| Sydney, Australia - Imagine working your entire | | | | Compensation Foundation" which was aimed at |
| life as a blue collar employee of a large industrial | | | | providing victims with compensation. |
| plant spending countless hours to make products | | | | However the committee has been heavily |
| that people depend upon and just hoping to one | | | | criticized by both internal and external observers |
| day retire and live the rest of your life in comfort | | | | as being wholly inadequate in terms compensation |
| and peace. | | | | and distribution of funds. A plan to overhaul the |
| For thousands of workers who were employed | | | | foundation has been "in the works" over the past |
| by James Hardie Industries during the middle of | | | | 3 years but nothing has been made in the way of |
| the century, this was there dream. They didn't | | | | progress. |
| know at the time that the products they | | | | What's Next |
| manufactured contained asbestos and was | | | | James Hardie chairman Meredith Hellicar has |
| making them sick. | | | | stated that the delays in overhauling the |
| Years later many of them have died painful and | | | | foundation are attributed to making sure it has |
| preventable deaths caused by asbestos exposure | | | | long term viability to pay out current and future |
| and their former employer is doing everything it | | | | claims. |
| can to prevent paying the price for their deaths. | | | | However employees and members of medical |
| This week at the annual board meeting, they are | | | | groups have feel that unless a representative for |
| trying to approve a 130% raise for their | | | | victims is appointed to the board, the funding |
| members as a 3 year battle to create a victim's | | | | problems will continue. |
| compensation fund continues. | | | | There are signs of reform for the much maligned |
| Limiting Liability | | | | company, now headquartered in the Netherlands. |
| During the late 1990s and early 2000s, James | | | | Recent investigations by Australian authorities and |
| Hardie Industries aggressively restructured the | | | | internal restructuring have focused company |
| company to minimize their exposure to financial | | | | energy to resolving their long-standing dispute with |
| liability for asbestos claims. In 2001 it set up a | | | | asbestos litigants but this week's news is certainly |
| front organization the "Medical Research and | | | | a step in the wrong direction. |