Following the world's first court verdict establishing the previously missing legal acceptance that there is a connection between contaminated cabin air and crew/passenger health, it's a good time to examine the law and politics behind the courtroom arguments.
We'll start with a comparable set of legal circumstances in another industry: tobacco.
This comparison is useful only as a study of the way society processes the discovery of health risks.
The tobacco industry has been through the whole process which, in the case of toxic fumes in aircraft cabins, the air transport industry is just beginning to face up to. The process of facing up to the risk is likely to follow a remarkably similar path.
The tobacco industry did not set out to provide people with carcinogens, and aircraft/engine manufacturers did not set out to allow neurotoxins into aircraft cabins, but in both cases, as a secondary effect of providing their primary products, a risk exists.
In 1954 the American Cancer Society said this: "The evidence to date justifies suspicion that cigarette smoking does, to a degree as yet undetermined, increase the likelihood of developing cancer of the lung."
Societal attitudes forty or so years ago are illustrated by the fact that, in 1965, as an officer cadet in the UK Royal Navy, I was provided at incredibly low cost with a ration of 200 cigarettes a month. I was not compelled to accept the ration, but I smoked them anyway.
It was about that time that court cases alleging tobacco companies' responsibility for causing lung cancer were becoming big news. But the rearguard legal defence action by companies like American Tobacco lasted years, the chief weapon being the argument that lung cancer can have many different causes, and that the connection between smoking and lung cancer could not be proven.
Eventually it was proven. Today many people still choose to smoke, but the major difference is that everyone who does so is made aware of the risk.
I'd better make it clear at this stage that, although there are process parallels between dealing with the tobacco smoke/lung cancer issue, and the potential for passenger and crew harm through organophosphate fumes in cabin air, there are differences too. Most flights are fume-free, whereas every cigarette smoked exposes the smoker's lungs to carcinogens.
The comparative downside is that many crew and almost all passengers have no knowledge of the fact that they could, during any flight in an aircraft with cabin air supplied from engine or auxiliary power unit compressor bleeds, be exposed to neurotoxic organophosphates.
But what if they are? Symptoms are obviously affected by the dose, but in an intense fume event some people could be badly affected for the rest of their lives, and others get away with it entirely. Individual susceptibilities vary. The trouble is, you won't know whether you are susceptible or not until you are exposed to it. If you want to know more, visit the Aerotoxic Association's website.
The effect on the human nervous system of certain organophosphates has been known for many years. So, for non-lawyers, making a connection between the presence of toxic fumes in an aircraft cabin and potential harm to the health of those in the aeroplane does not take much intellectual effort. It's obvious. But lawyers are paid not to see it that way.
If the air transport industry wants to buy itself time before it has to do something about aerotoxic syndrome - and it does want to buy time - its lawyers are given the job of making it as difficult as possible to prove a connection between a fume event and a case of illness in a passenger or crewmember. The burden of proof is on the plaintiff. There is no requirement for the airline or the manufacturer to prove anything, so all they do is work to discredit the evidence provided by the plaintiff. If that doesn't work, they employ legal technicalities. The process is nothing to do with justice.
Meanwhile, more difficult to understand is the attitude of the authorities. In the case of the UK, for example, that would be the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority. You would have thought that their job would include protecting the health and safety of passengers and crew. Apparently they don't think it is. They, like the lawyers, are waiting for proof on their terms. The amount of evidence that they have decided not even to consider is massive.
Government organisations like the Committee on Toxicity will not accept evidence gathered by organisations like the Aerotoxic Association or the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive on the grounds that they are interest groups. Implicit in that decision is the COT's judgement that the industry itself is not an interest group!
Then there is the absolutely unbelievable case of pilot unions like the US ALPA, the UK BALPA, and organisations the European Cockpit Association and IFALPA. They are happy to go along with this dissembling rather than fighting to protect the health of their members. Strange.
But the tobacco industry eventually had to accept reality, and whatever you may think of it, it is prospering despite accepting reality. The aviation industry could do the same. There is hope yet, especially following the 1 April New South Wales Court of Appeal decision.
on April 9, 2010 10:53 PM | Reply
BALPA must have as a primary objective to keep its pilots employed. If a few get sick well so be it, we are not a union - we are an association to further our members needs and salary. Passengers are not anything to do with us.
on April 10, 2010 10:14 PM | Reply
As a Captain for a major UK airline who has frequently had exposures to toxic cabin air I can say Mr Learmoubt's article is spot on. BALPA is a disgrace and has done nothing to make my workplace safer. My greatest fear is for the young kids who I fly weekly on holiday to the med and further. Mr Learmount thank you for raising these issues publically.
on April 11, 2010 12:21 PM | Reply
Kudos to Mike Brown for a breath of CAVOK CAT III clarity through the neurotoxic organophosphate smokescreen. Never have so few words spoken by one, said so much of an association. Just when you think you have heard it all, Mike illustrates that you haven’t. I looked twice at the date, but noticed it was 9 days after April 1st, coincidently the date of the Australian court award. B/ALPA and other members of the alphabet “associations”, clearly through contrived disingenuous obfuscation want to be considered a white collar professional flying club association which has no association with blue collar “industrial action”, the curse of the great unwashed.
Unionism is clearly the association that dare not speak it’s name among the white collar class type. For associates, unionism is apparently the scourge of the lower blue collar social orders, like the airframe and powerplant engineers that ensure their conveyance is A-D check compliant.
A UNION is by the most basic of intellectually disabled definitions, an ASSOCIATION, by any metric QED !, albeit varying in degrees of militancy. Disputes among academic associations tend to be so bitter, as the stakes are so low. An association that does not socially COLLECTIVELY take part in any capitalist or rent seeking disruption is a club association that maintains standards and is an advocate for it’s member’s interests, not innocent or guilty of unionist socialism, depending on one’s perspective. That is Remedial civics 101, Mike, your novel interpretation is truly enlightening. There can of course be valid reasons for taking collective action against management intransigence and unreasonable demands on working practices, like management cashing their inflated company shares on the backs of the association unionists productivity improvements and benefit cuts. This is a practice among US airline management’s quarterly economic cycle myopia. This is not culturally prevalent in Europe and completely anti-cultural in Asia, which is why associations and not unions are more prevalent there and collective sick-outs are what gets managerial attention of a grievance.
Think of a country that uses in it’s title, “National Democratic People’s Republic of XYZ”. As a rule of thumb, it is not but regimes like that crave a nominal veneer of democratic legitimacy, that they imagine such a title conveys. Those who work freely in such an environment, like myself, are politically aware and legally informed to awareness that the difference between political and legal is interpreted opinion. Sub-optimal, yes !, but on the right side of the drag curve moving forward to union status from association status, come are more democratic than others. For example the Chinese Communist Party has 75 million members and is the world’s largest holding company. It’s members vote on the selection of the head of the party, country president and other members of the politburo. So some people of the People’s Republic are more equal than others.
However, the first three letters of “Association” in contemporary combination isolation, adequately describe in contemporary aggregate totality the B/ALPA Unions in singular plural. Pardon my semantic longevity, but could an ALPA member work for a BALPA company and vice versa ? Of course not !, that is freedom of movement of labour and association, total anathema to an associate union in European general, but US in particular, where NIMBY protectionism is of paramount in totality. Of course, industrial professional associations are unions and don’t want to be called as such, because the democratic prerogative of all unions is the withdrawal of their labour, in a strike. Professional associations that take collective industrial action are striking at their employing company or agency if a government employee, like an FAA Air Traffic Controller, for example. For historical reference Google PATCO, 1981defunct. It was an Organized Union Association. The US Civil Service Commission declared them to be a trade union and NOT an association in 1969. It got above it’s own importance in August 1981, to contrailing altitude and Ronald Reagan shot them down, all puns intended. At least the USCSC invoked a commission decision without omission of what was industrially obvious to all but the most blinkered of the vested. Maggie Thatcher took this metric as a template in dealing with Arthur Scargill’s NUM in 1984-85. Same movie, much blacker cinema, with an acute absence of white collar non-industrial associates, that would never associate due to class and type rating contempt. At least Arthur did not lead a National Association of Miners.
The US ALPA does one better by having a Master Debaters’ Executive Council, no less. I’m unsure as to what they execute via a man in a chair of a particular local concillium, but I suspect it to be a central joy stickshaker, for those that need an ego stroke, so to speak.
It must be particularly demeaning to use unionised industrial strike action for an associative agenda in general. And in particular, whenever they use any industrial issue, like health and safety, so industrial dusty blue collar unionism, yuck !. Of course from salary to flight time limitations to seniority via outsourcing while using an intellectually insulting fig leaf like “This is essential for passengers’ safety” promulgated by the European Cockpit Union-sorry-Association and European Transport Workers’ Federation-a federated group of union associated, Tony Woodley’s BA Cabin Crew’s union is Unite, so it is a consolidation of unions in a dwindling union collective. In an ideal world of Planet Utopia, all employees and managers would be the brand and the brand them in a united state.
As Mike says, “Passengers are not anything to do with us”. Well said Mike, that should put them in their place. Paying your salary ?, well, so be it, however sick it makes them of your Union-sorry-Association of using their welfare to promote any Union-sorry-Association agenda. A union association is in all cases not concerned with the common good in general, but only the blinkered common good of fee paying members and that is fine as their valid democratic prerogative, as long as they don’t hide their naked demands between a fig leaf of concern for pax or colleagues welfare. And if a few associate stragglers get sick in the trenches, so be it, that’s war for you.
B/ALPA are business class professional trade unions that do not want to be called as such, for being guilty by or of Association with the grimy hoi polloi. That’s bad enough when being allied by association with those grimy engineers in those ghastly high-vis vests and the trolley dolly cabin crew of Nigel and Nigella, but Pax ???, what is aviation coming to !?. I realise that they merely pay our salaries, but Mike is right, as he says, “Passengers are not anything to do with us”.
And David Learmount being an ex-smoker ?, I would not have thought. And I may assume to be an anti-smoking zealot ? converts are the greatest zealots. Whatever the pros and cons, it definitely beats being too lethargic to be apathetic, which may or may not be related to what one is smoking. Still it’s just as well, that smoking on an aircraft is no longer an option, though the concentrated nicotine streaks of cabin altitude provided a good indication for engineers of airframe leaks. A healthy benefit of smoking in hindsight being retrospective foresight. Filtered smoking is so popular in China as it filters the toxic lead mist air outside, like beer was healthier in Victorian times before hygienic drinking water. A funny old world.
So, back to the top, never have so few casual words from BALPA’s Mike Brown provoked so many cathartic words from me, for which I am so grateful for clarifying in severe clear CAVOK my social prejudice through the lead mist. I was in a union once too, I kicked the habit after some experience but at least I never smoked. Ironic, as I generally am very sociable, but will NEVER be dictated to as to whom I may associate with. That is my prejudicial prerogative that I hold sacrosanct, without apology. Association and not a Union ? is irony more than a piece of metal ?, Well Mike, I guess your fellow associates were once indecisive, but are now not so sure.
on April 11, 2010 7:09 PM | Reply
Kudos to Mike Brown for a breath of CAVOK CAT III clarity through the neurotoxic organophosphate smokescreen. Never have so few words spoken by one, said so much of an association. Just when you think you have heard it all, Mike illustrates that you haven’t. I looked twice at the date, but noticed it was 9 days after April 1st, coincidently the date of the Australian court award. B/ALPA and other members of the alphabet “associations”, clearly through contrived disingenuous obfuscation want to be considered a white collar professional flying club association which has no association with blue collar “industrial action”, the curse of the great unwashed.
Unionism is clearly the association that dare not speak it’s name among the white collar class type. For associates, unionism is apparently the scourge of the lower blue collar social orders, like the airframe and powerplant engineers that ensure their conveyance is A-D check compliant.
A UNION is by the most basic of intellectually disabled definitions, an ASSOCIATION, by any metric QED !, albeit varying in degrees of militancy. Disputes among academic associations tend to be so bitter, as the stakes are so low. An association that does not socially COLLECTIVELY take part in any capitalist or rent seeking disruption is a club association that maintains standards and is an advocate for it’s member’s interests, not innocent or guilty of unionist socialism, depending on one’s perspective. That is Remedial civics 101, Mike, your novel interpretation is truly enlightening. There can of course be valid reasons for taking collective action against management intransigence and unreasonable demands on working practices, like management cashing their inflated company shares on the backs of the association unionists productivity improvements and benefit cuts. This is a practice among US airline management’s quarterly economic cycle myopia. This is not culturally prevalent in Europe and completely anti-cultural in Asia, which is why associations and not unions are more prevalent there and collective sick-outs are what gets managerial attention of a grievance.
Think of a country that uses in it’s title, “National Democratic People’s Republic of XYZ”. As a rule of thumb, it is not but regimes like that crave a nominal veneer of democratic legitimacy, that they imagine such a title conveys. Those who work freely in such an environment, like myself, are politically aware and legally informed to awareness that the difference between political and legal is interpreted opinion. Sub-optimal, yes !, but on the right side of the drag curve moving forward to union status from association status, come are more democratic than others. For example the Chinese Communist Party has 75 million members and is the world’s largest holding company. It’s members vote on the selection of the head of the party, country president and other members of the politburo. So some people of the People’s Republic are more equal than others.
However, the first three letters of “Association” in contemporary combination isolation, adequately describe in contemporary aggregate totality the B/ALPA Unions in singular plural. Pardon my semantic longevity, but could an ALPA member work for a BALPA company and vice versa ? Of course not !, that is freedom of movement of labour and association, total anathema to an associate union in European general, but US in particular, where NIMBY protectionism is of paramount in totality. Of course, industrial professional associations are unions and don’t want to be called as such, because the democratic prerogative of all unions is the withdrawal of their labour, in a strike. Professional associations that take collective industrial action are striking at their employing company or agency if a government employee, like an FAA Air Traffic Controller, for example. For historical reference Google PATCO, 1981defunct. It was an Organized Union Association. The US Civil Service Commission declared them to be a trade union and NOT an association in 1969. It got above it’s own importance in August 1981, to contrailing altitude and Ronald Reagan shot them down, all puns intended. At least the USCSC invoked a commission decision without omission of what was industrially obvious to all but the most blinkered of the vested. Maggie Thatcher took this metric as a template in dealing with Arthur Scargill’s NUM in 1984-85. Same movie, much blacker cinema, with an acute absence of white collar non-industrial associates, that would never associate due to class and type rating contempt. At least Arthur did not lead a National Association of Miners.
The US ALPA does one better by having a Master Debaters’ Executive Council, no less. I’m unsure as to what they execute via a man in a chair of a particular local concillium, but I suspect it to be a central joy stickshaker, for those that need an ego stroke, so to speak.
It must be particularly demeaning to use unionised industrial strike action for an associative agenda in general. And in particular, whenever they use any industrial issue, like health and safety, so industrial dusty blue collar unionism, yuck !. Of course from salary to flight time limitations to seniority via outsourcing while using an intellectually insulting fig leaf like “This is essential for passengers’ safety” promulgated by the European Cockpit Union-sorry-Association and European Transport Workers’ Federation-a federated group of union associated, Tony Woodley’s BA Cabin Crew’s union is Unite, so it is a consolidation of unions in a dwindling union collective. In an ideal world of Planet Utopia, all employees and managers would be the brand and the brand them in a united state.
As Mike says, “Passengers are not anything to do with us”. Well said Mike, that should put them in their place. Paying your salary ?, well, so be it, however sick it makes them of your Union-sorry-Association of using their welfare to promote any Union-sorry-Association agenda. A union association is in all cases not concerned with the common good in general, but only the blinkered common good of fee paying members and that is fine as their valid democratic prerogative, as long as they don’t hide their naked demands between a fig leaf of concern for pax or colleagues welfare. And if a few associate stragglers get sick in the trenches, so be it, that’s war for you.
B/ALPA are business class professional trade unions that do not want to be called as such, for being guilty by or of Association with the grimy hoi polloi. That’s bad enough when being allied by association with those grimy engineers in those ghastly high-vis vests and the trolley dolly cabin crew of Nigel and Nigella, but Pax ???, what is aviation coming to !?. I realise that they merely pay our salaries, but Mike is right, as he says, “Passengers are not anything to do with us”.
And David Learmount being an ex-smoker ?, I would not have thought. And I may assume to be an anti-smoking zealot ? converts are the greatest zealots. Whatever the pros and cons, it definitely beats being too lethargic to be apathetic, which may or may not be related to what one is smoking. Still it’s just as well, that smoking on an aircraft is no longer an option, though the concentrated nicotine streaks of cabin altitude provided a good indication for engineers of airframe leaks. A healthy benefit of smoking in hindsight being retrospective foresight. Filtered smoking is so popular in China as it filters the toxic lead mist air outside, like beer was healthier in Victorian times before hygienic drinking water. A funny old world.
So, back to the top, never have so few casual words from BALPA’s Mike Brown provoked so many cathartic words from me, for which I am so grateful for clarifying in severe clear CAVOK my social prejudice through the lead mist. I was in a union once too, I kicked the habit after some experience but at least I never smoked. Ironic, as I generally am very sociable, but will NEVER be dictated to as to whom I may associate with. That is my prejudicial prerogative that I hold sacrosanct, without apology. Association and not a Union ? is irony more than a piece of metal ?, Well Mike, I guess your fellow associates were once indecisive, but are now not so sure.
on April 12, 2010 3:25 PM | Reply
I have been watching this issue for some years and have heard many of the views. My conclusion is that BALPA in the UK has failed its members. BALPA knew all about these problems as it held a conference on these matters in 2005 for which I have a copy of the proceedings (BALPA Contaminated Air Protection Conference). The evidence was clear.
Jim McAuslan staed on 21 April that the last thing BALPA should do is hand over the problem to some Governmental investigation and that is exactly what BALPA did.
This makes BALPA's failing worse and bordering on negligent. This is no doubt why the GCAQE has been born in the last few years to pick up the failings of BALPA, ECA and IFALPA.
Congratulations on Mr learmount for having the backbone to highlight these important flight sfaety and crew health concerns.
on April 13, 2010 10:28 AM | Reply
Here is the 2005 BALPA report to which Alan McDonald refers:
http://www.aerotoxic.org/download/docs/reports_and_evidence/BALPA_CAPC_London_April_2005%5B1%5D.pdf
on April 22, 2010 9:46 AM | Reply
Really good analysis Mr Learmount, thanks so much! I'm glad you drew the cigarette parallel, because it draws attention to the fact that delaying tactics don't decrease the eventual cost, rather they increase it.
A sympathetic person in BALPA told me the reason they can't take this on is the wealth of the opponents they would face in court. Airframe manufacturer, engine manufacturer, oil company and airline vs one small union. This really needs the government to stand up for us. If the late Prof Helen Muir's recent study had been more powerful it would have given BALPA a chance to lobby effectively. As it is, she acknowledged the presence of OP's but not the deleterious effect on health.
If it doesn't affect everyone, it's considered not proven. It's the same head-in-the-sand, vested-interest attitude that one finds in all toxicological scandals in our modern health system. Check out the "debate" about mercury in childrens vaccines for example.