Building materials maker James Hardie Industries could reach a basic agreement with unions within two weeks about a potential $1.5 billion claim from asbestos victims, says the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet told Channel Nine's Sunday Business program that James Hardie recognised it would need to contribute financially to compensate victims in coming years.
"If the company is genuine, I would hope we can get to a skeleton plan, a heads of agreement for example, in a couple of weeks," Mr Combet said.
"Putting the flesh on those bones is going to take longer."
Last month, a NSW Government inquiry found James Hardie misled victims by claiming that a $293 million fund for asbestos claims was adequate.
The company offered to fund all asbestos claims if the State Government changes laws to reduce legal costs.
The estimate of legal fees within the $1.5 billion claim is $432 million.
Unions and asbestos victim support groups met with James Hardie last Friday and Mr Combet said the company recognised it would have to make a further financial contribution.
"We've got to marry two objectives here.
"One of them is the access for compensation of any victims of Hardie products and the other is to sustain the profitability of the company in the long term," Mr Combet said.
"I don't want to leave anyone without compensation if they have a provable claim . . . The company is looking for a finite outcome."
Mr Combet said he viewed Peter McDonald's board position as chief executive of the company and Peter Shafron's position as chief financial officer as untenable, but he was not seeking boardroom scalps.
He said his objective in the negotiations was "to get funding for compensation for Hardie victims".
Dennis Cooper, the managing director of the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation, which funds asbestos claims, yesterday told ABC's Inside Business program that the fund was paying out about $5 million a month for its net litigation claims.
"At this particular rate we could function for another two to three years . . . as per the evidence of the commission," Mr Cooper said.
"A lot depends obviously on the rate of claims, but clearly we are hoping for an injection of monies to carry on, indefinitely perhaps."
Mr Cooper said he would like to see James Hardie contribute about $80 million a year to the fund.
He said the fund's original shortfall was due to incorrect data being used by "various parties" involved in compiling the data.
"The information that we received was shown to be misleading and deceptive," Mr Cooper said.
