i remember gil alvarez putting his hand on my shoulder on the street in frontof the macklowe hotel while others nearby looked nervous. gil said you know me from law school. do you want to indide and see your friends arrested. he told the superior n charge i know these guys. they are ok.
what troubles the mind still is the people i had shortly before eaten with. the ranged in age from very young to old snd all were diring because of a hemophilia product that was intentionall or recklessly contaminated with things that kill, often in an ugly manner
if insurance companies supported good science and art such as that of g ristori snd denise l faustmsn, see eg pubmed.org ristori+ bcg faustmanlab.org pubmed.irg faustman dl uspto.gov inventor search faustman there would be more money fir many snd many useful things
the article about these young ones says nothing about those who have been needlessly killed before them
Brothers, from left to right, Drew, Raymond and Anthony West, outside the home of Raymond in Liberty, Texas. SCOTT DALTON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Five years ago, Anthony, Drew and Raymond West were called into their supervisor’s office and let go from their jobs performing heavy-duty maintenance work at an oil refinery in Beaumont, Texas.
“We kind of knew it was gonna happen, but then again we were all shocked,” said Raymond West, age 26, the youngest of the brothers.
The Wests were employed for a contract-worker firm, Signature Industrial Services LLC, and were contracted to do work for Exxon Mobil Corp. Their Signature supervisor had been instructed to let them go because of their medical condition, hemophilia A, according to a lawsuit filed in February by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that charged Signature with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Contracting firms like Signature deliver flexibility and cost savings to companiesthat don’t want to take on the long-term liabilities of permanent employees. Contracting firms supply extra workers when business demand increases; those same people may be dropped quickly when demand slumps. The firms compete to win contracts from price-conscious corporate clients.
Big companies are accustomed to absorbing costs such as rising health insurance premiums, which they spread across a large workforce. But experts say that, as large firms outsource work to small companies that often operate with thin margins, there’s little capacity for those smaller firms to soak up the costs.
Signature said in a filed response to the suit that the brothers were let go for nonmedical reasons as part of a larger “reduction in force.” The company didn’t provide details about a broader layoff in the documents. “Signature Industrial Services is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all workers,” the company’s attorney said in a statement. Exxon declined to comment on the case.