Rohan Pearce
Investors certainly know what to make of the findings of the NSW commission of inquiry into James Hardie Industries, released on September 21. After the report was released, the killer corporation's share price rose 4.8% — its first rise for two months.
The commission, headed by David Jackson QC, was established to investigate James Hardie's underfunding of the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (MRCF), set up in 2001 to take over meeting compensation claims from the former employees and other victims of James Hardie's deadly asbestos-based products. Later that year the corporation relocated its head office to the Netherlands.
The commission's findings were straightforward: Yes, the MRCF was under funded; yes, James Hardie's executives, including CEO Peter Macdonald, are a pack of lying bastards; but there is no legal obligation for the corporation to make up the MRCF's shortfall, only a "moral obligation". Jackson also found that the MRCF's funds would be likely to be used up by the first half of 2007.
"Mr Jackson has clearly found that the purpose of the corporate restructuring undertaken by James Hardie in 2001 was to remove the company from the 'stigma' of its asbestos liabilities", ACTU secretary Greg Combet told journalists.
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union Victorian secretary Martin Kingham called on James Hardie to "sit down and negotiate with unions and victim support groups for full and proper compensation... The longer James Hardie avoids its responsibilities the more it hurts them. It is in their interest, given that they are facing the wrath of the global union movement and consumers, to pay up and do it quick smart."
A statement released by James Hardie on the day of Jackson's report claimed the corporation is willing "to work with all relevant stakeholders in developing a satisfactory compensation solution for asbestos claimants against its former subsidiaries which it could put to shareholders for approval".
However, James Hardie failed to meet a deadline set by the NSW Labor government to begin negotiations with a representative of the ACTU on compensation arrangements. The threat of Australia-wide, and international, union bans on James Hardie products is still hanging over the company's head.
Macdonald and other Hardie executives are now being targeted in an investigation launched by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Jackson found that Macdonald may have been in breach of the corporations' law because of his comments in a 2001 press release heralding the creation of the MRCF.
There is no doubt that as Australian corporations go James Hardie sticks out as a particularly heinous bunch of crooks. However, their disregard for the lives of workers and their money-grubbing accounting antics are far from being a case of a single rotten apple bringing corporate Australia into disrepute.
Every year, more than 2000 Australian workers are killed on the job. Every 2.4 minutes, a worker suffers an injury severe enough for them to lodge a workers' compo claim.
If James Hardie is made to continue to top-up the compensation available to its victims, this will be a victory for the union-led campaign against the company (and it isn't guaranteed that this will happen). Similarly, if Macdonald gets locked up for trying to rip off his corporation's victims it will be a small blow for justice (indeed, Macdonald's $US3.2 million annual pay packet would be a good place to start to ensure there are adequate funds to compensate asbestos victims).
Beyond this, however, the "right" of corporations to profit by cutting corners and putting workers' lives at risk needs to be challenged. A good start would be by introducing industrial manslaughter laws that will make it clear that corporate ratbags like James Hardie's executives will be held to account for their murderous profiteering. It can't be forgotten that not only did the corporation know that funds set aside to compensate its victims were inadequate, but that it continued to profit from asbestos for decades after it knew the dangers its products held for workers and consumers.
From Green Left Weekly, September 29, 2004.
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