BAC Bricklayers Asbestos Workplaces

Through the asbestos era, members of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) — and in particular the refractory-mason branch of the trade — were dispatched to virtually every category of heavy-process industrial facility in the United States. The categories below represent the broad workplace types where BAC bricklayers allegedly installed, tore out, and rebuilt asbestos-containing refractory linings. State-specific jobsite documentation is linked from within each Local page in the Industrial Exposure Archive.

Integrated steel mills

The integrated steel mills of the Midwest and Northeast — Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago/Calumet, Buffalo, Youngstown, Gary, Birmingham — were the largest single category of refractory-mason work in 20th-century America. BAC members allegedly rebuilt refractory linings on:

• Blast furnaces — hearth, bosh, stack, and tuyere-zone brick allegedly formulated with asbestos-bonded refractory in the 1940s-1970s
• Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) vessels — magnesia and dolomite brick; BOF hood castable allegedly asbestos-fiber-reinforced (NARCO and competing suppliers)
• Open-hearth furnaces — silica roof brick and side-wall brick, and the massive checker chambers below
• Reheat furnaces — hot-face brick and back-up insulation on slab and billet reheat furnaces feeding rolling mills
• Coke oven batteries — silica brick oven walls, coal-charge holes, and monolithic patching mixes (Plibrico and competing suppliers) allegedly asbestos-fiber-reinforced
• Ladles and torpedo cars — refractory-castable and gunning-mix reline every campaign

Cement rotary kilns

The Portland cement industry — concentrated in the limestone belts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, and California — operates rotary kilns up to 700+ feet long that require periodic refractory reline (typically every 12-24 months for the nose ring, longer for the calcining and preheating zones). BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-bonded high-alumina and magnesia-chrome brick in the burning zone, and asbestos-refractory castable at the nose and lifter dam.

Aluminum smelter potlines

The primary aluminum smelters of the Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Washington, and Louisiana industrial belts operated Hall-Héroult reduction cells (pots) with carbon cathode blocks set in refractory-brick lining. BAC members allegedly relined pots on a rotating schedule across the potline, handling asbestos-bonded refractory brick and castable in the cathode collector-bar and side-wall systems.

Glass container melter tanks

The glass container industry (Owens-Illinois, Anchor Hocking, Ball, Brockway) operated continuous melter tanks lined with fused-cast AZS refractory (Corhart, Norton NORzide) on the hot face and asbestos-refractory paving block, throat piece, and back-up insulation behind. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed and rebuilt these linings during periodic tank cold-repairs.

Refinery process heaters, FCC regenerators, and coker units

Petroleum refineries — along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi River corridor, Great Lakes belt, and West Coast — used refractory-lined process heaters (crude column, vacuum, reformer, hydrotreater feed heaters), fluidized catalytic cracker (FCC) regenerator and reactor vessels, and delayed coker drums. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-bonded refractory castable and gunning mix on FCC internals (cyclones, plenum chambers, standpipes), coker drum ceramic-fiber back-up, and process-heater fire brick.

Pulp mill recovery boilers

Kraft pulp mills — concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the South, Maine, Wisconsin, and Michigan — operated black-liquor recovery boilers with refractory linings on the char bed floor, smelt spouts, and lower furnace walls. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-bonded refractory brick and castable in this severe corrosive service.

Powerhouse fossil-fuel boilers

Coal-fired, oil-fired, and heavy-oil utility and industrial boilers used refractory brick and castable on burner throats, boiler-nose arches, ash-hopper throats, and pulverizer housings. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-bonded refractory in these applications during new construction and outage rebuild across utility and cogeneration steam plants.

Industrial process kilns and rotary calciners

Lime kilns, pulp mill lime-recovery kilns, mineral calcining kilns, catalyst calciners, and rotary dryers used refractory-lined interiors. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-bonded refractory in these applications across chemical, mineral, and paper industries.

Foundry cupolas and ladles

Iron and steel foundries operated cupola furnaces (for melting scrap iron) and ladle-metallurgy vessels that required refractory reline every campaign. BAC refractory masons allegedly installed asbestos-refractory brick, castable, and ramming mix in cupola stack, tuyere-zone, and ladle service.

Tunnel kilns — brick, ceramics, refractory manufacturing

Tunnel kilns are long, continuously-fired kilns used to fire structural brick, ceramic ware, and refractory brick itself. The kiln cars that carry the ware through the tunnel are themselves lined with refractory brick and castable. Christy Refractories in St. Louis, Missouri — one of the country’s larger independent refractory manufacturers — operated tunnel kilns whose cars allegedly used asbestos-refractory car insulation and castable during the asbestos era, worked on by BAC refractory masons on the plant’s maintenance and rebuild schedule.

Ceramics and brick manufacturing plants

Structural clay brick plants, ceramic tile plants, sanitaryware plants, and refractory brick plants (Harbison-Walker, A.P. Green, Kaiser Refractories, General Refractories, National Refractories, North American Refractories) — themselves operated tunnel kilns, periodic kilns, and dryers with refractory linings that BAC refractory masons allegedly rebuilt on maintenance schedules.

State-by-state jobsite documentation

For specific facility-level documentation across the states in the Industrial Exposure Archive network:

State-specific jobsite catalogs are also linked directly from within each Local page on this site. For any other state, see the Industrial Exposure Archive cross-state hub.

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