This stuff can take years to manifest. Better do your due diligence now. I'd imagine you should get legal counsel before whistle-blowing.
Litigation would be a mess, it's a very large company. I'm sure they have some high priced firm on retainer. Calling OSHA or the EPA or both would probably result in some pretty swift action.
That actually would be better for the employees. Better still, just get the proper equipment to burn it at 1000 C.
A case for what? You have an actionable cause once you can show harm. A class has an actionable case when it can show harm. If your goal is to try to get the company to stop the practice, you should probably contact their HR/compliance department first (best practice would offer a method to do so anonymously,) followed by notifying the appropriate regulator. If your goal is to sue for damages, you should probably wait until you develop cancer before calling a lawyer.
And I'm not even saying that's the route I'll go. Actually, there is a really good chance that this thread is as far as it goes as far as litigation is concerned. At the very least I will be contacting either the EPA or OSHA.
Having not seen the facility, equipment, or controls(or lack thereof), it's hard to know what exposure levels may be, but if you've a concern, I'd make the call. Sometimes people get worked up over something that's not a concern. I've seen and had to deal with cases like that dozens of times. While that's true, I would not sit idly by if I was in your situation and concerned. Be prepared to make additional calls if you get no resolution. If your employer has a good relationship with the agency, they may only make a phone call. If it's OSHA (and TOSHA in particular), any problems could be explained away. This is less likely to happen with environmental regulators, but still could.
