Unlike a single-trade specialty contractor, UA pipefitters and steamfitters were typically employed in one of three ways during the asbestos era, and a complete work history usually involves more than one:

  1. Mechanical/piping contractors — construction-phase employers hired to install the pressurized piping systems (steam, process, hydronic) on new-build power plants, refineries, and industrial facilities.
  2. Boiler and pressure-vessel erectors — companies that fabricated or erected the boilers, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels the trade’s piping tied into, and dispatched their own pipe crews for the tie-in and startup work.
  3. Direct plant maintenance crews — many pipefitters were employed directly by the facility owner (the power utility, the refinery, the steel mill) as in-house maintenance staff, especially for the recurring outage and turnaround work where the highest asbestos exposure occurred.
Why this matters for a pipefitter with mesothelioma: If you worked through a UA Local in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, your employer — whether a mechanical contractor, a boiler erector, or the plant itself — is one of the documented links between your work and the asbestos gaskets, valve packing, and pipe covering you handled. Union dispatch records, W-2s, and Social Security earnings statements help establish which employer sent you to which job, in which years — which in turn helps identify which products were on-site per the litigation record for that facility.

One documented example: boiler erection work

Nooter Corporation (St. Louis, Missouri) is a documented example of the erector category — a long-standing pressure-vessel and boiler-erection contractor whose projects employed multiple trades, including UA pipefitters, on the piping tie-ins for the vessels it built and installed at Missouri industrial facilities. References to Nooter appear in publicly filed Missouri asbestos litigation involving several trades that worked its jobsites, not pipefitters exclusively.

Beyond this one well-documented example, this site does not maintain an independent roster of mechanical/piping contractor companies — the accurate employer history for a specific pipefitter is best established through that individual’s own union dispatch records, not a generic company list, because piping contractors operated regionally and changed names, merged, or dissolved frequently across the asbestos era.

Why your Local’s dispatch records matter more than a company list

For a UA 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 sent 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 products documented at that jobsite.

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, hospitals, factories — 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, and dispatched you through which Local?
  • What years did you work there?
  • Which products — gaskets, valve packing, pipe covering — did you handle on that job?
  • Were other trades (insulators, boilermakers, electricians) also working on-site?

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.