Unlike a single-product specialty trade, IBB boilermakers were typically employed by one of several kinds of contractor during the asbestos era, and a complete work history usually involves more than one:

  1. Boiler manufacturers and erectors — the firms that fabricated and field-erected industrial boilers, pressure vessels, and their steel structures (including the boiler-OEM erection crews). These were the jobs where the vessel was clad in asbestos block lagging and refractory as it went up.
  2. Industrial maintenance and outage/turnaround contractors — firms dispatching boilermakers to power plants, refineries, and mills for tube replacement, retubing, and the periodic outage tear-outs where the highest asbestos exposure occurred.
  3. Plant maintenance departments (direct-hire) — utilities, refineries, and mills employed boilermakers directly as in-house maintenance staff for their boilers and pressure vessels.
  4. Shipyards — boilermakers built and repaired marine boilers and pressure vessels in Navy and merchant shipyards.
Why this matters for a boilermaker with mesothelioma: If you worked through an IBB Local in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, your employer — a boiler erector, an outage contractor, or the plant itself — put you inside and around asbestos-lagged boilers and pressure vessels, cutting and removing block lagging and refractory during construction and tear-out. Union dispatch records, W-2s, and Social Security earnings statements help establish which employer sent you to which job, in which years.

The signature exposure: inside the boiler

For boilermakers, the documented asbestos exposure came from working inside and immediately around the boiler and pressure vessel — where asbestos block lagging clad the hot surfaces, asbestos refractory lined the firebox, and asbestos gaskets sealed the doors and joints. During new erection, the boilermaker worked as the lagging went on; during outage and repair work, the boilermaker cut, broke out, and removed dry, friable asbestos lagging and refractory to access the tubes and internals. The manufacturers of those boilers, refractory, and insulation are the lead defendants and trust sources, documented on the Asbestos Products page and in the Trust Funds section.

This site does not maintain an independent roster of boiler-erection contractor companies — the accurate employer history for a specific boilermaker is best established through that individual’s own union dispatch records, not a generic company list, because erectors and outage contractors operated regionally and nationally and changed names, merged, or dissolved frequently across the asbestos era.

Why your Local’s dispatch records matter

For an IBB member, the Local Unions directory is the more reliable starting point than any generic contractor list:

  • Dispatch records — your Local’s hiring hall kept (and often still retains) records of which contractor you were referred to and when
  • Apprenticeship records — establish your trade timeline and the contractors your training program worked with
  • Pay stubs, W-2s, and Social Security earnings statements — independently confirm which employer paid you in which years

An experienced asbestos attorney uses these records — not a generic contractor roster — to build the specific chain from your union card to your jobsite history to the boilers and materials documented on that job.

Why This Matters in Your Documentation

A complete asbestos-exposure history typically requires both:

  1. The job sites where you worked (the power plants, refineries, mills, shipyards — see the Workplaces section)
  2. The contractor or plant that employed you at those sites (your Local’s dispatch records)

For each job, asbestos-attorney case preparation typically asks:

  • Which contractor or plant employed you, through which Local?
  • What years did you work there?
  • Which boiler or vessel did you build or service, and did you cut or remove its lagging and refractory?
  • Were other trades (insulators, pipefitters, ironworkers) working the same boiler?

See the Trust Funds section for documentation requirements per trust, and the Local Unions section for resources on retrieving historical union dispatch records.

References to contractors, companies, and facilities reflect what has been alleged or documented in publicly filed asbestos litigation and union archives. This list is not exhaustive and inclusion does not constitute any finding of fact or liability. This site does not provide legal or medical advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by use of this site.