HFIAW Local 90 — Memphis, Tennessee

International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 90 has jurisdiction over the Memphis Tennessee region, covering West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and East Arkansas industrial and TVA hydroelectric facilities. Local 90 dispatches member insulators to a broad geographic area including the western Tennessee Valley Authority hydroelectric and fossil-fuel facilities, the major Memphis industrial workforce, the Eastman Chemical Memphis operations, the Memphis Defense Depot, the Mississippi-Arkansas-Tennessee Mid-South industrial base, and numerous power-plant, refinery, paper-mill, and chemical-plant projects across the Mid-South.

Through the asbestos era (1920s–1970s) and into the present, Local 90 members were dispatched to industrial worksites where they installed, removed, repaired, and rebuilt asbestos pipe coverings, asbestos block insulation, asbestos refractory, asbestos cements, asbestos cloth lagging, and asbestos-cement (transite) panels on heated industrial equipment.

Documented asbestos materials handled by Local 90 insulators

Memphis-area insulators across the asbestos era handled the principal U.S. asbestos pipe and block insulation products of the era:

  • T12 — GAF / Ruberoid asbestos pipe and block insulation
  • Thermobestos — Eagle-Picher / Philip Carey / Forty-Eight Insulations asbestos pipe and block insulation
  • Unibestos — Pittsburgh Corning asbestos pipe and block insulation
  • Kaylo — Owens-Corning / Owens-Illinois calcium-silicate-with-asbestos pipe and block insulation
  • PABCO — Pabco Industries (Fibreboard) asbestos pipe and block insulation
  • One-Cote — Eagle-Picher one-coat asbestos finishing cement
  • Eagle-Picher 66 — Eagle-Picher asbestos cement
  • Careytemp — Philip Carey Manufacturing Company asbestos pipe insulation

For per-product defendant documentation, see the canonical asbestos-products.com catalog.

Major worksites Local 90 dispatched insulators to

TVA hydroelectric and steam plants

  • TVA Pickwick Landing Dam (Hardin County TN, Counce TN area) — hydroelectric dam
  • TVA Kentucky Dam (Marshall County KY) — hydroelectric dam
  • TVA Shawnee Fossil Plant (McCracken County KY) — coal-fired steam plant
  • TVA Johnsonville Fossil Plant (Humphreys County TN) — coal-fired steam plant
  • TVA Cumberland Fossil Plant (Stewart County TN) — coal-fired steam plant
  • TVA Gallatin Fossil Plant (Sumner County TN) — coal-fired steam plant
  • TVA Paradise Fossil Plant (Muhlenberg County KY) — coal-fired steam plant

Memphis industrial base

  • Memphis Defense Depot / Defense Distribution Center Memphis
  • Eastman Chemical Memphis operations
  • DuPont Memphis operations
  • Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) — municipal utility steam plants and distribution
  • Memphis hospitals (Methodist, Baptist, Regional Medical Center) with major campus steam plants
  • University of Memphis, University of Tennessee Memphis with campus steam plants

Mississippi industrial corridor (within Local 90 jurisdiction)

  • Mississippi Power coal-fired plants
  • DuPont Yazoo City fertilizer plant

Arkansas industrial corridor (within Local 90 jurisdiction)

  • Entergy Arkansas nuclear and coal-fired plants (when Local 90 dispatched east into the Memphis catchment)
  • Memphis-area paper mills and pulp operations

If You Were a Local 90 Insulator

If you were a member of HFIAW Local 90 Memphis Tennessee during the asbestos era — and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer, or another asbestos-related illness — you may have legal rights.

Local 90 dispatch records, apprenticeship and journeyman dates, and health-fund records can provide critical documentation of your career-long asbestos exposure history across the Memphis and Mid-South industrial base.

Free, confidential case evaluation: Speak with O’Brien Law Firm — (314) 936-2956

All consultations are free. No fee unless a financial recovery is made on your behalf.