manholes and pull-boxes. Underground cable splicers allegedly cut back, split, and re-jacketed medium-voltage cables whose outer jackets and insulation contained asbestos — inside confined, poorly-ventilated manholes and utility vaults.
  • Transmission-line insulator work. Outside linemen allegedly assembled and re-assembled porcelain suspension-string insulators whose skirt-to-cap cementing compound was allegedly asbestos-fiber cement — Ohio Brass, Lapp Insulator.
  • Electrical-room adjacency to asbestos pipe covering. Inside wiremen allegedly ran conduit, pulled cable, and terminated equipment in electrical rooms, motor control centers, and rectifier buildings whose walls, ceilings, and adjacent piping were allegedly asbestos-lagged, asbestos-cement paneled, and pipe-covered.

The Selikoff mesothelioma record

Dr. Irving Selikoff’s Mount Sinai occupational-health research group documented, across a series of foundational studies beginning in the 1960s and continuing into follow-up cohort work in later decades, that electrical workers were allegedly among the construction and utility trades with documented elevated mesothelioma incidence rates. The pathway was the daily, cumulative career-long contact with asbestos-fabric arc chute plates during switchgear operation and maintenance, asbestos-fabric winding insulation during motor and transformer rewind, asbestos-cement bulkhead panels in electrical rooms, asbestos-fiber cable jackets during medium-voltage splicing, asbestos-fiber suspension-string cement on transmission-line insulators, and asbestos pipe covering on adjacent steam mains in power-plant, refinery, and chemical-plant work.

Allied trades

IBEW members worked alongside several allied crafts that share parts of the asbestos exposure history:

  • Heat & Frost Insulators (HFIAW) — the trade that installed asbestos pipe covering on the process piping running through electrical rooms and rectifier buildings the IBEW crew was wiring
  • Boilermakers (IBB) — building and rebuilding boilers, pressure vessels, and precipitators whose electrical drives, motors, and controls the IBEW crew installed and maintained
  • UA Pipefitters, Steamfitters & Plumbers — running the steam and process piping across the same power plant, refinery, and chemical plant floors where the IBEW crew was pulling cable and terminating equipment
  • Sheet Metal Workers (SMART) — hanging ductwork and installing exhaust hoods above the same motor control centers and switchgear lineups the IBEW crew was racking
  • Bricklayers / Refractory Masons (BAC) — laying asbestos-refractory brick inside the boilers and furnaces whose drives, controls, and instrument circuits the IBEW crew was terminating
  • Iron Workers (IW) — erecting the structural steel that framed the electrical rooms, substation control houses, and turbine-deck electrical galleries the IBEW crew was wiring

The IBEW trade allegedly has a documented mesothelioma incidence elevated above the general-population baseline, driven by proximate career-long contact with asbestos-fabric arc chute plates, molded De-Ion arc quenching plates, asbestos-fabric winding insulation, asbestos-fiber cable jackets, asbestos-fiber transmission-line insulator cement, asbestos-cement bulkhead panels, and asbestos pipe covering on adjacent steam mains across the pre-war to late-1970s electrical build-out.

Today

Asbestos was phased out of most switchgear arc chute and De-Ion plate applications across the 1970s and 1980s in favor of ceramic and inorganic-fiber substitutes; asbestos-fabric winding insulation was displaced by polyester-glass and Nomex; asbestos-fiber cable jackets were displaced by PVC and cross-linked polyethylene; and asbestos-fiber transmission-line insulator cements were displaced by polymer composites and portland-cement formulations. IBEW members who entered the trade in the late 1970s and 1980s worked through a progressively safer materials regime. But the disease tail of the asbestos era continues. IBEW members who entered the trade in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s — now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s — are the population now being diagnosed with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases at the highest rates.

This site exists to document that history and, where applicable, to help affected IBEW members and families navigate the claims process under the asbestos bankruptcy trusts and state-specific litigation frameworks that compensate workers and survivors of asbestos exposure.

Free, confidential case evaluation: Speak with O’Brien Law Firm — (314) 936-2956

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