Workers who helped clean up Alaska's 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and became ill afterward are being contacted by Erin Brockovich, whose successful 1993 case against Pacific Gas and Electric was turned into a 2000 movie that brought an Oscar to Julia Roberts, who played the unstoppable legal investigator. Thousands of the oil spill workers, reputedly working in poorly ventilated sheds, complained of respiratory problems but were told they had colds or flu, Anchorage attorney Michael Schneide told the Associated Press on Monday. He said Exxon and Veco Inc., the company Exxon hired to clean up the 11 million-gallon spill, "knew or should have known that oil, along with diesel fumes, along with the chemicals, was being put into the air." Schneider, Brockovich and California attorney Ed Masry (Brockovich's boss, played by Oscar-nominated Albert Finney in the movie) are now investigating the workers' illnesses and are expecting to decide in a few months whether they will sue. Exxon Mobil spokesman Tom Cirigliano said the cleanup of oil from the Exxon Valdez was "a remarkably safe operation."