LIUNA Local Union 350

LIUNA Local Union 350
Houston, Texas — construction and pipeline laborers
Chartered	June 26, 1985 (as Pipeline Workers Local 350)
Parent International	Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA)
Headquarters	8441 Gulf Freeway, Houston, TX 77017
Second hall	2255 Hwy 418, Kountze, TX 77625
Construction jurisdiction	Eastern Texas, including Houston and Galveston (added December 2016)
Pipeline jurisdiction	Texas, Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico
Trades represented	Construction laborers, pipeline laborers, demolition, underground utility, industrial maintenance support
Industries served	Pipeline construction, petrochemical and refinery maintenance, demolition, underground utility, directional drilling

Executive Summary

LIUNA Local Union 350 is a local of the Laborers' International Union of North America representing construction laborers and pipeline laborers in Houston and eastern Texas. The local was chartered on June 26, 1985 as Pipeline Workers Local 350, and for its first three decades its members worked almost entirely on pipeline construction and maintenance across Texas, Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico. In December 2016 the local added construction jurisdiction covering eastern Texas, including the Houston and Galveston industrial corridor. That dual identity — a mobile pipeline workforce and a Houston-area construction workforce inside one local — is what makes Local 350 unusual among the Gulf Coast building-trades locals, and it is also what makes its members' asbestos exposure histories unusually complicated to reconstruct.

Laborers were not the trade that installed asbestos. They were the trade that demolished it, hauled it, swept it up, and stood next to everyone else who cut it. On a pre-1980s jobsite the laborer was rarely the named craft on any asbestos product, and was frequently the worker breathing the highest fiber concentration in the room — during teardown, during debris removal, and during the confined-space cleanup that followed every other trade's work. That pattern is written into the regulations themselves: OSHA's construction asbestos standard classifies removal of thermal system insulation and surfacing material as Class I work — the most hazardous category the standard defines — and separately prohibits dry sweeping of asbestos debris in favor of wet methods. Both rules describe routine laborer tasks, and both postdate the decades in which laborers performed them without respiratory protection or warning. This exposure pathway is documented in detail on the Laborers occupational profile.

Local 350 did not manufacture, sell, or specify asbestos-containing products. Liability for asbestos disease rests with the manufacturers who made and sold asbestos insulation, cement pipe, gaskets, and welding blankets while knowing the health risks — many of which have since entered bankruptcy and funded trusts that pay claims today. A Local 350 member or family pursuing compensation is not suing the union, the contractor, or the pipeline operator. This page documents the local's history, jurisdiction, and work, and explains the exposure pathways and compensation options relevant to its members.

At-a-Glance

LIUNA Local Union 350 at a glance:

• Chartered June 26, 1985 as Pipeline Workers Local 350, a pipeline-jurisdiction local from the outset
• Construction jurisdiction added December 2016, extending the local into eastern Texas building and industrial work
• Three-state pipeline jurisdiction — Texas, Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico — meaning a single member's exposure history can cross three states' legal systems
• Two union halls — Houston headquarters at 8441 Gulf Freeway and a second hall in Kountze, in the East Texas pipeline corridor
• Laborers are the "every-exposure" trade — exposed through demolition, material handling, cleanup, trenching, and bystander proximity rather than through any one product line, which is why OSHA's construction standard reaches their work through the activity performed rather than the craft named
• Asbestos-cement pipe (Transite and equivalents) was standard in underground water, sewer, and utility line work for decades, and cutting it is a direct laborer task
• Latency typically runs 20 to 40 years — and has been documented as long as 71 years — between first asbestos exposure and mesothelioma diagnosis, which places laborers who worked the 1970s and 1980s squarely in the diagnosis window now
• Roughly $37 billion in total assets was held across some 60 asbestos bankruptcy trusts as of 2011, which pay laborers and surviving family members without litigation — a 2011 snapshot of assets then held, not a measure of what remains available today

Key Facts

Measure	Finding (Source)
Charter date	June 26, 1985 — chartered as Pipeline Workers Local 350
Construction jurisdiction added	December 2016 — eastern Texas construction work added to the local's pipeline jurisdiction
Houston headquarters	8441 Gulf Freeway, Houston, TX 77017
Kountze hall	2255 Hwy 418, Kountze, TX 77625 — East Texas pipeline corridor
Pipeline jurisdiction	Texas, Oklahoma, southern New Mexico — including Permian Basin gathering and transmission corridors
Construction jurisdiction	Eastern Texas, including the Houston and Galveston industrial corridor
Highest-hazard work classification	Removal of thermal system insulation and surfacing material is Class I work — the most hazardous category OSHA's construction asbestos standard defines. The same standard prohibits dry sweeping of asbestos debris. Both describe routine laborer tasks
Governing OSHA standard	29 CFR 1926.1101 — the asbestos standard for construction, which covers demolition, renovation, and cleanup work; general industry work falls under 29 CFR 1910.1001
Current permissible exposure limit	0.1 fiber per cubic centimeter as an 8-hour time-weighted average — a limit that did not exist during the peak exposure decades
Mesothelioma latency	Typically 20 to 40 years from first exposure to diagnosis, and documented as long as 71 years
Trust fund assets	Approximately $37 billion in total assets across about 60 trusts, as of the most recent federal accounting in 2011 — a 2011 snapshot of assets then held, not a measure of what remains available today

What is LIUNA Local Union 350?

Local 350 is a chartered local of the Laborers' International Union of North America, the building-trades international that represents construction laborers across the United States and Canada. LIUNA members perform the general construction labor that every other trade depends on: excavation and trenching, demolition, material handling and rigging support, concrete work, site cleanup, environmental remediation, and — in the pipeline sector — the ground work behind every mile of installed line.

Local 350's own history describes a local founded specifically for pipeline work. Chartered on June 26, 1985 as Pipeline Workers Local 350, it organized crews working transmission and gathering lines across the Texas–Oklahoma–New Mexico corridor. Pipeline labor is a distinct working life: crews follow the right-of-way, live in temporary housing or man camps near the spread, and move on when the section is complete. The work is measured in miles rather than in buildings.

In December 2016 the local added construction jurisdiction for eastern Texas. That put Local 350 members into the same Houston Ship Channel and Galveston-area industrial corridor worked by Pipefitters Local Union 211, Carpenters Local 551, and Millwrights Local 2232 — but in a different role. Where those locals supply the craft that installs and maintains process equipment, Local 350 supplies the labor that tears out, hauls off, and cleans up around them.

The two jurisdictions produce two different exposure profiles inside one union, and members who worked both sides have work histories that span both.

The local today

Local 350 files a Form LM-2 annually with the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards under file number 516-717. The local publishes eight officers: Business Manager and Secretary-Treasurer Joshua Jones; President and Field Representative Bobby Ramos; Vice President Charles Booker; Recording Secretary Rita Jones; Sergeant in Arms David Vail; and Executive Board members Romualdo Garcia, Richard Harwood and Julio Salazar. The local is affiliated with the Southwest Laborers District Council.

The local has continued investing in training and facilities. In July 2023 it purchased 12.61 acres in Kountze, Texas for a hall and proving grounds; it ran its first solar panel installation class in March 2024 and its first 50-hour pipeline operator qualification course in February 2026.

That present-day activity is worth stating plainly for one reason: everything this page documents about asbestos concerns exposures that occurred decades ago, under materials practices and regulatory standards that no longer apply. Nothing here describes how the trade is practiced today or how this local trains its members now.

How does Local 350 fit within the LIUNA structure?

LIUNA operates on a three-tier structure, and a Local 350 member's records may sit at any of the three levels:

• LIUNA International (Washington, DC) — negotiates national agreements, including the National Pipeline Agreement with the Pipeline Contractors Association that governs much of the union pipeline work in the United States, and sets policy for training and safety standards across affiliated locals.
• District Council — provides regional coordination, dispatch support, and jurisdictional administration across the locals in a geographic area.
• Local 350 — member-facing services: dispatch, dues, training coordination, grievance handling, and the referral records that later become the most useful documents in an asbestos claim.

This structure matters for a practical reason. When a member or a surviving family tries to reconstruct a work history thirty years after the fact, the dispatch and referral records held at the local level are frequently the only surviving proof of which contractor sent the worker to which site in which year. That is discussed further under documentation below.

Territory and jurisdiction

Construction jurisdiction — eastern Texas. Local 350's construction jurisdiction covers eastern Texas including Houston and Galveston. In practice this is the Houston Ship Channel industrial belt — Baytown, Pasadena, Deer Park, Texas City, and the surrounding refinery and petrochemical complexes — plus commercial and institutional demolition and renovation work across the metro area.

Pipeline jurisdiction — three states. The local's pipeline jurisdiction extends across Texas, Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico, covering:

• Interstate transmission lines and intrastate gathering systems
• Permian Basin crude and gas gathering corridors in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico
• Compressor stations, pump stations, and metering facilities along the line
• Underground utility and directional-drilling work

Why the three-state footprint matters legally. A Local 350 member with a 25-year pipeline career may have worked jobsites in three states under a dozen contractors. That fragmentation is a documentation burden — but for compensation purposes it is usually an asset, not a liability. More sites and more contractors generally means exposure to a broader set of manufacturers' products, which in turn means eligibility across a broader set of bankruptcy trusts. The complication is procedural rather than substantive: each state sets its own statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death, and which state's limitations period applies depends on facts specific to the case.

Texas sets a two-year limitations period for personal injury under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code — but asbestos claims do not run on the ordinary clock. Section 16.003 is expressly subject to Section 16.0031, which fixes the accrual date for an asbestos-related injury by statute: the earlier of the exposed person's death, or the date the claimant serves a Chapter 90 report on a defendant. That displaces the general two-years-from-diagnosis assumption that most secondary sources repeat, and it is a Texas-specific mechanic. Texas separately allows two years for wrongful death, accruing on the date of death. Oklahoma and New Mexico set their own periods, and their accrual rules are judicial rather than statutory. Because the interaction of multiple states' limitations rules is fact-specific and can turn on where the claim is filed rather than where the exposure occurred, a member with a multi-state history should have the timing question evaluated early rather than assumed.

The two career paths: pipeline work and construction work

Pipeline work (1985–present)

Pipeline laborers perform the ground work along the right-of-way: clearing and grading, trenching and shoring, pipe handling and stringing, backfill and restoration, and the support work around welding and coating crews. Asbestos-containing materials historically encountered in this work include:

• Asbestos-cement pipe. Underground water, sewer, and utility lines were built from asbestos-cement pipe for decades. Cutting, snapping, or beveling asbestos-cement pipe in a trench releases fibers directly into a laborer's breathing zone, and EPA has documented the material's continued presence in buried infrastructure long after manufacture stopped.
• Pipe wrap, coating, and mastic. Older external pipe coatings and wrap systems used asbestos as a reinforcing fiber. Removing or repairing coating on an existing line is a disturbance activity.
• Welding blankets and fire blankets. Asbestos welding blankets were standard around hot work. The laborer positioning and retrieving the blanket handles it more than the welder does.
• Gaskets and packing at flanges, valves, compressor stations, and pump stations — where the removal method was typically scraping and wire-brushing.
• Man-camp and temporary housing materials. Crews on remote spreads lived in temporary structures whose insulation, siding, and floor tile were subject to the same pre-1980s materials practices as any other building of the period.

Construction work (2016 expansion–present)

The construction side of the local places members in eastern Texas building demolition, industrial maintenance and turnaround support, material handling, concrete work, scrap handling, and abatement-adjacent labor. In pre-1980s buildings and pre-1980s industrial units, the asbestos inventory is broad: pipe and boiler insulation, transite board and panel, vinyl asbestos floor tile and its mastic, roofing felt and cement, joint compound, gaskets, and friction products in scrapped equipment.

The distinguishing feature of laborer exposure on this side is not any single product. It is that the laborer's job description — disturb, collect, and remove — is the job description of maximum fiber release. The Laborers profile documents this pathway in detail, including the industrial-hygiene data on demolition and cleanup fiber concentrations.

How were Local 350 laborers exposed to asbestos?

Six pathways account for most laborer exposure, and a typical Local 350 career touches several of them:

1. Demolition and teardown. Mechanical demolition of insulated pipe, boiler lagging, transite panel, and fireproofing is the single highest fiber-release activity in construction. OSHA's construction asbestos standard specifically classifies demolition and removal of thermal system insulation and surfacing material as Class I work — the most hazardous category it defines — precisely because of the fiber concentrations involved.

2. Debris removal and cleanup. The laborer follows the demolition. Shoveling, sweeping, and bagging settled debris re-aerosolizes fibers that had already come out of the material once. Dry sweeping of asbestos-containing debris is prohibited under the modern standard for exactly this reason — a prohibition that postdates most of the exposure this page concerns.

3. Material handling and hauling. Loading, carrying, and stacking asbestos-containing pipe, board, and bagged material — often broken, often without any product identification the worker could have read.

4. Trenching, excavation, and asbestos-cement pipe. Underground utility work brought laborers into direct contact with asbestos-cement pipe during installation, repair, and removal. The confined geometry of a trench limits ventilation and holds airborne fiber near the worker.

5. Scrap and equipment handling. Scrapped pumps, valves, brakes, and clutches carry asbestos gaskets and friction material. Breaking down scrap for disposal disturbs it.

6. Bystander exposure. The pathway that reaches laborers who never touched an asbestos product. Insulators stripping pipe, pipefitters cutting into insulated lines, and boilermakers pulling refractory all release fibers into shared air. Laborers were positioned in that air by the nature of the work — staging material for the craft ahead of them and cleaning up behind. During refinery and petrochemical turnarounds, when multiple trades compress into a single unit for a matter of weeks, the laborer supporting the crews breathes the aggregate of everyone's work.

Take-home exposure. Fibers left the jobsite on coveralls, boots, and hair. Spouses who shook out and laundered work clothes, and children who greeted a father coming off a spread or out of a turnaround, sustained secondary exposure that has caused mesothelioma decades later. See Secondary Asbestos Exposure.

What asbestos-related diseases affect laborers?

The diseases caused by asbestos exposure share a long latency and a dose-response relationship, but mesothelioma in particular has no established safe exposure threshold.

• Mesothelioma — a cancer of the pleural lining of the lungs or the peritoneal lining of the abdomen, caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure. Latency from first exposure to diagnosis typically runs 20 to 40 years, and has been documented at up to 71 years.
• Asbestos-related lung cancer — the risk is substantially multiplied in workers who both had occupational asbestos exposure and smoked.
• Asbestosis — progressive scarring of lung tissue from accumulated fiber burden, generally requiring heavier and longer exposure than mesothelioma does.
• Pleural plaques and pleural thickening — markers of past exposure, often the first radiographic sign that an exposure history is medically real.

A laborer who started with Local 350 in 1985 on a pipeline spread, or who worked eastern Texas demolition through the 1990s, sits inside the latency window now. So does a laborer who worked non-union or under a different local before Local 350 was chartered — exposure history follows the worker, not the union card.

What compensation is available to Local 350 members?

There are generally three channels, and they are not mutually exclusive. None of them involve suing the union.

Asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Manufacturers of asbestos products entered bankruptcy and funded trusts to pay current and future claims. In the most recent federal accounting, the Government Accountability Office reported approximately $37 billion in total assets held across about 60 trusts as of 2011 — a 2011 snapshot of assets then held, not a measure of what remains available today. Trust claims are administrative rather than adversarial: they are filed on paper against the trust's own criteria, typically resolve in months rather than years, and require no court appearance. A laborer with a multi-site, multi-contractor history is frequently eligible across a wide set of trusts, because his exposure was to whatever product was on whatever site he was dispatched to. This is the practical payoff of the three-state work history discussed above. See Asbestos Trust Funds.

Civil claims against solvent manufacturers. Manufacturers that made asbestos products and remain solvent — or that carry liability insurance from the relevant period — can be sued. Texas applies a two-year limitations period, and for asbestos claims the accrual date is set by statute rather than by the ordinary discovery rule — see the limitations discussion above. For a member with Oklahoma or New Mexico exposure, which state's rules govern is a case-specific question worth resolving early.

VA benefits for veterans. Many building-trades members served in the Navy, Merchant Marine, or Army before entering the trade, and shipboard and shipyard service carried heavy asbestos exposure. Mesothelioma is not a PACT Act presumptive condition. A service-connected claim is built under the M21-1 nexus framework: documented in-service asbestos exposure — established through ship manifests, military occupational specialty, or duty-station records — plus a medical nexus opinion from a physician connecting the exposure to the diagnosis. Those same service records frequently do double duty, supporting both the VA claim and a trust claim.

How can Local 350 members document their exposure?

Reconstructing a laborer's work history is harder than reconstructing a specialty craft's, because the laborer moved more and was named on fewer documents. The records that carry the most weight:

• Union dispatch and referral records. The local's own records of which contractor a member was referred to, and when, are often the single most valuable document. They establish employer, site, and date range in one place.
• Social Security earnings statements. A complete SSA earnings history lists every employer that paid into the system on the worker's behalf, in order, by year. For a laborer with a dozen pipeline contractors across three states, this is frequently the backbone of the work history.
• Pension and benefit fund records. Hours reported to a district council or national pension fund can corroborate employers and periods.
• Co-worker testimony. A laborer who worked a spread or a turnaround alongside others can often establish site conditions and product presence through the recollection of crew members who were there.
• Site and product identification. Once employers and dates are established, the next step is identifying which manufacturers' products were in use at those sites in those years — the step that determines which trusts a claim can reach.

Families should preserve these records even when a diagnosis is only suspected. They are far harder to obtain later.

A note on Local 350 and Danziger & De Llano. Senior Advocate Larry Gates at Danziger & De Llano grew up in this jurisdiction — born and raised near the refineries in Pasadena, Texas. His father worked at Shell, where he trained as an instrument technician and chemical operator, and was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 1999; he died within months. Larry has spent his career helping Gulf Coast laborers, pipefitters, refinery workers, and their families work through the trust and litigation systems that exist precisely because of work histories like his father's. His advocacy work with Gulf Coast building-trades families is described at dandell.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is LIUNA Local 350 responsible for its members' asbestos exposure?

No. The union did not manufacture, sell, or specify asbestos-containing products, and it did not control jobsite conditions on contractor-run sites. Liability rests with the manufacturers who produced and sold asbestos insulation, asbestos-cement pipe, gaskets, and welding blankets while aware of the health risk. Many of those manufacturers went through bankruptcy and funded trusts specifically to pay these claims. A Local 350 member filing a claim is not suing the union.

I worked pipeline in three states. Does that hurt my claim?

Generally the opposite. More sites and more contractors usually means exposure to a wider range of manufacturers' products, which typically qualifies a worker for a wider range of bankruptcy trust claims. What a multi-state history does create is a procedural question — each state sets its own statute of limitations, and which one applies depends on case-specific facts. That is a reason to have the timing evaluated early, not a reason to expect a weaker case.

I was a laborer, not an insulator. I never installed asbestos. Do I still have a claim?

Yes, and this is the most common misconception among laborers specifically. Bystander exposure and cleanup exposure are well-documented pathways. A laborer who swept up after an insulator, hauled off demolished pipe covering, or worked a turnaround unit alongside crews cutting into insulated lines inhaled the same fibers. You do not have to have been the trade named on the product.

I worked before Local 350 was chartered in 1985. Does that matter?

Not to the claim. Asbestos exposure follows the worker, not the union card, and pre-1985 exposure is if anything more significant because materials practices before the 1980s were far worse. Work performed under a different local, under a different international, or non-union all counts. What matters is documenting where you worked and when.

My father was a Local 350 laborer and died years ago. Can the family still recover?

In some circumstances, yes. Texas applies a two-year wrongful-death limitations period running from the date of death, and bankruptcy trust claims often remain available on a different timeline than the civil tort statute. The starting point is a medical record identifying mesothelioma or another asbestos-related disease in connection with the death, together with whatever work-history documentation the family still holds.

Are laborers still exposed to asbestos today?

At a small fraction of the historical level, but not at zero. New asbestos-containing construction materials have been effectively unavailable in the United States since the 1980s, and EPA's 2024 chrysotile rule phases out remaining permitted uses. The residual risk is legacy asbestos — the material already in place in pre-1980s buildings, buried asbestos-cement pipe, and older industrial units — which is disturbed during exactly the demolition, renovation, and excavation work laborers perform. That is why 29 CFR 1926.1101 exists and why its Class I work rules, wet methods, and prohibition on dry sweeping matter on current jobs.

External Links

• Danziger & De Llano — Texas-based mesothelioma firm representing Gulf Coast laborers, pipeline workers, and refinery trades since 1996.
• Larry Gates, Senior Advocate — Danziger & De Llano; contact (855) 699-5441.
• Mesothelioma Lawyers Near Me — Texas — Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, and Texas Gulf Coast resources for construction and pipeline workers.
• LIUNA Local Union 350 — the local's own site; both the Houston headquarters and the Kountze hall are reached at 713-672-7755.
• Laborers' International Union of North America — the parent international union.
• Asbestos in Construction — OSHA's construction-sector asbestos page.

Related Pages

• Laborers — full occupational risk profile for the construction laborer trade
• Pipeline Workers — exposure profile for pipeline construction and maintenance crews
• Demolition Workers — exposure profile for demolition and teardown work
• Pipefitters Local Union 211 — Southeast Texas pipefitters, shared Houston Ship Channel worksites
• Carpenters Local Union 551 — Houston-area carpenters, shared worksites
• Millwright Local Union 2232 — Houston-area millwrights, shared worksites
• Oil Refinery Workers — exposure profile for refinery employees and contractors
• Chemical Plant Workers — exposure profile for petrochemical plant workers
• Asbestos Trust Funds — overview of the bankruptcy trust system
• Secondary Asbestos Exposure — take-home and family exposure pathways
• Occupational Exposure Index — full index of asbestos-exposure occupations

⚠ Statute of Limitations Warning: Filing deadlines vary by state from 1-6 years from diagnosis. Texas allows 2 years from diagnosis or discovery. Contact an attorney immediately to preserve your rights.