Some Zilog Inc. employees who settled claims for chemical exposure at the Nampa computer chip plant say the company has fired them or plans to.
A federal magistrate this year ordered sanctions against Zilog and its lawyers for hiding key documents.The case was filed in 1994 after 30 employees in Fabrication Module Unit II claimed they were having health problems including blackouts, miscarriages and chest pain. Computer wafers are coated there.
It is designed with floor drains that carry acids out of work areas. A drain pipe was located under a ventilated floor where the plaintiffs worked.
Zilog was cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1992 and 1993 over monitoring acids and toxic gases, and failure to maintain a form for reporting occupational illnesses.
Plaintiffs were accused of secretly removing documents from the Nampa site, and defendants were accused of hiding documents. The issue came to a head June 6, 1996, when federal Chief Magistrate Judge Mikel Williams ordered sanctions against Zilog and its attorneys.
Williams concluded Zilog withheld and altered documents. One of the important ones, described in his opinion as a "smoking gun," "berates senior management of Zilog for its indifference to the continuing exposure of its employees to chemicals."
The document was one page of a three-page resignation letter from James Cochran, Zilog's former safety manager.
The portion that criticized Zilog management had been removed.