Snapshot: Industrial Workers Speak Out

In the 1990s,  a shift supervisor and wastewater manager at Formosa Plastics, Dale Jurasek, started suffering from sores that no doctor in Calhoun County could explain. Months later, after several visits to a regional medical center associated with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Jurasek learned that the chemicals he was exposed to at the Formosa plant had caused irreparable damage to his nervous system.  

Jurasek’s experience is painfully familiar to many people with toxic exposures: seeking health care itself becomes toxic because established health systems can’t register the strange, sometimes highly individualized, effects of toxic harms. Angry that Formosa Corp had harmed his health and likely that of many other workers, Jurasek then contacted the US EPA and FBI as a whistleblower, providing undercover information about worker safety and failed environmental protections at the Calhoun County Formosa plant. After several years of work on the case, however, the FBI dropped it. Jurasek speculates that this was because the FBI’s attention was diverted by a big case against Koch Industries. Again, capacity to govern environmental health was inadequate. 

Jursaek stayed angry. He also learned about Diane Wilson, and in 2008 reached out for a meeting – at a meeting place out of town so they wouldn’t be recognized by neighbors. The result was a coalition between Formosa plant workers and a local shrimp fisher that has had staying power, bringing different perspectives on Formosa together. 

In 2017, Diane Wilson, Dale Jurasek, and Ronnie Hamrick (another former wastewater manager) – organized as the Calhoun County Waterkeepers – filed a landmark citizens lawsuit against Formosa, bringing literally buckets of evidence forward. They accused Formosa Corp of rampant and illegal discharge of plastic pellets and other pollutants into Lavaca Bay from Formosa’s Point Comfort’s Calhoun County plant. The case was led by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which describes the outcome as the largest settlement of a Clean Water Act suit filed by private individuals.

 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What barriers do industrial workers like Dale Jurasek face when speaking against their employers?

• Why is it difficult for established health systems to address health effects of toxic chemicals?

• What examples of whistleblowing for public good have you come across?