Industry-backed asbestos bill criticized by victims, labor
The national AFL-CIO, the
Change to Win labor federation and
the National Education Association
have joined a growing chorus of crit-
nancial hazards, stalled the measure in
debate the second week of February.
A vote to end the talk-a-thon was was
held Feb. 13.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
Senate foes of both parties, upset by a
controversial asbestos trust fund’s bill
treatment of victims and leery of its fi-
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ics. The bill, S. 852, was written by
large asbestos manufacturers, their in-
surers, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
and would create a $140 billion trust
fund. Over the next 30-50 years it
would pay medical costs of victims of
asbestos, a substance used in every-
thing from ships to cars to buildings
that got into workers’ lungs and
caused mesothelioma, asbestosis and
other fatal illnesses.
Sick workers and widows and fam-
ilies of those killed by asbestos expo-
sure have filed thousands of lawsuits
against companies, many of which
continued using the material after it
was determined to cause cancer.
Some senators estimate asbestos
has 200,000 victims, but Public Citi-
zen reported 681,756 asbestos claims
against just eight big firms alone:
Union Carbide/Dow Chemical, Gen-
eral Electric, GM, Ford, Georgia Pa-
cific, Honeywell/Bendix, Pfizer and
Westinghouse.
Public Citizen said the bill would
save 10 big manufacturers who have
been sued an estimated $20 billion
over 50 years, in today’s dollars. If the
trust fund is created, the firms —
Armstrong, Babcock & Wilcox, Com-
bustion Engineering, GAF, Honey-
well, Kaiser Aluminum, Owens Corn-
ing Fibreboard, Pittsburgh Corning,
USG and W.R. Grace — would pay
from zero to $2.3 billion. Their pay-
ments to the fund would total $5.57
billion. Without the fund, claims by
injured workers against those firms to-
tal $25.91 billion.
The trust fund created by S. 852
would be the victims’ only recourse,
and it would bar present victims from
court; it would also bar future victims,
including survivors of the World
Trade Center attack and Hurricane
Katrina. Both of those events released
asbestos from buildings.
The “interests of the defendants”
— asbestos makers and their insurers
— “have become paramount and the
needs of victims have become second-
ary,” said AFL-CIO President John
Sweeney.
Asbestos victims groups called the
measure totally unacceptable and said
that if it becomes law, they and their
families would be out on the hustings
reminding the country of what they
call a miscarriage of justice.
“This was drafted by and for a nar-
row band of very large defendant
companies who are seeking to dump
their asbestos liability onto others,”
NEA Government Relations Director
Diane Shust wrote to senators.
“Schools, colleges, and universities
are settings where asbestos exposure
has occurred and continues to pose
significant health risks. With this leg-
islation, asbestos victims will lose
their rights and will be forced into a
federal system that won’t help them
cope with the devastating health and
financial consequences as a result of
asbestos poisoning,”
Anna Burger, chair of the Change
to Win labor federation, said the big
asbestos manufacturers kept retreating
from a commitment to treat the vic-
tims fairly “and now we find that a
last-minute amendment may” let in-
surers evade all $40 billion they
would owe to trust fund.
“This asbestos bailout bill poses
more questions than answers and adds
insult and injury to asbestos victims
and their families who have been in-
sulted and injured so personally,” said
Susan Vento, of the Committee to Pro-
tect Mesothelioma Victims. That dis-
ease killed her husband, the late Rep.
Bruce Vento (D-Minn.).
“Each year, hundreds of thou-
sands” of asbestos victims suffer from
lung conditions which make breathing
so difficult that they cannot function at
all,” and 10,000 die, Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy (D-Mass.) said on the Sen-
ate floor. “These are the real victims.
They deserve to be the first and fore-
most focus of our concern.”
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PAGE 8
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 17, 2006