http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_2991871

Former workers call for lawsuit
Fremont-based firm accused of exposing employees to arsenic
By Douglas Fischer, STAFF WRITER

A group of immigrant workers called on the Alameda County District Attorney Wednesday to hold their former employer, Fremont-based semiconductor manufacturer AXT Inc., responsible for knowingly exposing them to toxic chemicals.

The workers, most of them Chinese immigrants who speak little or no English, say they were not informed about workplace hazards and face a growing fear about their health. They say AXT exposed 500 workers to unhealthy levels of gallium arsenic, a carcinogen and reproductive toxin, and want the company to pay for long-term health monitoring.

Tuesday more than two dozen former workers delivered a box of nearly 1,100 postcards calling for the district attorney to take action.

"AXT has blood on its hands," said Mimi Ho (1:49 MP3, 1.66MB), program director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, advocating on behalf of the workers. Cal/OSHA issued 42 citations against AXT for, among other items, willfully exposing workers to arsenic. The company has since laid off its workers in Fremont and shipped production to China.

Douglas Fischer interviews Mimi Ho (0:44 MOV, 1.73MB)
Officers from AXT were unavailable for comment Wednesday afternoon. In previous statements, AXT has said it remains "deeply concerned" about the health of current and former workers and that it keeps a "strong commitment to maintaining a safe and healthful work environment" for all employees.

But the employees tell a different story. Until 2003, workers at AXT's Fremont semiconductor substrate plant spent their days polishing and trimming arsenic-based wafers that would end up in voice and high-speed wireless devices, such as cell phones.

Employees described the work as gritty, with vaporized arsenic constantly in the air and arsenic-laced dust coating surfaces. Yet a survey of 209 former employees done this spring by APEN and other community health groups found 7 percent were told by management that the chemicals they were handling could cause cancer or birth defects.

Almost 90 percent said they received no training in how to minimize

exposure.
The company, activists say, needs to pay for long-term health screenings and monitoring for gallium arsenic exposures that should never have occurred.

Labor leader Sharon Cornu talking during protest (0:28 MP3, 443KB)
The district attorney's office was unavailable for immediate comment Wednesday afternoon.

The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health shut AXT's plant for four days and issued 42 citations following a 2000 inspection. Subsequent visits found violations every time an inspector stepped inside, according to the agency. Three violations were deemed "willful, serious and repeat" - the agency's most serious.

AXT responded by moving operations overseas. The Fremont plant closed last year; many of the workers left unemployed say they have not yet found a job. The worker's complaints is not the only woe facing AXT. The company lost $7 million in the first six months of 2005 after losing $13 million in 2004 and $26 million in 2003, according to earnings statements on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Earlier this year a group of shareholders filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court alleging the company misstated its financial results for the past five years. The company denies the charge.