Unlike a single-product specialty trade, BAC bricklayers and refractory masons 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. Refractory contractors — the specialty firms that installed and relined refractory brick, castable, and gunning mix in furnaces, kilns, boilers, and coke batteries. These are the jobs where the asbestos-bearing refractory materials were cut, mixed, and applied.
  2. Furnace-relining and shutdown/turnaround contractors — firms dispatching refractory masons to steel mills, cement plants, glass plants, and refineries for the periodic relining shutdowns where the highest asbestos exposure occurred.
  3. Plant maintenance departments (direct-hire) — steel mills, cement kilns, and glass plants employed refractory masons directly as in-house maintenance staff for their high-temperature linings.
  4. Commercial/institutional masonry contractors — for the architectural bricklaying side of the trade.
Why this matters for a refractory mason with mesothelioma: If you worked through a BAC Local in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, your employer — a refractory contractor, a relining contractor, or the mill itself — put you cutting, mixing, and installing asbestos-bearing refractory brick, castable, and gunning mix in furnaces and kilns, and tearing out the old linings during shutdowns. 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: refractory in the furnace

For refractory masons, the documented asbestos exposure came from the refractory brick, castable, gunning mix, and mortar used to line high-temperature furnaces, kilns, boilers, and coke ovens — many of which contained asbestos through the asbestos era — plus the asbestos block lagging and ceramic-fiber insulation on the same equipment. Cutting and dressing refractory brick, mixing dry castable and gunning material, and tearing out old friable linings during relining shutdowns all released fiber. The manufacturers of those refractory and insulation products 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 refractory contractor companies — the accurate employer history for a specific refractory mason is best established through that individual’s own union dispatch records, not a generic company list, because refractory contractors operated regionally and nationally and changed names, merged, or dissolved frequently across the asbestos era.

Why your Local’s dispatch records matter

For a BAC 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 refractory 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 steel mills, cement/glass plants, refineries, power plants — 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 furnace or boiler did you line, and did the refractory or gunning mix contain asbestos?
  • Were other trades (insulators, boilermakers, pipefitters) working the same equipment?

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.