Peter Boyle
Bernie Banton, 57-year-old acting president of the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia (ADFA), worked for Bradford Insulation, a subsidiary of James Hardie in Camelia between 1968 and 1974. He was diagnosed with asbestosis in 1999 and today he walks about rigged up to an oxygen bottle. Before he got his compensation, Banton and his wife lived on $560 a fortnight from the NSW Dust Diseases Board.
Hearing Banton's story makes me worried because in 1976-1977 I too worked on a James Hardie production line for asbestos sheeting. I therefore approached the interview with some trepidation.
In the modest ADFA office on the ground floor of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's office in Granville, in Sydney's west, Bernie and a team of industrious volunteers — all from the families of asbestos victims — work hard to hold a notorious but powerful corporate criminal to account.
The public exposure of James Hardie's attempts to free most of its assets from the claims of asbestos victims — by relocating its headquarters to the Netherlands — means that the ADFA volunteers are very busy today. They scent victory as they await the recommendation of the NSW special commission into James Hardie's corporate getaway bid.
Banton told me that one of his brothers, Ted, who had been a shift foreman at James Hardie and had got him a job there, had died three years ago from mesothelioma, a cancer that can only be contracted by exposure to asbestos.
Another brother who worked at the plant is also suffering asbestosis. "I have two younger brothers who also worked there but they haven't yet registered any asbestos-related disease", Banton told me. "But it can take upwards of 30-40 years to become evident in your body."
But it isn't only the workers at James Hardie whose health is at risk. Enormous amounts of fibro sheeting containing asbestos were used in two out of three homes right until the late 1980s. "This is the frightening thing for people today who work in renovation in their homes, where the asbestos has laid dormant for so long. And people decided to renovate their homes, they start pulling off sheeting, breaking it, sawing it, drilling it and again the asbestos fibres become airborne.
"And just one fibre can kill. It's a silent assassin."
Are there different types of asbestos and are some types more dangerous than others?
They are all killers. It used to be said, it is only the blue that was dangerous. Well, the blue killed you quicker. But asbestos kills whether it's white, brown or blue. It was a big fallacy that only the blue affected people. Yes, blue asbestos wiped out the Wittenoon miners and their families, but all the other ones are killing hundreds of people every year. The latest figures, released yesterday [August 2], are that a minimum of 40,000 more people will be affected by asbestos disease in Australia and at least 13,000 of those people will die of mesothelioma. It's frightening.
Of the 137 people who worked with me for James Hardie when I left in 1974, there have been only seven who we have been able to contact. So how many of the rest are dead? Only in the last two weeks we have heard of another one who died, a fitter and turner. He died in absolute misery because of mesothelioma.
Most of these people have grandkids now so when they are struck down their whole family suffers. When my grandkids come to see me, they can't jump on me because they know "poppy's not well".
Why is poppy not well? Because he worked for James Hardie, a company that deliberately, deceitfully spirited away $1.9 billion that was to be left here in Australia for the families of victims of asbestos.
When was James Hardie aware that they were producing very dangerous products?
The first registered death recorded from asbestos exposure was in 1899. From 1916, Prudential Insurance in the US would not give you life insurance if you worked in an asbestos-related industry. James Hardie set up here in 1917. The company now says that it was aware that there were some difficulties in the 1930s but they would not admit that asbestos could kill you until they lost a case in 1988. Someone finally got some money out of them and then the dust tribunal was set up here in NSW to help asbestos victims get some recompense.
And today we are still fighting to make sure James Hardie makes available enough money to recompense its victims.
This company is totally morally bankrupt. I've sat through hours of this commission. And to watch these people sit there and deny justice to their victims is just astonishing. You wonder how these people can sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror the next morning.
When did James Hardie stop making products with asbestos?
They stopped producing asbestos products in 1983 but they had stockpiles of product which they distributed until 1987 because they had ramped up all the shifts to produce as much as they could before they stopped production.
What would you say of the work practices in James Hardie's plants?
The poor bloke at the head of the asbestos sheeting line I worked on emptied bags of asbestos into the hopper by hand, with no mask on. There was a dust alarm in the building, but it was switched off because otherwise it would go off all the time, and we were not issued with protective clothing, except for the leather gloves so the fibre wouldn't stick in your finger. We had khaki overalls but when we finished our shift, we were covered from head to toe in white dust. And there used to be an airhose provided so you can blow the dust off your clothes. Do you remember that?
At the end of the shift, we'd blow our noses to get out clumps of white dust. We probably took the dust home to our families. I hate to think about it but my eldest daughter was a new-born baby then.
And to think they knew the danger and did nothing about it. And even today they don't warn people that their manufactured product is dangerous.
So where are we today with NSW special commission into James Hardie?
We are seeing a lot of pressure being brought to bear on Hardies because of what has been revealed to the public at the commission hearings.
Way back in 2000, we told James Hardie that its compensation fund was a sham. There was no way the $293 million they had set aside would in anyway meets the compensation needs of future asbestos victims. Even then the company had figures that showed it was totally inadequate.
Further, only $30 million of the $293 million were liquid assets. The rest were contaminated Hardie sites! And they were working on a premise that that money would earn 11.7% each year. Where can you get 11.7%? Please tell me where so I can put some of the little compensation that I got from Hardies into a fund that earns that much.
I cannot imagine that the commission won't be absolutely scathing of Hardies and make thorough recommendations after what has been heard. The NSW government should implement those recommendations to the hilt.
There needs to be pressure on the federal government to create a treaty with the Netherlands so that any judgements made by James Hardie here can be enforced through the courts in the Netherlands where the company now has its headquarters.
Our lawyers advise us that because Hardies have holdings in the United States, we can go the American courts where liability is assessed on a much grander scale. That's our last resort.
Isn't there another nasty agenda at work here, driven by insurance companies to limit liability for these sort of cases?
Yes, this is the Allianz insurance company tort law reform agenda. They want to cap everybody's payment like the [NSW] government did with workers compensation in NSW. Bob Carr has said this won't be happening with cases going to the dust tribunal.
New Zealand is thrown up as an example of the way to go, by Allianz. But what "tort reform" has done over there has decimated compensation for the families of the thousands of people who are dying. Some of these people are getting compensation of as little as $25 a week. It's disgraceful. How is that "reform"? I say it's highway robbery.
Insurance companies like Allianz have taken huge amounts of premiums for many years but then when it is time to start paying out, they don't want to do that. They want to cap it, take the lawyers out. Of course they do.
What is the significance of the campaign to boycott James Hardie products?
Hardies still has viable business in the building industry in Australia. To our delight, yesterday Leichhardt Council applied the boycott, Sydney City Council has also come out and Parramatta, Bankstown and Canada Bay are to follow soon.
These councils are saying that any further contracts they have with a building company will not accept any James Hardie products being used.
We see this as a great way of putting more pressure on Hardies and unless there is pressure on this company they will think they can still get away with it.
Just a couple of weekends ago Hardies CEO Peter MacDonald had the gall to write to the Daily Telegraph claimed that unions calling for a black ban on Hardie's products would be "hurting working-class people". How hypocritical to come up with a line like that when his company has killed thousands of people and now won't even pay due compensation. It made my blood boil.
[ADFA can be contacted by phoning (toll-free) 1800 006 196 or visiting . Donations and membership are appreciated.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 11, 2004.
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