eternit great asbestos trial

Eternit and the Great Asbestos Trial

Editors: David Allen and Laurie Kazan-Allen

Alla gente di Casale Monferrato

Published by:

The International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, United Kingdom

The Building and Woodworkers International, Switzerland

The Asia Monitor Resource Centre, Hong Kong

The European Trade Union Institute, Belgium

The European Federation ofBuilding and Woodworkers, Belgium

The Association of Families and Asbestos Victims ofCasale Monferrato (AfeVA)

The Belgian Association for the Defense ofAsbestos Victims (ABEVA)

The Brazilian Association ofAsbestos Victims (ABREA)

The Federation ofBuilding, Construction and Wood-workers’ Unions, Denmark

The United Federation ofDanish Workers

The Danish Union of Plumbers and Allied Workers

The National Association for the Defense ofAsbestos Victims, France (ANDEVA)

Ban Asbestos France

The Henri Pezerat Association: Health, Work and the Environment, France

The (Swiss) Committee for the Support and Assistance ofAsbestos Victims (CAOVA)

The Ban Asbestos Network Japan (BANJAN)

The Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI)

Design: David Allen

Photographs from the documentary DUST – the Great Asbestos Trial

courtesy of co-directors Niccolò Bruna and Andrea Prandstraller

Cover Image: Mike Italiaander

Cartoon: Andy Vine

Translators: French: Nelly Furman and Amy Jacobs

German: Penny Milbouer

Italian: Vicky Franzinetti, Elena Pertusati and Laura Centemeri

Portuguese: Cooperativa de Profissionais em Tradução - Unitrad

Printer: Justasec Print Services Ltd., London HA8 7DB England

– printed on ECF paper from sustainable forests

For further information about this publication, please contact:

Laurie Kazan-Allen, IBAS Coordinator

Email: [email protected]

© IBAS – London, February 2012.

The International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) was established in 1999; it is an independent non-

governmental organization which has two objectives: a worldwide ban on asbestos and justice for all

asbestos victims. IBAS monitors, analyzes and disseminates news received from the ever-expanding

network of individuals and groups involved in the international movement against asbestos, as well as

information from legal, medical and industry sources. IBAS produces written material and organizes

conferences to raise the profile of asbestos issues. The work of IBAS is coordinated by Laurie Kazan-Allen; more

information is available on the website: http://www.ibasecretariat.org/

PrefaceRomana Blasotti Pavesi 6

IntroductionLaurie Kazan-Allen 8

1. Eternit and the SAIAC CartelBob Ruers 1 5

2. The Schmidheiny Family ImperiumAdrian Knoepfl i 21

3. Asbestos Magnate or Environmental Guru: the Trials of Stephan SchmidheinyDaniel M. Berman 25

4. What Eternit Is NowAdrian Knoepfl i 28

5. The Eternit Factory at Casale MonferratoFabrizio Meni 31

6. Asbestos Activism in Casale MonferratoRomana Blasotti Pavesi, Bruno Pesce, Nicola Pondrano 35

7. A Trial with Far‐reaching ImplicationsLaurent Vogel 39

8. Interview with Prosecutor Raffaele GuarinielloNiccolò Bruna and Andrea Prandstral ler (Aug 201 0) 44

9. Dispensing Justice to Eternit’s Victims – the Franco‐Italian ExperienceAnnie Thébaud-Mony 47

Appendix: The Civil Suit within the Criminal Trial in ItalySergio Bonetto 49

10. The Criminal Trial of Stephan Schmidheiny in Turin, ItalyBarry Castleman 53

11. Eternit vs. The VictimsLaurie Kazan-Allen 57

12. The Making of the Documentary Film: DUST – The Great Asbestos TrialNiccolò Bruna and Andrea Prandstral ler 63

13. Eternit in BrazilFernanda Giannasi 65

14. Eternit and the “Double Agony” of Asbestos Victims in the NetherlandsBob Ruers 72

15. Eternit in FranceMarc Hindry 77

16. Belgian Family Wins Historic Court Case against EternitYvonne Waterman 81

17. Eternit in Denmark 1928‐1986Kurt Jacobson 85

18. Eternit Activity and Emerging Victims: Japanese CaseTakehiko Murayama and Satomi Ushij ima 91

AfterwordLaurie Kazan-Allen 93

Contents

Asbestos Dynasties – the Eternit Multinationals

Eternit in I taly – the Asbestos Trial in Turin

National Perspectives

I first learned of asbestos in 1982, when my husband developed the disease, mesothelioma, which in a

few months led to his death. Mario worked at the Casale Monferrato Eternit factory, but none of the

other victims in my family worked there: not my sister, my cousin, my nephew, nor my daughter Rosa

who died within six months of diagnosis in 2004.

Since then my life has been dedicated to the fight against asbestos. Despite my 82 years I want to be at

the forefront of the campaign that started in Casale during the late 1970s. I am president of the victims’

association for our community: AFeVA. We have three priorities in our struggle: scientific research,

decontamination and justice. Our aim is to restore the dignity of the suffering victims, and to ensure

there will be no more asbestos victims in the future, neither in our area nor around the world.

It is important that we now take stock of our three decades of experience in the fight against asbestos.

The many positive results of our struggle have been possible thanks to untiring groundwork by the

CGIL union which was later supported by all segments of the broader civil society: medical doctors

and environmentalists as well as a large part of the general population. The 18th annual competition for

the “Cavalli” Award – featuring school projects on environmental health awareness – involved more

than 1200 children from 40 schools; reassuring us that knowledge of the risks of asbestos exposure and

of the tragedy we have suffered will endure in our locality in future years.

The beginning of the trial against the owners of the Eternit company in Turin on December 10th, 2009

led me to realize how far we had come in our quest for justice. This criminal case involves more than

1700 victims from our community, workers and citizens; for their killing, the Prosecutor calls for a

sentence of 20 years.

But my reflections on our progress are tinged with bitterness; sentencing the culprits is not the end of

the story, we need to continue our efforts. Research has not yet yielded the results we hoped for; even

after three decades, patients are dying much as before: subject to the same inexorable fate, suffering

the same pain, their survival limited by virtually the same timespan.

Thirty years after the peak of asbestos-cement production in Italy, and more than twenty years since the

closure of the Italian Eternit plants, we’re witnessing in Casale Monferrato a tragic continuance of new

victims: over 40 per year in a town of 35,000 citizens. And they are ever younger; often parents with

young children. I fear that local victims will continue to be numerous in the distant future ifwe don’t

dedicate ourselves fully to reversing this lethal trend.

Another source of bitterness concerns decontamination projects, for which resources are lacking.

Although the factory itselfwas decontaminated (before finally being demolished in 2006), as have all

public buildings in Casale, other restitution work remains uncertain; there is a lack of continuity and

not all areas are treated equally.

In the early years of decontamination, operations were going ahead with more urgency and

thoroughness. Many years have passed since then – it was 1995 when the greatest efforts were made –

and we seem to have missed the opportunity to turn the practices adopted then into a standard for every

contaminated area.

Despite the many deaths that we have already suffered we haven’t yet learned how to solve the

problem at its root, that we must make a daily commitment to all aspects of the fight against asbestos.

We have thrown ourselves into the task of achieving the trial, with stubbornness and determination, for

Preface

6

so long, as have all the prosecutors who have set up the lawsuit, and with so much skill, consistency

and humanity, to charge the Eternit owners with permanent environmental disaster. But this com-

mitment is not enough: decontamination operations are stalled and scientific research is making slow

progress. In addition, asbestos continues to be extracted and traded in many countries around the

world, as if our direct experience of tragedy counts for nothing, cannot teach anything to those who

today continue to expose others to asbestos.

Since the beginning of the trial, I hoped that our victims had not died in vain and that justice would be

done. So far, the progress of the trial has given us great hope: Prosecutor Guariniello and his

colleagues have inspired us with great confidence; while Judge Casalbore has always been respectful,

with constant attention to every detail of the hearings. Despite the pain recalled by witnesses’ words

and the defence’s arguments, our trust in justice has never left us.

Our battle is a battle for civil justice, not a request for economic compensation. The case against

Eternit has been our battlefield, its result will have far and deep repercussions. We believe that, despite

all the human and financial resources invested by the defendants to exculpate themselves, recognition

of our suffering will lead to an exemplary sentence.

To all the victims of asbestos, and those living where it is still mined, processed and traded, I wish with

all my heart that you can eradicate all traces of asbestos risk; and that you can do it with the same

awareness and determination we had in Casale over the past thirty years. And I therefore hope that the

peak achievement of our commitment, the international criminal trial in Turin, can become a common

heritage for everyone working internationally to combat the scourge of asbestos.

To all those communities with which we feel intimately linked and with whom we share pain and fate,

from Widnes in the UK, to Paray le Monial in France, from Sarnia in Canada to Osasco in Brazil and

many others, go our thoughts and the friendly embrace of our association.

Romana Blasotti PavesiPresidente, Associazione famigliari e vittime amianto di Casale Monferrato (AfeVA)

June 2011

7

Photo from documentary: Dust - the Great Asbestos Trial.

“The Great Asbestos Trial” is the largest and most com-

plex asbestos case ever heard in a European criminal

court (see this monograph, Chap. 6). The Turin pro-

ceedings are “great” in all senses of the word, in the:

number of aggrieved parties, legal representatives, mu-

nicipalities, issues and worksites involved; prolonged

duration of the trial; fundamental legal concepts ex-

plored; decade of painstaking and meticulous research

required to bring the defendants to court; expectations

of the bereaved that the verdict will recognize the cata-

clysmic nature of the crimes committed. In the dock are

former executives from the Swiss and Belgian Eternit

Groups, enterprises which exerted control over opera-

tions at Italian asbestos-cement factories. Industrialists

Stephan Schmidheiny (Switzerland) and Baron Louis de

Cartier de Marchienne (Belgium) are accused of caus-

ing permanent environmental disaster and failing to

comply with safety rules. Should they be found guilty,

they could face a twenty-year sentence for their role in

the asbestos tragedies in Casale Monferrato (Aless-

andria), Cavagnolo (Turin), Rubiera (Reggio Emilia),

Bagnoli (Naples) and Siracusa (Sicily). That this law-

suit has achieved an iconic status both in Italy and

abroad is a reflection of the universal principles under

consideration. Is there, indeed, a human right to life,

one which takes precedence over shortcuts that speed

up manufacturing output and minimize production

costs? Can individuals be held liable for the effects of

commercial operations that endanger life and pollute

the environment?

The Turin trial marks a “judicial turning point in the in-

ternational history of cases against asbestos industrial-

ists. It targets the strategic behaviour of a few heads of

multinational asbestos firms, those who organized the

international-scale disinformation campaign on the

health effects of asbestos that led to disaster not only in

Italy but everywhere that asbestos was being used”

(Chap.9). The proceedings, which began on December

10, 2009, were the culmination of fifty years of direct

action by the workers from the Eternit Casale Monfer-

rato factory who took “critical ownership of the reality

of work… produced alliances between workers and sci-

entists… [and] challenged the establishment’s take on

reality” (Chap. 7). The practical and political support

provided by trade unions and labor federations were of

fundamental importance in helping shape public per-

ception regarding Eternit’s responsibility for the asbes-

tos epidemic. The sustained commitment of the leaders

and members of AfeVA (the Associazione famigliari e

vittime amianto di Casale Monferrato – the Association

of families and asbestos victims of Casale Monferrato)

was decisive in the creation of the grassroots movement

that sustained the long “struggle for justice, decontam-

ination, research” (Chap. 6). Demonstrations, memorial

services, public meetings and vigils mounted by the

Casale Monferrato campaigners ensured that the Eternit

scandal remained an issue high on the political and so-

cial agenda. The campaign’s flags, in the Italian colors

of green, white and red, with the slogan “Eternit: Gius-

tizia! ” (Eternit: Justice) bedecked shop windows, bal-

conies and public spaces throughout the town. The

ubiquity of this image was a visual manifestation of the

deep-seated and widespread backing for the victims’

battle for justice as were the crowds of local people who

attended each hearing of the Turin trial. For the people

of Casale Monferrato, the legal proceedings represented

their day in court: a point in time when the faceless ex-

ecutives they held responsible for the deaths of their

loved ones were named and shamed.

The judicial hearings have exposed: “an economic sys-tem that allowed easy profits to be made, with thosemaking such profits apparently impervious to the harmthey were inflicting on workers and communities”(Chap. 6). They have also revealed the lengths to whichEternit would go to preserve its “good name.” Docu-ments seized by police from the Milan office of GCIChiappe Bellodi Associates, the public relations com-pany retained by Eternit, revealed the existence of a“super-web of Eternit-paid advisors,” who orchestrateda meticulous defense strategy to exert maximum controlover “the Casale issue” (Chap 11 ). Vast financial re-sources were at the disposal of the spin doctors who re-cruited personnel from Eternit AG, Eternit S.p.A., theSwiss Eternit Group and Nueva Ltd., as well as inde-pendent experts and contractors as required to roll outthe corporate communication plan. Crucial to the oper-ational effectiveness of the Bellodi network was the in-put from “local PR correspondents,” spies recruited bythe company to infiltrate AfeVA.

The Italian legal system within which this case has been

mounted presents a real challenge to those of us from

common law countries like England, India, the U.S,

Canada and Australia where the asbestos-injured pursue

civil claims for compensation. The fact that the Turin

INTRODUCTION

Laurie Kazan-Allen*

8

* Co-editor of this publication Laurie Kazan-Allen is the Coordinator of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS).

proceedings, initiated by Public Prosecutor Raffaele

Guariniello, incorporated a massive civil lawsuit en-

larged both the complexity of the case and the numbers

of parties involved. The possibility that defendants

could effectively buy themselves more lenient sentences

by doing deals with claimants is a difficult concept to

comprehend as well as a bitter pill to swallow (Chap. 9,

Appendix).

Despite its drawbacks, the Italian legal system has been

just about the only one to have imprisoned business ex-

ecutives for toxic corporate crime (Chap. 10). Given the

multifactorial nature of the Turin proceedings, the ad-

ministrative nightmare of organizing evidence collected

in over ten years of research, the technical hiccups

(Chap. 10) and the limited time available – the 66 hear-

ings were only held one or two days a week – reaching

the end of the trial was an achievement in and of itself.

The respectful attitude of the presiding judges towards

the injured, the thorough preparation of Prosecutor

Guariniello and his team and the input from a multina-

tional team of legal advisors and experts have encour-

aged the victims’ hopes that an “exemplary sentence”

will be handed down on February 13, 2012.

Eternit: Status and Modus Operandi

The Eternit group of companies was “probably the

largest manufacturer of asbestos cement in the world.”1

The totality of all global Eternit interests was so

wealthy, powerful and influential that Eternit certainly

deserved a status equal to that enjoyed by the other

global asbestos Goliaths: the Johns Manville Corpora-

tion (US) and Turner & Newall Ltd. (Britain). Indeed, it

was Eternit which pioneered the historic alliances that

enabled the asbestos-cement industry to flourish

throughout the 20th century. In 1929 Ernst Schmid-

heiny, of Eternit Switzerland, established an organiza-

tion designed specifically to advance the interests of

asbestos-cement producers; the birth of the SAIAC

Cartel was a pivotal moment in the history of the in-

dustry. SAIAC members agreed to exchange technical

knowledge, centralize research activities, standardize

product ranges and organize the export business (Chap.

1 ). Working together SAIAC members divided up

global markets, pressurized national governments, fixed

retail prices, and extracted favourable business terms

from asbestos producers.

Describing the international Eternit scene during the

1920s and 1930s, Swiss journalist Werner Catrina wrote

that it “resembled a clan in which some members were

married to each other, while others were related or had

become friends as a result of their common interests.”

The recognition of the mutuality of commercial and

personal interests amongst asbestos-cement stakehold-

ers was extremely important to the industry’s future

success. The family connections, friendships, shared

financial investments, periodic meetings and joint com-

mercial ventures which cemented the personal relation-

ships of the global asbestos elite were diligently

exploited to safeguard the industry’s interests.

Long before the internet age, Eternit personnel had easy

access to decision-makers within as well as outside their

own spheres of influence. So, when Turner & Newall

Ltd. (T&N) began placing labels on asbestos sacks

mentioning the cancer risk, something had to be done.

1 Evidence given by Eternit Building Products Limited to the (British) Advisory Committee on Asbestos, 1 976.

9

Bruno Pesce, Romana Blasotti Pavesi and Nicola Pondrano, pictured in 2009

Photo from documentary: Dust - the Great Asbestos Trial

Etienne van der Rest, director of Eternit Belgium,2

complained to T&N’s Director of Personnel and Extern-

al Relations H.D.S. Hardie in a letter beginning “Dear

Harry.”3 Referencing the protracted negotiations by as-

bestos stakeholders over the wording for “a suitable text

to be placed at the bottom of the [asbestos sack] label,”

van der Rest reminded Hardie that it had been agreed

that companies “were not to mention on the label the

risk of cancer, but only to say that an incorrect use of

the product could be harmful to health.” T&N’s devi-

ation from the rule book was a “disappointment,” with

potentially serious consequences. Van der Rest specu-

lated about the imposition of EEC industry regulations

such as the mandatory provision of “a skull and crossed

bones (sic) label…” on bags of asbestos fibre. The asso-

ciation of asbestos with a symbol universally under-

stood to denote poison would not be good for sales.

Concluding the letter, Van der Rest challenged Hardie

to explain the decision regarding the new T&N wording

in order that he may “defend the position ofTurner (sic)

towards all those who criticise her rather severely…”

Rigorous compliance with the Eternit party line is a

theme which permeates this monograph. An example of

the strict control exerted by high-level executives

throughout the Eternit empire is the discipline enforced

by public relations spin doctors tasked with keeping the

evolving Eternit asbestos scandal below the radar in

Italy (Chap. 11 ). A “PR Bible,” designed to “guarantee

that everything is and will be under control,” was me-

ticulously implemented: “The strategic orientation of

our PR-policy has been carefully devised and laid down

over the years. I think it is valid and should not be

altered,” wrote Milan-based consultant Guido Bellodi.

While the efforts to deal with the situation in Casale

Monferrato were undertaken primarily by persons

working on behalf of Swiss Eternit interests, corporate

authoritarianism was also rife in the Belgian Eternit

Group, which in 1995 became the Etex Group. A 53-

page document issued in January 2000 entitled: Corpor-

ate Identity Guidelines for Etex Group Affiliated Com-

panies lays down exacting rules for the use of logos,

typefaces, layouts, and colors in company letterheads,

business cards, advertising, websites, exhibitions, tech-

nical documentation internal documents and emails in

all 1 50 Etex companies in 37 countries across five con-

tinents. “The rules are pretty straightforward,” wrote

Paul van der Straten Waillet, Etex Marketing and Com-

munications Director, “but they must be applied in

every case and in every company.”4

That the two examples cited in the paragraph above are

from the 21 st century, a time when even former asbes-

tos magnates had reinvented themselves as philan-

thropists and environmental gurus (Chap. 3), suggests

the existence of a continuity of approach characterized

by centralized decision-making and micromanagement.

It is hard to believe that knowledge of the asbestos haz-

ard available to the Eternit hierarchy as early as 1931

was not disseminated to others in the Eternit and SAI-

AC networks. In April 1 950, a letter from the General

Secretary of Eternit S.A. (Belgium) informed SAIAC

that:

“You will remember that we ourselves have

already drawn your attention to asbestosis,

through our letter of 15 May 1931 . In 1933 we

received the report ofDr E.R.A. Merewether…

and since then we have been continually occu-

pied with precautionary measures…

It is clear that the general interest requires con-

trol measures wherever there is danger.”5

It appears that this letter was one of a series about the

dangers of exposure to asbestos. One month earlier

(March 13, 1 950) the Secretary of SAIAC had written

to N.V. Eternit in Amsterdam referring to previous cor-

respondence from Holland on the subject of asbestosis

and confirming the cartel’s plans to instigate an enquiry

amongst its members regarding their experience with

asbestosis.

The facts as they are known present us with something

of a conundrum. From the available documentation, it is

clear that Eternit executives at company headquarters

were aware of the risks asbestos exposure posed to hu-

man health eighty years ago and that “Eternit compan-

ies kept each other informed…”6 It is also clear that

Eternit had a proclivity to regulate all aspects of cor-

porate policy, behaviour and activity. How then could

occupational safety and health, an incredibly important

aspect of corporate policy, be left to the whim of unit

mangers and individual foremen. The most likely an-

swer is that it was not – that the failures to adopt safer

working practices, install adequate ventilation and in-

2It is of interest to note that the mother of Eternit director Etienne van der Rest was Marguerite van der Rest, née Emsens, a daughter of

the Belgian asbestos entrepreneur Alphonse Emsens. http://www.tv3.cat/multimedia/pdf/3/7/1297090719573.pdf3Letter from E. van der Rest, Eternit, Kapelle-op-den-Bos, 5th March 1980 to H.D.S. Hardie, Turner & Newall Ltd., Manchester.4Eternit Archive: Box 9, 4087-4137.5See Chap. 1 Appendix: translation of letter from Eternit S.A. (Belgium) to SAIAC, dated April 1 4, 1 950; original version in French.6Ruers B and Schouten N. The Tragedy ofAsbestos: Eternit and the consequences of a hundred years of asbestos cement. May, 2006.

Socialist Party (Netherlands).

10

troduce technological innovations to protect the work-

force were a result of decisions taken at the highest

levels of the company. Public Prosecutor Raffaele Guar-

iniello believes that “key decisions were not made in

Italy but at the Company’s headquarters [in Switzerland

and Belgium], and therefore they applied to their global

asbestos empire, not just to Italian plants but to all in-

terests under the control of the majority shareholders"

(Chap. 8).

Within the Eternit galaxy, no stars shone brighter thanthose of the Schmidheiny (Switzerland), Emsens (Bel-gium) and Cuvelier families (France) (Chap. 2), leadinglights of their countries’ ruling classes. Their elevatedstatus brought multiple benefits amongst which werecultural, educational, social and financial ties to politi-cians, bankers, lawyers, journalists and others whoseactions determined their countries’ commercial climate,legislative program and social agenda. The wealth,political power, financial authority and media influenceof individual members of these clans were substantial;the collective muscle of the asbestos-cement royaltywas almost irresistible. Long-time Eternit observer Ad-rian Knoepfli noted in his paper the “SchmidheinyFamily Imperium” that the Schmidheinys constitutedthe “best known business dynasty of Switzerland.” “Inthe heyday of asbestos production,” Knoepfli writes“the Schmidheinys controlled Eternit factories in six-teen countries, employing 23,000 workers, and theyowned interests in factories, through their stake in theBelgian Eternit group (belonging to the Emsens family),in another sixteen countries” (Chap. 2).

Billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, whose personal for-

tune was enlarged by profits from the Swiss Eternit

Group’s asbestos-cement operations, nowadays writes

about “green capitalism,” “corporate responsibility,”

and “sustainable development” (Chap. 3). Schmid-

heiny’s charitable works as “one of the most generous

philanthropists in Latin America” and his efforts to save

the planet do not ease the distress of those who contrac-

ted asbestos-related diseases from exposure to Eternit

asbestos. In an interview Schmidheiny gave to David

Bank, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, this issue

was discussed. Bank wrote:

“Mr. Schmidheiny says it’s not his responsibility

to compensate injured workers. Swiss employ-

ees can seek help from that company’s workers-

insurance agency, he says, while workers else-

where can make claims against the companies

that have acquired Mr. Schmidheiny’s stakes. ‘ In

almost all cases where we sold, there is a solvent

big company capable of taking care of things,’ he

says. For workers with nowhere else to turn, Mr.

Schmidheiny has promised to address individual

claims ‘on a humanitarian basis.’”7

While Stephan Schmidheiny made a tactical withdrawalfrom the asbestos industry, people around the worldpossessed intimate reminders of their connection to theSchmidheiny Imperium in the asbestos fibres embeddedwithin their respiratory systems. “Thousands of peoplehave been exposed to asbestos in plants in Europe, theMiddle East, Africa and Latin America in which theSchmidheinys once held ownership interests.”8 Thelong latency period for asbestos-related diseases, typic-ally 10-50 years from exposure to disease onset, meansthat people dying from asbestos-related diseases now(2012), were more likely than not hazardously exposedto asbestos before Stephan Schmidheiny “shed most –but not all – of his family’s asbestos operations.”9

While the focus of this book is on the Casale Monfer-

rato disaster and the forces which coalesced to bring to

trial former asbestos businessman for their alleged roles

in causing it, the tragedy of Italy’s asbestos dead is one

replicated wherever Eternit asbestos-cement plants ex-

isted. Papers in this monograph about manufacturing

operations in Italy, Brazil, France, Belgium, the Neth-

erlands, Denmark and Japan document the determina-

tion of global and national Eternit companies to

prioritize corporate profits while neglecting occupa-

tional safety. How else could you explain the fact that

as late as 1995, bags of raw asbestos were opened with

a knife and manually emptied into a mixer at the Eternit

plant in Thiant, France (Chap. 1 5). For decades, it was

common practice for Eternit executives to use medical

information on workers’ asbestos-related illnesses to the

company’s advantage whilst denying knowledge of

diagnoses to the individuals involved and government

authorities. Danish historian Kurt Jacobsen reports that

from the mid-1950s the incidence of asbestosis amongst

workers at Dansk Eternit grew steadily. “The workers,

however, were not informed – at least only a few of

them – and neither was the public” (Chap. 1 7). Japanese

Eternit workers were given “no explanation of the haz-

ardous aspects of asbestos or education for avoiding

diseases… In addition, the company made workers take

7Bank D. Moral Fiber: Billionaire Activist On Environment Faces His Own Past – An ‘Eco-Efficiency’ Advocate Swiss Magnate Con-

fronts Questions on Asbestos – Mr. Schmidheiny’ s Conscience. September 12, 2001 . The Wall Street Journal.

http://www.pitt.edu/~mitnick/EBEweb/MoralBillActivEnWSJ12_9_02.html8Ibid.9Ibid.

11

Asbestos Superstars

A Global Perspective on the Humanitarian Disaster

Caused by Eternit

their work clothes back to their houses” (Chap 18). A

2011 verdict from a Brussels civil court confirms the ef-

forts made by the Belgian Eternit company to “belittle

the health dangers of asbestos and to cover up the

facts… [when it] knew with surety that exposure to as-

bestos involved a serious risk for the development of

diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothe-

lioma” (Chap. 1 6).

Throughout the Eternit empire, it was routine for exec-

utives to manipulate government agendas to forestall

the introduction of protective measures and the adop-

tion of asbestos bans. Despite the fact that cases of as-

bestos-related diseases were diagnosed amongst Eternit

workers in the Netherlands in 1956, 1 972, 1 975, 1 981 ,

and 1982, “in none of these cases did Eternit publish

any information outside the firm. None of the victims

was able to establish Eternit’s liability” (Chap. 14). The

struggle by Dutch Eternit victims to obtain compensa-

tion is referred to by Bob Ruers as “the double agony”:

the legal agony on top of the medical one. Avoiding li-

ability for asbestos decontamination costs was another

preoccupation of Eternit personnel. When the Italian

Eternit company declared bankruptcy in 1986, “the Ca-

sale Eternit plant was abandoned with all its poisonous

contents…” (Chap. 5). Current estimates for the decon-

tamination of the town of Casale Monferrato exceed

€160 million; to date, neither the Swiss nor the Belgian

Eternit Groups has paid to clean up the former industri-

al site, local buildings, the polluted Po River or contam-

inated soil. When all else failed, Eternit’s policy was to

attack the credibility of its critics; Eternit executives in

Casale “denied that asbestos caused mesothelioma for

years and dismissed as subversive, union battles in de-

fence ofworkers’ health” (Chap. 5).

Nothing is as eloquent as the words of the victims in

conveying the horrific reality created by Eternit’s negli-

gent behaviour. French asbestos widow Mireille Wuil-

beaux wrote that after years of ill health her husband,

who had worked for 42 years at Eternit’s asbestos-ce-

ment factory in Thiant, had been diagnosed with meso-

thelioma in October 2001 :

“Hell started then: chemotherapy, repetitive

pleurisies, more and more frequent draining.

From January 2005, my husband had nodules

which required irradiation, radiotherapy. Then, in

April 2005, a new scan and, an ice shower, the

diagnosis of lung cancer on the right side. Hos-

pital again; he had oedema in the lower limbs

and could not walk anymore. To try to cure this

new cancer he received heavy chemotherapy

which he barely stood. This therapy attacked his

nervous system; he would tremble, faint, vomit.

His whole body was aching: head, belly, legs. He

could not even drink; we would refresh him with

ice lollipops.

On 1 st October 2005, Robert died. If hell is a

virtual place, I can say my husband lived through

hell and suffering; and I did too during those last

months when I stayed by his side” (Chap. 1 5).

As complex as the Eternit story is, with its confusing

array of corporate reorganizations, divestments, acquis-

itions, reconfigurations, amalgamations, name changes,

cross-ownership and joint ventures (Chap. 2), this is

basically a very simple tale. It is a story of the man-

made decisions which transported a lethal substance up

from the ground and into factories, workshops, homes

and public buildings. The people who were in charge of

the corporations which profited from this deadly trade

are responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Had things been handled differently at the Thiant fact-

ory, Mr. Wuilbeaux might have been spared the excru-

ciating death described so poignantly by his wife. Had

the managers responsible for the conditions at the Ca-

sale Monferrato plant taken steps to prevent asbestos

pollution, generations of townspeople might have been

saved from the fatal consequences of exposure to

Eternit asbestos.

The chapters in this monograph document Eternit-

caused asbestos tragedies in seven countries; given

more time and resources similar stories could have been

told of the damage associated with the Eternit name in

scores of other countries in Asia, Africa, North Amer-

ica, South America and Europe. There are clearly limits

to what can be achieved in a relatively short monograph

when addressing such a huge subject. Although books

about Eternit have been published, to our knowledge,

none has yet appeared in English. To the acknowledged

Eternit experts from Switzerland, France, the Nether-

lands, Belgium and Italy, please view this monograph as

an invitation to write the definitive tome, with a version

in English, on the multinational disaster caused by

Eternit’s asbestos operations.

The papers in this collection were produced, revised

and edited over a number months, last year. Due to the

protracted production process, partly due to translation

delays, there will be some instances where texts have

been overtaken by events. For this reason we have an-

notated each chapter with the date it was last signific-

antly altered.10

10 On a technical note, we took the decision to retain the choice of spelling (English or American) and reference styles made by the

original authors (or their translators).

12

January 2012

The community-wide mobilization achieved in Casale Monferrato has

been showcased in a documentary entitled POLVERE – Il Grande

Processo Dell'Amianto (DUST – The Great Asbestos Trial) which was

broadcast on Belgian, German, Swiss and French TV stations in

November 2011 and is being shown at film festivals around the world in

2011-12 (Chap. 12). From 2006-2011, filmmakers Niccolò Bruna and

Andrea Prandstraller undertook research on asbestos, documented local

occurrences, carried out interviews and tracked global developments.

Their intention had been to “focus on the victims ofCasale Monferrato,

the municipality that had borne the brunt of the asbestos-disease

onslaught in Italy,” but the more they discovered, the more they realized

that the disaster they had witnessed was the tip ofthe iceberg. With this

in mind, they decided to expand the scope of their project by including

coverage ofasbestos issues in Brazil, an asbestos producing and using

country, and India, the world’s biggest importer of asbestos. Reflecting

the international scope of the documentary, Italian, French, Spanish,

German, Portuguese and English versions ofthe film were made.

The similarity of titles of this monograph and the film is not

coincidental. Indeed, the idea for this book was generated during

discussions in 2008 with the documentary’s co-directors. Due to the

constraints ofthe format, especially the prescribed length needed for TV

broadcasts, it was clear that much pertinent material would be omitted

from the documentary. It was felt that a monograph about Eternit and

the Great Asbestos Trial would both raise the profile of the film and

supplement the information it contained.

1 3

Eternit has been: the name of dozens of manufacturing companies and scores of

building products; a dominant multinational industrial group, two global asbestos

conglomerates, a brand, a patent and a generic term; in many markets, the word

“Eternit” is used to denote a range of asbestos-cement building products

regardless of the trade mark. But Eternit is more, much more than has been

described in the preceding sentences; over the last hundred years, these seven

letters have come to represent a production process which uses up and spits out

human beings as part ofthe manufacturing cycle.

14

What is Eternit?

The Swiss multinational Eternit, managed by theSchmidheiny family, and the Belgian multinationalEternit, under the direction of the Emsens family, wereclosely intertwined and cooperated with each other foralmost seventy years. In order to further and defendtheir asbestos interests, and primarily their asbestos-ce-ment interests, they made use of a world-wide cartel, aswell as market and price agreements.

Asbestos Cement

The most important use of asbestos has undoubtedlybeen in the production of asbestos cement using themethod patented by its Austrian inventor LudwigHatschek in 1900.2 Hatschek called his new material“Eternit” and trademarked the name. Because asbestoscement generally consists of from 10 to 20% asbestoswith almost all the rest being cement, in addition to rawasbestos, a ready supply of cement is required in its pro-duction. In this regard, it is significant to note that theSwiss entrepreneur Ernst Schmidheiny had as early as1910 established a cement cartel in Switzerland, andthat in 1930 he succeeded, by means of the financialholding company Holderbank Financière, in bringingmajor cement interests in every corner of the globe un-der his control.

The Belgian entrepreneur Alphons Emsens was, in1905, one of the first to obtain a licence for theHatschek process. Emsens was at the same time able toget his hands on a licence for the British market with aduration of 18 years, and established there the firm ofG.R. Speaker.3 Emsens was the owner of a buildingmaterials company and had a significant interest in theAntwerp cement firm Cimenterie et Briquetterie Réunis(CBR). In 1922, Ernst Schmidheiny and Alphons Em-sens met for the first time, and their business liaisonsignalled the beginning of an almost 70-year period ofintense and lucrative cooperation between the twopowerful entrepreneurial families in the areas of ce-ment, asbestos and asbestos cement. Schmidheiny tooka major stake in Emsens’ asbestos cement firm and ayear later Schmidheiny acquired an interest in CBR.The other important asbestos cement producer in West-ern Europe, the French entrepreneur Joseph Cuvelier,also had a background in building materials and ce-ment. In 1922, Cuvelier came into contact with the Bel-gian Eternit manufacturer Jean Emsens, who wasplanning to establish an asbestos cement factory inFrance. Cuvelier and Emsens came to an agreement anddecided to set up such a factory together, which they didin September, 1 922, the new factory beginning produc-tion in Prouvy before the end of the same year [1 ] .

Cartel Formation

In 1929, Ernst Schmidheiny, together with the Britishasbestos multinational Turner & Newall (T & N), es-tablished the cartel Internationale Asbestzement AG,“SAIAC” [2] . The Swiss author W. Catrina had this tosay of it in 1985:

“What Schmidheiny, in the fields of cement andbricks had already achieved, namely linking theproducers together in cartels, he began after thewar to do also in relation to the producers of as-bestos cement.” [3]

1. ETERNIT AND THE SAIAC CARTEL

Bob Ruers1

The first asbestos cement factories following thearrival of the Hatschek process were:

Niederurnen Switzerland 1903Poissy France 1904Ambler, Pa USA 1905Haren Belgium 1905Lomma Sweden 1906Casale Monferrato Italy 1907Baku, Lublin, Rostow Russia 1908Braila Romania 1910(source: D. Steiner, Architektur Beispiele Eternit,1 994, p. 25-26.)

1 Bob Ruers is a lawyer based in the Netherlands who specialises in asbestos litigation. He is also the legal advisor to the DutchCommittee ofAsbestos Victims and a member of the Dutch Senate. He is currently finishing his PhD thesis on the regulation of asbestosin the Netherlands. Email: [email protected] The Canadian author Cirkel had this to say in 1905 about Hatschek’s asbestos cement patent: “A new invention and one whichprobably will revolutionize all systems of roofing has just been patented in Austria.”3 With regard to Speaker, Eternit Building Products Ltd. told the Simpson Commision in 1976 that it was a firm: ". . . which startedtrading in 1903 as an importer of asbestos cement manufactured materials from Eternit Belgium, and has been importing them eversince, except for the intervention ofWorld Wars."


1 5

The SAIAC cartel was, in common with Schmidheiny’sEternit Group, established in Niederurnen, Switzerland.Eternit manufacturers from Austria, Great Britain,Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland particip-ated in the setting up of SAIAC [4] . The first SAIACproject was the establishment in 1929 of the Eternit cor-poration Duitse Asbest-Zement AG (DAZAG), in Ber-lin. Schmidheiny received 27% of the shares of this newcompany, the Belgian Eternit company under the direc-tion of Emsens took 23%, and the remaining shareswere divided amongst the other participants. That bythis time there already existed a close relationshipbetween the members of SAIAC and Johns-Manville (J-M), the United States’ biggest asbestos producer andowner of Canada’s biggest asbestos mine, is shown bythe fact that J-M owned 10% of Eternit Germany. In ad-dition to the Eternit companies, T & N, which held,amongst other things, sizeable interests in asbestosmines in South Africa, was an important participant inthe cartel. In its annual report for 1929, T & N ex-plained its decision to participate in the asbestos cartel:

“We have become such a large part of the Na-tion’s entire industry, that we have been able toarrange with the principal manufacturers of tenEuropean countries an International Cartel. Theposition of the European Asbestos Cement In-dustry is thus rationalised, and we expect greatbenefit by way of improved technique and eco-nomy to accrue to all concerned. This miniatureLeague ofNations has a great future before it,for it is based upon the principle ofmutual help,which now displaces the previous atmosphere ofdistrust and suspicion.

Capitalists in such conditions are made welcomeby the Government of the Country. They are notregarded as parasites, but rather as one of theprimary constructive forces upon which dependthe evolution of civilisation.”

T & N also elaborated on the SAIAC cartel’s long-termplans:

“The objects of this cartel are, inter alia:- the exchange of technical knowledge,- the establishment in Switzerland of an InstituteofResearch for the entire industry,- the foundation of new factories in neutral coun-tries,- the organisation of the export business,- the standardisation of quality, and minimisingunnecessary variety in the product;- mutual assistance in securing the necessary rawmaterials on the best terms.

Here again our object is to give better serviceand better value to the consuming public, for werecognise that only by so doing can we justifyour activities and retain the public confid-ence.” [5]

On the business culture within SAIAC in the first dec-ades, Catrina had this to say:

“The international Eternit scene of the 1920s and1930s resembled a clan in which some memberswere married to each other, while others wererelated or had become friends as a result of theircommon interests. During the meetings of theSAIAC ‘family’ , people did not put their cardson the table, the business with this successfulmaterial, asbestos, being as it were a privatematter. Based on the connections and internalrelations from this period between the two wars,the Eternit branches in the industrialised westcontinue even today to be dominated by certainpowerful families of industrialists, for whommutual financial commitments, in the challen-ging climate of the 1980s, mean ever greatermortgages.” [6]

After 1929 the position of the Swiss Eternit corporationgrew steadily. Originally, the Schmidheiny family’sbusiness made up only a few per cent of the cartel, butafter fifteen years it had reached a third of the total is-sue. Via SAIAC, the Swiss and Belgian asbestos mul-tinationals were also in a position to reach significantagreements concerning raw asbestos. In 1925, theEternit Groups even succeeded in obtaining a conces-sion from the Soviet government for the right to exploitan asbestos mine in the Urals, in cooperation with theAmerican entrepreneur Armand Hammer (1898-1990)[7] . In 1932, the world’s three biggest asbestos-produ-cing countries – Rhodesia, Canada and the Soviet Uni-on – came to an agreement in principle at a meeting inLondon and together established the company Raw As-bestos Producers Ltd. In this, T&N managing directorW. Shepherd played an important role. In his report ofJuly 1933 Shepherd had this to say about the situationregarding raw asbestos in Canada and the US:

“At the conference of asbestos producers whichwas held in London in July 1932, it appearedlikely that if there had been no embargo on Rus-sia fibre in the United States market, the Russi-ans would have been prepared to agree to ascheme of co-operation with Rhodesia andCanada on the basis of equal division of theworld markets between these groups of produ-cers, Rhodesia being one group, Russia a second,


16

and all the producers in Canada and the U.S.A.the third….. In March 1933, the embargo onRussian fibre in the U.S.A. was lifted by thenewly installed Democratic administration, andthus the obstacle to Russia’s participation in ascheme of co-operation was removed.”

That the joint purchase of asbestos, and mutual supportin securing the “necessary raw materials,” led to a situ-ation in which SAIAC was able to achieve a profitablepreferential position amongst the asbestos producers,the “Raw Asbestos Distributors,” can be seen from a re-port written by Shepherd in 1938:

“At a meeting of SAIAC Members held inZurich on the 10th October, SAIAC were in-formed on behalf ofRaw Asbestos DistributorsLtd. that R.A.D. would not be able to supplythem with more than 20,000 tons ofRhodesianshingle fibres during 1939 and that the quantityavailable for SAIAC might be as little as 17,500tons, which latter figure was all that R.A.D.could commit themselves to at that time. Mr.Schmidheiny indicated that SAIAC’s total re-quirements of shingle fibre during 1939 wouldprobably be approximately 50,000 tons, and as itwas doubtful whether it is possible or desirableto make a contract with the Russians, SAIACtherefore found themselves in a position ofwish-ing to purchase approximately 30,000 tons of Ca-nadian fibres for 1939 delivery.” [8]

After Shepherd had been informed by the Canadianmine owners of the series of already concluded con-tracts and had learnt that Johns-Manville was bound bycontract to certain obligations to “outsiders” at prices“which did not include any differential to protect SAI-AC,” he succeeded in the negotiations, which he con-ducted on behalf of SAIAC with the Canadian mineowners, in bringing all parties to a settlement. In this itwas agreed:

“That both the Johns-Manville Corporation andthe Johnson’s Company agree that they will notaccept any further business from outsiders inEurope without imposing the appropriate differ-ential of either 10% or 12.5% on the pricescharged to SAIAC, except in those cases where ithas been agreed by SAIAC that it is impossibleto impose such differential.”

Shepherd concluded: “This arrangement appeared to besatisfactory to all the Canadian producers and is alsosatisfactory to SAIAC.”

The SAIAC Inquiry, 1950

In 1949 the Dutch government recognised asbestosis asan occupational disease and brought before parliament alegislative proposal to introduce the “Silicosis Law,” inwhich the risk of asbestosis was also described. The le-gislative proposal contained a provision empoweringthe government to take measures to limit the use of as-bestos. This development provided the impetus for theDutch Eternit corporation in Amsterdam, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Belgian Eternit Group, to makeinquiries at the SAIAC cartel headquarters in Switzer-land about the experiences of other SAIAC membersregarding asbestosis. The SAIAC cartel decided as aresult to conduct an inquiry amongst its members. Re-actions came in from many countries: From Dr. PaulCartier, who was employed at Thetford Mines in Que-bec; from Eternit Pietra Artificiale in Genoa; fromDAZAG in Berlin, Everite in Johannesburg and fromthe Turner Asbestos Cement Co. Ltd. (TAC) inManchester. TAC noted that:

“In Great Britain for more than half a century theWorkmen’s Compensation Acts have imposed onemployers a liability to pay compensation wherein any employment to which the Acts applied,‘personal injury by accident out of and in thecourse of employment is caused to a workman’ .”

From the reaction of Eternit Belgium it becomes evid-ent that the firm had, as early as the beginning of the1930s, corresponded with the SAIAC cartel regardingthe risk of asbestosis (see Appendix):

“You will remember that we ourselves havealready drawn your attention to asbestosis,through our letter of 15 May 1931 . In 1933 wereceived the report ofDr E.R.A. Merewether,which was discussed in July 1933 at the seventhsitting of the Correspondence Committee for In-dustrial health of the International Labour Office,and since then we have been continually occu-pied with precautionary measures, ofwhich wehave already for many years been aware… Asfor the disease itselfwe think that it is not actu-ally an occupational disease, given the fact thatonly in an extremely small number of cases hasit appeared amongst workers who have been ex-posed to particles of asbestos dust.”

Only Eternit Switzerland made explicit mention of asingle case of asbestosis which ended in death. In Au-gust 1950, SAIAC informed all of its members aboutthe outcome of the inquiry, concluding that there was no


17

risk of asbestosis, or that it was very small.4 In Septem-ber 1950, Eternit Amsterdam reported the results of theSAIAC inquiry to the other Dutch asbestos cementcompanies:

“We enclose a copy of this exposé. From thisyou will see that practice has shown that in theasbestos cement industries of the affiliated mem-bers of this bureau – industries which are spreadpractically over the whole world – symptoms ofasbestosis are never observed. Furthermore, theconclusion of this inquiry has been that, whengood precautionary measures are taken, usingsuction to remove dust etc, the chance of as-bestosis will remain nil. It may be assumed thatsuch precautionary measures in the form of goodsuction systems etc. are applied in full measurein today’s factories, because this is already de-manded by the labour inspectorate. We can there-fore, without any further action, confirm that thepossibility of the occurrence of asbestosis(silicosis) in the asbestos cement industry is nil.”

In April 1 953, the Netherlands Labour Inspectorate alsoobserved that the asbestos multinationals had a huge in-fluence on the use of asbestos. In a letter to the Ministryof Social Affairs, the Head of the Labour Inspectorateof Utrecht remarked that asbestos was still much in use,but also noted that in ships’ engine rooms there were in-creasing complaints about the dirt and mess caused bythe asbestos sprays. On the other hand, the Inspector in-dicated that a significant reduction in the use of asbes-tos was not to be expected in the short term because“the Companies which own the mines have such ex-tensive financial interests in the use of asbestos, and inall countries [occupy] a paramount position, one thatthey will try to hang on to. They direct their attention tothe new insulation materials in order to preserve andmaintain their position.”

TEAM

Cooperation within SAIAC in relation to the establish-ment of asbestos cement companies in developingcountries was structurally supplemented in 1962through the setting up of a common venture under thename TEAM. This acronym derived from the names ofthe participants: Turners, Eternit And Manville.TEAM’s aim, according to documents originating in1962 in the Australian asbestos firm James Hardie &Coy:

“TEAM is a Company which has been formedby the three largest asbestos-cement groups in

the free world – Turners, Eternit and Manville. Itaims to set up asbestos-cement factories in thosedeveloping countries which demonstrate a needfor such products. IN NO WAY can it be termeda monopoly because each partner will continueto trade competitively throughout the world.Rather it is a means whereby the financial risksinvolved in those countries which are not polit-ically or economically stable can be shared bythe three partners, thus making it possible to setup factories under circumstances which wouldprobably deter any one of the partners from fa-cing the risks on his own.” [9]

That the corporations cooperating in the SAIAC andTEAM nexus did not flinch from stabbing each other inthe back is made clear by the “Nigerian incident,” de-scribed in the James Hardie documents:

“The Nigerian incident concerned the proposalfor a third factory in Northern Nigeria. Turnersand Emsens are each operating separately in theeast and west ofNigeria respectively. A jointventure (possibly TEAM) was planned in North-ern Nigeria and a meeting between Turners andEmsens had been set up for approximately amonth hence. In the meantime, Turners allegethey got a report that the Japanese intended go-ing into Northern Nigeria and without referenceto Emsens went ahead and registered a Companywhich secured tax free operations. Ken Neve hadwritten to Emsens explaining the circumstancesand suggesting a meeting to discuss the divisionof shares in the Company but Emsens were ag-gravated by Turners’ unreferred action whichthey claim was due to urgency.”[10]

From the beginning, in 1962, TEAM’s share capital wasdivided into three equal parts between each of the parti-cipants [11 ] . In 1971 , 8.68% of TEAM’s shares were inthe hands of the Belgian Eternit branch, the CompagnieFinancière Eternit (CFE), an interest which CFE in-creased to 20.05% in 1977 [12] . In 1978, CFE placed itsoverseas interests in a separate undertaking, Eteroutre-mer S.A., to which the interests in TEAM were also as-signed. In that same year Eteroutremer’s share inTEAM amounted to 18.04%. In the years which fol-lowed this share grew to 33.90%. Eteroutremer had atits disposal in 1985, via TEAM, interests in, inter alia,Eternit Gresik, Indonesia; ACIL, Pakistan; and ACIB,Bangladesh. In addition, by the middle of 1986 a majorinvestment in China had been added to the pile in theform of the Guangzou-Eternit factory. By 1989 the Bel-

4 This information was submitted during the first such court case in the Netherlands, one brought by three widows of Eternit workersagainst Eternit.


18

gian Eternit Group had taken over, from the SwissEternit Group, 25% of the shares in CFE, which meantthat its interest in CFE grew to 62.9%. This resulted inEteroutremer taking into its hands almost the whole ofTEAM’s capital and thus having interests in asbestoscement factories in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina,China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Greece, Tur-key, Senegal and Kenya. CFE’s Annual Report for 1990reported an interest in TEAM S.A., Luxemburg, of96.31%.

In September 2008, Eternit Netherlands claimed, duringa lawsuit that a victim of mesothelioma had broughtagainst the company, that TEAM should not be seen asa cartel. According to Eternit, TEAM was “no cartel buta financial partnership to which Eternit was affiliated.”

The Monopolies Commission, 1973

In 1973, the United Kingdom Monopolies Commissionstated in its report on the British asbestos industry thatin 1930 T & N had entered into agreements with the“continental Eternit companies” regarding the sale ofasbestos cement products. These agreements werenamed as the “Continental Wenham Scheme.” Thismeant, according to the Commission, that T & N wouldtake 80% of the entire market of the UK and Irelandand that the remaining 20% would be assigned to thecontinental Eternit corporations. The aforementionedagreements would have concerned only the period from1930 to 1945. The report stated further, that in 1929 T& N had concluded an agreement with the Italian asbes-tos cement firm SA Eternit Pietra Artificiale on the useof the Mazza patent on asbestos pipes. In return for thepayment of lump sums and royalties, T & N receivedthe exclusive right to use the Mazza pipe process in theUK until the expiry date of the patent [1 3] . On theactivities of the SAIAC cartel after 1945, the Monopol-ies Commission had nothing to say, as was also the casefor the TEAM cooperation network. In relation to theasbestos mining industry and the world market, theCommission reported that:

“Most of the asbestos mined in the world (out-side Eastern bloc countries) is produced by ver-tically integrated companies which mine and millthe material and fabricate asbestos products, thelargest company of this type being Johns-Man-ville Corporation, ofNew York. Other verticallyintegrated mining interests include Turner &Newall Ltd. and the Cape Asbestos Company inthe United Kingdom. The largest producer of as-bestos fibres without associated manufacturinginterests is the Canadian company, AsbestosCorporation Ltd….. Apart from the T & N andCape groups and Tunnel’s connection with theCyprus mines no manufacturer of asbestosproducts in the U.K. owns or holds interests inmining operations.”

In this, the Monopolies Commission completely ig-nored the major mining interests of the Swiss and Bel-gian Eternit concerns in South Africa and Canada andthe fact that the Belgian Eternit Group had suppliedGreat Britain with asbestos cement products, as well asproducing them there, from as long ago as 1903.

March 2011

References

1 . O. Hardy-Hemery, Eternit et l’amiante 1922-2000,p. 1 8.

2. M. Roselli, Die Asbestlüge, 2007, p. 79.3 . W. Catrina, Der Eternit Report, p. 39.4. Catrina, 1 985, p. 39.5. T&N Annual Report 1929, p 9.6. Catrina 1985, p. 40.7. Hardy-Hemery, p. 38, 39.8. Verslag Shepherd “SAIAC and Canadian Raw As-

bestos Producers,” on his journey of 15 Oct. - 23Nov. 1938, p. 2.

9. Report from J.P. McCormack, Feb. 1 962.1 0. Information from M. Peacock, Australia11 . CRISP Report 1966, p. 1 44.1 2. CFE Annual Report 1977, p. 1 6.1 3. The Monopolies Commission, 1 973, p. 1 28.


19

Appendix

Gentlemen,Reference: AsbestosisWe received the memorandum No 13134 dated the 6th of this month that you sent to our delegated administrator, Mr. André

Emsens.You will remember that we ourselves have already drawn your attention to asbestosis, through our letter of 15 May 1931 .

In 1933 we received the report of Dr E.R.A. Merewether, which was discussed in July 1933 at the seventh sitting of theCorrespondence Committee for Industrial health of the International Labour Office, and since then we have been continuallyoccupied with precautionary measures, ofwhich we have already for many years been aware.

We believe that we have succeeded in our Pipe Division all that is possible, asbestos dust being practically non-existentthere. In our Plate [Sheet] Division, the shielding of the mills and the sealing precautions of the asbestos rooms have eliminatedthe dust to a large degree.

We took the initiative of alerting the Medical Services of Labor in 1930 by sending them the documentation we have andby facilitating the X-ray examination of the workers who have worked for us for a number of years in conditions when illnessescould have occurred. These examinations have been negative.

Since the war, the Health Services are again concerned with asbestosis and we have put ourselves at the disposition of theexamining doctor to help with the many radioscopies and X-rays, not only among the workers still exposed today to asbestosdust, but also for those who might have been exposed in the past and who now occupy other positions.

Although we have no knowledge of the doctor’s report, we know that the examinations went as far as they could, and all,except for one, were negative. This tells you that in our areas of production and raw materials, cases of illness are in fact nil.

As for the disease itself we think that it is not actually an occupational disease, given the fact that only in an extremelysmall number of cases has it appeared amongst workers who have been exposed to particles of asbestos dust. We also know thatsome doctors consider this illness an idiosyncratic occurrence akin to eczema in the case of some cement workers.

In any case, from a general viewpoint while it is good for users of asbestos to be alerted to the possible danger to whichthey might be exposed, we believe that with appropriate means it is possible to eliminate this danger almost entirely. We callyour attention to the fact that in some U.S factories, it is obligatory to wear a mask. It is however not the case here.

It seems to us that if there is asbestosis, it happens mostly in the weaving of asbestos, or perhaps in the mines, or in badlyequipped factories that the illness occurs and in that regard, it is clear that the general interest requires control measureswherever there is danger.

As is the rule, we are sending a copy of this letter directly to Eternit Amsterdam.Please accept our salutations.

S. A. ETERNIT


20

According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Schmid-heinys constitute the “best known business dynasty ofSwitzerland,” and Max Schmidheiny the “greatest in-dustrialist in Switzerland” [1 ] . How did the Schmid-heinys, who flew the flag of globalization very early,get to where they are now?

Bricks and Cement

The history of the Schmidheiny imperium began inHeerbrugg, a small village in the Rhine Valley, in theeastern part of Switzerland. Jacob Schmidheiny (1838-1905), the grandfather of Max Schmidheiny, was theson of a tailor and was originally a silk weaver [2] .After his attempt as a textile manufacturer, he estab-lished a series of tile works, starting in 1870. Beforethat, he had bought the Castle Heerbrugg with a loanfrom a virtual stranger; the castle remained in the fam-ily until the early twenty-first century. In 1906, ErnstSchmidheiny (1871 -1935), Jacob’s elder son, beganproducing cement. This would eventually lead to thecreation of the Schmidheinys’ vast global conglomerate,Holderbank; the name being derived from the locationof a factory in which Ernst Schmidheiny had acquiredan interest before World War I.

As early as 1911 the Swiss cement industrialists foun-ded a cartel that controlled prices and limited produc-tion (this ensured fat profits for the Swiss cementindustry for many years; until the 1990s, in fact). At thesame time the industry underwent extensive consolida-tion, resulting in the elimination of most of the weaker,independent entities.

Between the wars Holderbank expanded abroad, and by1944 it was an international corporation of considerablesize with cement companies in Switzerland, the Nether-lands, Belgium, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Brazil,and Peru. After the Second World War, it continued toexpand rapidly, establishing itself in South Africa,Canada, and the United States. After the fall of the Wallthe conglomerate quickly showed up in Eastern Europe,and it commenced operations in Asia. By 1991 , over360 companies in twenty countries on five continentsbelonged to Holderbank. The strategic aims were ex-pressed as globalization, verticalization, and expansion

of services. In 2010, Holcim (the name of Holderbanksince 2001 ) employed over 80,000 people in about sev-enty countries. With a turnover of 21 .65 billion Swissfrancs the corporation earned a net profit of 1 .62 billionfrancs [3] .

The Timber Industry, Optical Instruments, and

Eternit

The scope of the Schmidheinys’ activities was not lim-ited to tiles and cement, not by a long shot. In 1920,Ernst Schmidheiny together with an associate took overthe Swiss Eternit-Werke AG in Niederurnen, a companythat had been founded in 1903; in 1923 he became amember of the board of directors of Gips-Union AGZürich; and in the following year he founded Holzin-dustrie AG (Hiag). Ernst’s brother, Jacob Schmidheiny(1875-1955) acquired an interest in the automobilefactory Safir and in 1921 together with two othersfounded Heinrich Wild, Werkstätte für Feinmechanikund Optik, which later became Leica. In 1928 Eternitacquired a German subsidiary, the Deutsche Asbestze-ment AG Berlin.

In the interwar period there was an initial de facto splitof the imperium, in that Jacob Schmidheiny took chargeof the tile business while Ernst Schmidheiny becameresponsible for the cement business. The firm Wild,which took over the German company of Leitz in1972/1974, was held by the family until the 1990s.

The man who invented asbestos cement, the AustrianLudwig Hatschek, licensed his product (trademarked“Eternit”) country by country, that is, only one licensewas allowed for any one country. With one exception,the Dutch firm Martinit, licensees were obligated to usethe word “Eternit” in both their company title and thename of their product. This led to a series of companiescalled Eternit, most of which were unrelated, at leastinitially. This was to change: two national Eternit com-panies, in particular, Eternit Belgium and EternitSwitzerland (controlled by the Schmidheinys), rose toprominence and established Eternit subsidiaries abroad.After World War II, both of these multinationals con-tinued to expand their global reach. In the heyday ofasbestos production, the Schmidheinys controlled


2. THE SCHMIDHEINY FAMILY IMPERIUM

Adrian Knoepfl i1

1 Adrian Knoepfli: Economics Journalist, Zurich, Switzerland; email: [email protected] translated from German by Penny Milbouer.

21

Eternit factories in sixteen countries, employing 23,000workers, and they owned interests in factories, throughtheir stake in the Belgian Eternit Group (belonging tothe Emsens family), in another sixteen countries. Theannual turnover of the Swiss Eternit Group in the mid-1980s was two billion Swiss francs, while the BelgianEternit Group had a turnover of two billion francs, ofwhich the Schmidheinys owned a share of about 20%.In 1989 the Swiss Eternit Group separated from theBelgian Eternit Group [4] .

Max Schmidheiny, who had taken charge of the SwissEternit Group in 1967, was succeeded by his sonStephan in 1975. In 1978, Stephan Schmidheiny an-nounced that Eternit planned to stop making productscontaining asbestos, and Eternit thus began to changeover to asbestos-free products.

Max, Ernst, and Peter

What may be termed the third generation Schmid-heinys, namely the brothers Ernst (1 902-1985) and Max(1908-1991 ) along with their cousin Peter Schmidheiny(1908-2001 ), continued the family business and expan-ded it. Peter Schmidheiny took over from his father Jac-ob as head of the tile group, which had changed itsname to Zürcher Ziegeleien, as well as the engineeringworks of Escher Wyss in Zurich that Jacob Schmid-heiny and an associate had acquired in 1936. Therenowned works of Escher Wyss had fallen on hardtimes during the worldwide economic crisis and sur-vived thanks only to the intervention and aid of the pub-lic purse. In 1966, the Schmidheinys sold Escher Wyssto the engineering company Sulzer, headquartered inWinterthur, bestowing on the Schmidheiny family in re-turn a seat on the Sulzer board of directors. In 1999, thisbranch of the family, now represented by Peter’s sonJacob (born 1943), left the tile business, which was soldto the leading Austrian sector entity, Wienerberger. Fol-lowing this, the firm’s name was changed from ZürcherZiegeleien to Conzzeta, which is now involved with en-gineering, plant construction, foam materials, sportinggoods, graphite coatings, and real estate.

Max Schmidheiny, known in his circle as “Sir Max”and from time to time politically active, was the mostdistinctive figure in this third generation. Under hisleadership, with brother Ernst’s help, Holderbank (nowHolcim) was “forged into its essential components,”Wild Heerbrugg (now Leica) “a leading brand in optics”and Eternit “construction material in demand world-wide.” Hiag, which produces fibers, chipboard, and par-quet flooring, became a market leader. It was acquiredin the 1970s by Gustav Grisard, who had married intothe Schmidheiny family [5] .

ABB, Swissair, and the Big Banks

The Schmidheinys not only had their own imperium butwere linked in many ways with other industrial sectorssuch as energy and transport as well as major Swissbanks. In 1959, Max Schmidheiny was the impetus forthe founding of Swisspetrol, which then began to ex-plore for oil in Switzerland. Then he became the au-thoritative figure in the technological company BBC(now ABB) [6] . He was also a member of the board ofdirectors of, among others, Motor-Columbus, the elec-tronics corporation Landis & Gyr, Genfer Versicher-ungen (insurance group), the Zürcher Privatbank undVerwaltungsgesellschaft, and the Swiss Railroad (SBB).Ernst Schmidheiny significantly shaped the history ofthe national airline, Swissair, as president of the board[7] .

The three large Swiss banks (at the time) doled outSchmidheinys among themselves: Max and PeterSchmidheiny went to the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt(SKA, now Credit Suisse) and Ernst Schmidheiny to theSchweizerische Bankgesellschaft (SBG, now UBS). Inthe younger generation, Stephan Schmidheiny became amember of the board at SBG; Thomas Schmidheiny atSKA; and Peter’s son Jacob at the SchweizerischerBankverein (SBV, merged in 1998 with SBG to becomeUBS).

Distribution of the Estate

As the fourth generation took over, the huge fortune ofMax Schmidheiny was distributed among his sons in1984. Thomas Schmidheiny (born 1945) got the cementcompany of Holderbank and Wild-Leitz; his youngerbrother Stephan (born 1947) got Gipsunion and Eternit.The third son Alexander (1951 -1992) took over the skiwax company Toko in 1982, which then became part ofZürcher Ziegeleien eleven years later after Alexander’searly death. In 1989 there was an exchange: Wild-Leitzwent to Stephan Schmidheiny, who handed overGipsunion and the Swiss Eternit to Thomas in return.

While Thomas Schmidheiny opted for continuity forHolderbank, Stephan diversified into other sectors, forexample, the steel trade and metal construction,whereby buying and selling often happened in rapidsuccession. Stephan Schmidheiny invested early in Lat-in America [8] . Besides the companies already men-tioned, he took over from his father both the ZürcherPrivatbank und Verwaltungsgesellschaft, which he soldto SBG in 1989, and the equity stake in BBC. He in-vested together with Nicolas G. Hayek in the clockcompany SMH (now Swatch Group) in 1985/86; in1987 he bought a majority stake in the electronics com-


22

pany of Landis & Gyr. In 1994 Stephan Schmidheinyhad control of his various holdings (Anova, Unotec,Nueva), Leica (formerly Wild-Leitz), Landis & Gyr,and the international company of Cosa Liebermann; heheld shares in ABB, Merkur (retail trade), Globus (de-partment store), and BB Industrie Holding; he was alsoon the board of directors of the international food con-glomerate Nestlé [9] .

Stephan Schmidheiny Exits from Swiss Industry

In the second half of the 1990s Stephan Schmidheinyspeeded up his gradual departure, probably motivatedby the severe structural crises, from Swiss industry andshifted his energy to Latin America and cultural andcharitable activities. Leica was divided into three com-panies in 1996 and 1997: Leica Camera, Leica Mi-crosystems, and Leica Geosystems, all of which went tonew owners [10] . To fund his charitable efforts in LatinAmerica, where, among other things, he restores rainforests and supports small and mid-sized enterprises,Stephan Schmidheiny established the foundations ofFundes (1986) and Avina (1994) in addition to hisGrupo Nueva [11 ] . In 2003 the Viva Trust was born, in-to which Schmidheiny put his construction materialbusinesses concentrated in Grupo Nueva, a donationworth about a billion Swiss francs. And then GrupoNueva sold all these shares and invested in Masisa,which owns timber and wood processing companies inChile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico. Ac-cording to the Welt am Sonntag (a German weekly),Schmidheiny is “the most dedicated sponsor of LatinAmerican art worldwide” [12] with his Daros-Latin-america AG, a private Swiss collection based in Zurich.As the 1990s drew to a close, Stephan Schmidheiny hadphased himself out of all responsibilities for operationsand management [1 3] . But his money continues “towork.” For example, in 2008 he bought interests in theglobal market expansion services company DKSH. Itwas announced at the time that he wanted to expandlinks between Asia and Latin America [14] .

The Slow Retirement ofThomas Schmidheiny

Over the last few years, Thomas Schmidheiny has alsowithdrawn from the day-to-day operations of the busi-ness, in part voluntarily and in part involuntarily. Hecontinues to sit on the board of directors of the cementconglomerate Holcim, second in the industry only toLafarge, worldwide. At the close of 2010 he still had ashare of 18.2 percent in Holcim; the second biggestshareholder of Holcim was the Russian company Euro-cement Holding with, in September 2011 , 1 0.1 percent[1 5] . Thomas Schmidheiny’s withdrawal was acceler-ated by a series of unpleasant events, the first of which

was an accusation of insider trading. In December 2000,at a board of directors meeting of the mining companyXstrata, based in Zug, Switzerland, he learned that therewas going to be a merger with the Spanish companyAsturiana de Zinc (Azsa). Four days later he boughtAzsa shares, which rose in value by about 2 millionSwiss francs after the announcement of the mergerbuyout offer by Xstrata. But the details leaked to thepublic. At the beginning of January 2001 he sold hisstake for his purchase price to Xstrata. The Spanish au-thorities initiated a trial, which resulted in a fine of 1 .5million euros. Under the pressure of events, Thomasfirst resigned his role in operations, then his position aschairman of Holcim; then followed resignations fromthe boards ofXstrata and the Credit Suisse Group [16] .

The varnish on the façade of the amazingly successfulindustrialist continued to crack with the bankruptcy ofSwissair, of which he was vice president. In March2001 , even before the final collapse, the board of dir-ectors of Swissair, consisting of the best of the best, in-cluding Thomas Schmidheiny, all resigned but one.Afterwards, the board members, some Swissair topmanagement personnel, and a few outsiders were put ontrial, but all nineteen defendants were cleared in 2007.“Mistakes were made that were punished with financialruin but none of the nineteen defendants committed acriminal act under the law,” the Neue Zürcher Zeitung[1 7] said. In 2002, Thomas Schmidheiny consolidatedhis industrial and private interests into his family’s Of-fice Spectrum Value Management Ltd., which not onlyheld their investment in Holcim, but also investments inbiotechnology, and equity interests in: Siegfried, theSwiss fine chemical company; the Grand Hotel Quel-lenhof & Spa Suites in the Swiss spa town of BadRagaz; and vineyards in Switzerland, the Napa Valley inCalifornia, Australia, and Argentina. The generation ofMax and Ernst Schmidheiny had also invested in hotels.

The Schmidheinys are certainly no longer captains ofindustry, but they are still among the wealthiest inSwitzerland. Thomas Schmidheiny’s fortune, in 2007reckoned to be 7.5 billion Swiss francs, was estimatedby the business magazine Bilanz to be 4.5 billion francsin 2010. That’s still a billion more than in 2004.Stephan Schmidheiny’s fortune is estimated by Bilanzto be 3.5 billion francs, a billion less than in 2007 [18] .

September 2011

References

1 . Gerhard Schwarz, “Unternehmerische Kraft undgeseellschaftliche Sensibilität,” Neue Zürcher Zei-tung, April 3, 2008. Carl M. Holliger, Die Reichen


23

und die Superreichen in der Schweiz (Hamburg1974), p. 1 3 .

2. See Hans O. Staub, “Von Schmidheiny zu Schmid-heiny,” Schweizer Pioniere der Wirtschaft und Tech-nik, Vol. 61 (Meilen 1994), for the rise of theSchmidheiny family. Also see Werner Catrina, DerEternit-Report, Stephan Schmidheinys schweresErbe (Zürich 1985).

3 . Annual Report, Holcim 2010.4. Catrina, Eternit-Report, pp. 238-239. See also the

essay ‘”What the Company Eternit is now” in thisvolume. For the history ofEternit go to www.etern-it.ch. For fibers and their devastating consequences,see Maria Roselli, Die Asbestlüge, Geschichte undGegenwart einer Industriekatastrophe (Zurich2007).

5. Schwarz, Unternehmerische Kraft. Adrian Knoepfli,“Auf internationalem Parkett,” Handelszeitung, No.31 , August 2, 2001 .

6. For the role of the Schmidheiny family in BBC, seeStaub, “Von Schmidheiny zu Schmidheiny,” pp.1 39-144.

7. Staub, “Von Schmidheiny zu Schmidheiny,” pp.1 39-144.

8. See the essay by Dan Berman “Asbestos Magnateor Environmental Guru,” this volume Chap 3.

9. Erik Nolmans, “Gesucht: Erfolgserlebnis,” Facts24/1995.

1 0. Jörg Becher, “Im Nebel von Landis & Gyr,” Bilanz,7/97. For the history ofLeica see:http://www.leica-geosystems.com/media/new/pro-duct_solution/Jubilaeumsbroschuere.pdf.

11 . Annual Report, Avina 2009.1 2. Welt am Sonntag, No.49, December 3, 2006.1 3. René Lüchinger and Ueli Burkhard, Stephan

Schmidheiny, Sein langer Weg zu sich selbst, Erbe –

Unternehmer – Philanthrop (Bern 2009), p. 244. athttp://www.gruponueva.com.

14. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 8, 2008.1 5. Annual Report, Holcim, 2010. Press release,

Holcim, September 16, 2011 .1 6. Tages-Anzeiger, March 31 , 2011 . For the most re-

cent developments for Holcim, see Jörg Becher,“Wir sind kriegserprobt,” Interview with ThomasSchmidheiny in Bilanz 18/2009 at http://www.bil-anz.ch/people/gespraech/wir-sind-kriegs-erprobt.

1 7. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 8, 2007.1 8. “Die 300 Reichsten 2010” at http://www.bilanz.ch.


Claudia

Annette

(m. GustavE. Grisard)

Anton E.

Schrafl

Adda Marietta

1944-Thomas

1945-Stephan

1947-Alexander

1951 -1992Eva

Ariane Vera

Ursula

Jacob (III)

1943-Marina

Nelly Helen Peter

1908-2001m. RuthSchiesser1912-1992

Marrianne

Ursula

Max

1908-1991m. AddaScherrer

Ernst (II)

1902-1985m. Anna MariaGygim. Lucie Meyer

Marie-Luise

(Lilly")

1900-1981m. AntonSchafl

Vera-Lydia

("Verina")

1897-1981m. HansHoffmann

Ernst (I)

1871 -1935m. Vera Kuster1 877-1964

Jacob (II)

1875-1955m. Fanny Alder1881 -1967

Jacob (I)

1838-1905m. ElsieKaufmann1843-1927

Hans Jacob Schmidheiny

1810-1 874m. Kathrine Nüesch1811 -1 867

The Schmidheiny Generations*

*This abridged version of the Schmidheiny family tree is intended to clarify the relationship between members of the clan mentioned in the abovepaper. Where no details have been given, or where names have been grouped, the birth order is preserved (down the listed names and left to right).

24

What did Stephan Schmidheiny, former sole proprietorof Eternit, do with the billions from his sale of Eternit'sasbestos properties in the late 1980s? Between 1984 and1999 Schmidheiny's net worth doubled from US$2 bil-lion to US$4.4 billion. Now, after donating at least abillion dollars to a foundation he controls, Forbes hasestimated that his net worth had declined to US$2.9 bil-lion by early 2011 [1 ] .

Part of what Schmidheiny has done is to invest in LatinAmerican forest properties. According to Swiss ac-counts, Stephan Schmidheiny began buying Chileanforest land in 1982, and by 2000 he owned over120,000 hectares in Southern Chile, near Concepcion,land which the Mapuche Indians claim has been theirssince time immemorial. The Mapuche have charged thatsome of what Schmidheiny bought was stolen fromthem during the Pinochet dictatorship, using that re-gime's standard techniques of intimidation and torture.Schmidheiny's Chilean holdings, owned by his TerraNova affiliate, are owned in turn by Nueva, Schmid-heiny’s Swiss-based holding company, which makeshim one of Chile’s largest owners of forest properties.(Nueva also controls companies in Latin America whichemploy thousands in the production of pipes, buildingmaterials, and in the planting and harvest of vast num-bers of trees.) Terra Nova’s businesses are so controver-sial that Huilcamans, President of the Mapuches'Consejo de Todas las Tierras, traveled to Switzerland in1999 to convince Schmidheiny of the injustice of someof his subsidiary's activities. According to one account,Schmidheiny referred the Mapuche President to Hans-Ulrich Spiess, Terra Nova’s Swiss representative, whofound the accusations "absurd." Spiess claimed thatTerra Nova held a "legal title" based on Chilean legalprocedures, and that "If we look back long enough, wewill always find someone to whom the land belonged toat some time in the past.” Schmidheiny never criticizedChile's Pinochet dictatorial regime in public, but wasquoted in a speech as saying: "A Third World countrywhich opts for a liberal free-market economy must havea strong state." [2]

Schmidheiny used his “philanthropic" interests in LatinAmerica to create the impression that he has invented a

new environmental paradigm based on the slogan "eco-efficiency" spurred by the representations of "civil so-ciety." Progress occurs, he believes, when "civil soci-ety. . .[that is to say] . . .millions of women and menoutside of government" through "access" to "manage-ment know-how" and "fundraising capacity" are "em-powered" to transform their countries, a roundaboutway of advocating "no government regulation of busi-ness” [3] . Schmidheiny's "eco-efficiency" and "civil so-ciety" paradigms did not include an imperative toinform asbestos-cement employees that their jobs werekilling them – or that Eternit had a moral and legal dutyto compensate those whose lives had been suffocatedthrough asbestos exposure. Apparently the old "privat-ize the profits/socialize the losses" paradigm trumpedthe new "eco-efficiency/civil society" paradigm for thevictims of his former 35-country Eternit empire, someof whom Schmidheiny must remember from his workas a foreman-trainee on the shop floor at Eternit'slargest Brazilian plant in Osasco, São Paulo state, in theearly 1970s.

In 1950 Stephan’s father Max Schmidheiny, Eternit’ssole owner, wrote to the company’s Dutch subsidiaryabout recent research on asbestosis. In 1971 Max wasquoted as criticizing Johns-Manville, the American as-bestos giant, for placing warnings on sacks of asbestosexported from its mines in Quebec [4] . By the late1970s Stephan Schmidheiny – who had replaced hisfather as owner – had ordered his firm’s researchers todevelop ways to produce fiber-cement panels whichused plant fibers. Eternit even began to produce fiber-cement panels utilizing plant rather than asbestos fibersat its Ricalit factory in Costa Rica. But for a series ofreasons, including the opposition of his own engineer-ing staff and Eternit’s local partners around the world,the asbestos substitution strategy was slow to take ef-fect, so Schmidheiny ended up selling all of his asbes-tos-cement factories by 1990, in an attempt to transferthe liability for asbestos-related deaths to new owners.

BETTING THE PENSION FUND? In 1987, Stephan

Schmidheiny bought Landis & Gyr, a family-owned firm

which was one of the world's leading companies in

automatic controls for buildings. In eight years he

3. ASBESTOS MAGNATE OR ENVIRONMENTAL GURU: THE TRIALS

OF STEPHAN SCHMIDHEINY

Daniel M. Berman1

1 Dan M. Berman PhD: author ofDeath On the Job, co-author (with John T. O'Connor) ofWho Owns the Sun and co-editor ofHealthandWork Under Capitalism: An International Perspective; email: [email protected]


25

eliminated 3,000 jobs, and, in 1994, the Landis & Gyr

pension fund lost US$300 million in stock market spec-

ulation. The workers and the union claimed that

Schmidheiny was fully aware of the risks management

was taking with the workers' pension fund and that he

had supported the "immoral" decision to withhold man-

agement contributions to the fund [5] .

Schmidheiny, while selling off his Swiss properties andtransforming himself into a banker and speculator, madea strenuous effort to integrate himself directly into thehighest spheres ofAmerican society as an entrepreneurand environmental philosopher. In 1992 he publishedChanging Course: A Global Business Perspective on

Development and the Environment [6] , which arguedthat rational capitalist development – based on his "eco-efficiency" concept – was the long-term solution to bothenvironmental devastation and declining profits. He puthis money and influence behind the concept by found-ing and funding the World Business Council for Sus-tainable Development (WBCSD), which set the tone forindustrial and business participation at the InternationalConference on Environment and Development in Riode Janeiro in 1992 [7] . One question the Schmidheinyanalysis never answers is: what is to be done whenbusinesses refuse to practice "eco-efficiency”? Thatchoice would seem to be left to individual businesses.

During the 1990s Schmidheiny served on the Board ofDirectors of the Museum of Modern Art in New YorkCity, and was also an active participant and lecturer atthe Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy ofthe Yale Law School. In effect, Stephan Schmidheinydecided "to take his money and run" from Eternit'slooming asbestos disaster, and reinvest it in SouthAmerican forests, construction materials, and electron-ics companies and in book projects, “grassroots”groups, universities and "philanthropic" enterprisesaround the globe, while leaving sick and dying workersto their own devices. He had launched himself on theworld stage, magically remorphing himself into an en-vironmental thinker and benefactor, and had that rolesanctified by institutions of "the higher learning" [8]such as Yale University, which tastefully side-steppedthe lethal origin of his multibillion-dollar fortune. Inawarding Schmidheiny the honorary title “Doctor ofHumane Letters” in 1996, Yale praised him in the fol-lowing terms:

"Not content to be a steward of a family busi-ness, you have used your corporate role to pro-mote stewardship of the global environment. Youhave made company decisions based upon thehealth of the planet, introducing new technolo-gies and ways of doing business that are environ-

mentally friendly. By bringing your message toleading industrialists around the world, you havehelped to create an attainable vision of a globaleconomy based on sustainable, ecologicallysound development." [9]

So far, Schmidheiny’s concept of "stewardship" has notincluded a frank public assumption of moral and finan-cial responsibility for the suffering and killing causedby the production and sale of Eternit's asbestos productsaround the world. But in Osasco, Brazil a group ofworkers from Eternit's asbestos-cement plant, led byMinistry of Labor safety engineer Fernanda Giannasi,founded the Brazilian Association of People Exposed toAsbestos (ABREA) to fight for just compensation,medical care, and a ban on asbestos, a fight for justicein what Giannasi has called an "invisible war" againstworkers [10] . In addition, Schmidheiny is on trial inTurin, charged with willfully causing an environmentaldisaster, failure to comply with safety rules and negli-gence. Plaintiffs claiming damages at this criminal trialtotal more than 6,000 people including asbestos-diseasesurvivors and the relatives of around 2,200 peoplekilled by exposure to Eternit asbestos. Raffaele Guar-iniello, Turin's Public Prosecutor, has called for prisonsentences of 20 years for Schmidheiny and for co-de-fendant Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne of Bel-gium [11 ] . A decision by a three-judge panel is expectedin early 2012. A decade ago Stephan Schmidheiny toldtheWall Street Journal “I promise you I will never go toan Italian prison.” Since then he has refused to grantpress interviews [12] , and he has expressed no publicremorse for the suffering and death his firm caused[1 3] . Only Stephan Schmidheiny, safe in his chateau bya lake in Switzerland or on his La Pacifica farm inCosta Rica, can tell us if he hears, in his dreams, theghosts of asbestos workers past crying out for justice.

October 2011

References

1 . See www.forbes.com, which in 1999 judgedStephan Schmidheiny to be among the 100 wealthi-est people in the world. The figure ofUS$2 billionin 1985 is from the Wemer Catrina book, Eternit:Stephan Schmidheinys Schweres Erbe [Eternit:

Stephan Schmidheiny’s Difficult Inheritance].Zürich: Orell Füssli; 1 985. The latest estimate of hiswealth by Forbes is for March 2011 .

2. Dominik Flammer. Chiles Vergangenheit holtSchmidheiny ein [Chile's Past Catches up withSchmidheiny] . Weltwoche, Zürich, Feb. 1 8, 1 999;also Ulrich Achermann. Schmidheiny & Co: Indi-aners Setzen Wälder in Brand [Schmidheiny & Co:Indians Set Fire to Forests] . Weltwoche, Feb. 25,


26

1999. www.weltwoche.ch/.A more sympathetic view of Schmidheiny is avail-able from Wemer Catrina. Stephan SchmidheinysFerne Wälder [Stephan Schmidheiny's DistantForests] . Tages-Anzeiger, Zürich, Jan. 23, 1 997.www.tages-anzeiger.ch/archiv/. Wemer Catrina isalso the author ofEternit: Stephen SchmidheinysSchweres Erbe [Eternit: Stephan Schmidheiny’s Dif-ficult Inheritance] . Zürich: Orell-Füssli; 1 985.For a sketch of health conditions and practices in-side the Osasco plant in 1983, see articles by DanielM. Berman: Asbesto (Amianto) no Brasil: Ameaça àSaúde dos Trabalhadores e da População. Trabalhoe Saúde, published by the Departamento Intersindic-al de Estudos e Pesquisas de Saúde (DIESAT), SãoPaulo, July/August 1985 (cover article); Asbestosand Health in the Third World: the Case ofBrasil.International Journal ofHealth Services, 2ndquarter, 1 986; Amiante et Santé dans le TiersMonde, le cas du Brásil. In Dr. Annie Thébaud-Mony (ed.) L’ Envers des Societés Industrielles: Ap-proche Comparative Franco-Brésilienne. Paris:Éditions L'Harmattan; 1 990.

3 . Stephan Schmidheiny. Missing the Boat on ForeignAid. World Resources Institute, WRI Perspectives,Feb. 2000. www.wri/org/.

4. Barry Castleman. The Criminal Trial of StephanSchmidheiny in Turin. This volume, Chap. 10.

5. See Adrian Knoepfli's articles: Beschäftigte alManoevriermasse, Von Schmidheiny über Elec-trowatt zu Siemens. SMUV-Zeitung No. 9, Feb. 26,1 997; Die Karten wurden neu verteilt, SKA, SBG,Elektrowatt, Schmidheiny, Winterthur, Rueck. Daz,Dec. 22, 1 995; and Ein neues Buch Über dieSchmidheinys, Stephan, Thomas, Jacob. Wer istWer? Dec. 30, 1 994.

6. Published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachu-setts.

7. For an understanding of the role of Schmidheinyand the WBCSD see Pratap Chatterjee and MatthiasFinger's brilliant but little-known book The EarthBrokers: Politics, and Development. London &New York: Routledge; 1 994.

8. See Thorstein Veblen. The Theory ofthe LeisureClass. MacMillan; 1 899, chapter 14, "The HigherLearning as an Expression of the Pecuniary Cul-ture," for an amusing take on the uses of the uni-versity to big business.

9. 1996 Stephan Ernest Schmidheiny, Doctor ofHu-

mane Letters, http://www.stephanschmid-heiny.net/files/file/awards/E_6_3-Aw-4_Yale.pdf,downloaded March 30, 2011 .

1 0. The "invisible war" quote is from Fernanda Gian-nasi's acceptance speech on receiving an awardfrom the Occupational Health Section of the Amer-ican Public Health Association in Chicago, Nov.1999. For accounts of present-day struggles forjustice for asbestos workers and for an asbestos banin Brazil, go to http://www.ab-rea.com.br/1 7ingles.htm.

11 . For on-going news in English about the Turin trial,Google “Asbestos in the Dock” at http://asbestos-inthedock.ning.com; downloaded October 11 , 2011 .

1 2. David Bank. Moral Fiber: Billionaire Activist onEnvironment Faces His Own Past. Wall StreetJournal, Dec. 9, 2002.Castleman requested an interview with Schmid-heiny, but Schmidheiny refused, as Castleman notedin Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, op. cit. , p.769.

1 3. In a message he wrote to friends about his “miracu-lous” recovery to a “new life” after his aorta rup-tured, Schmidheiny makes no apologies for thebusiness which earned billions for him and hisfamily but sent thousands ofworkers gasping andchoking their way to early deaths. See: “Ein Ges-chenktes Leben” [“A Gift ofLife”] , by StephanSchmidheiny, Feb. 2008; this account was circu-lated to friends and acquaintances and appears tohave been published as a chapter beginning on p.233 of a book co-authored by René Lüchinger andUeli Burkhard, Stephan Schmidheiny, sein langerWeg zu sich selbst [Stephan Schmidheiny: His LongJourney Back to Himself] , Bern, Stämpfli Velag AG,apparently published in 2009.


27

The Swiss Eternit Group had been under the control ofthe Schmidheiny family since 1920, although undergo-ing a number of reorganizations and changes in owner-ship in recent decades; then, in 2003, the Schmidheinyera of Eternit finally ended with the sale to SwissporHolding.

Separation from the Belgian Eternit Group

When Max Schmidheiny’s imperium was distributedamong his sons in 1984, the Swiss Eternit Group wentto Stephan Schmidheiny, who had headed the companysince 1975. After Stephan Schmidheiny announced in1978 that Eternit would cease manufacturing productswith asbestos, the company, much to Daddy Max’s irrit-ation, gradually pulled out of asbestos cement produc-tion. The strategy used to phase out production withasbestos was twofold: on the one hand products con-taining asbestos were replaced with asbestos-freeproducts; on the other, “dirty” companies were sold.

The four Eternit factories in Italy, which had a marketshare in Italy of more than 20 percent, were either soldor shut down in 1986. At the end of 1988 the sale of in-terests in asbestos cement production in Brazil, Bolivia,and Columbia followed, including the Group’s purge ofall interests in its last asbestos mine (in Brazil). Thesethree countries provided the Swiss Eternit Group with80% of its entire South American profit. The reasongiven for the sale was that asbestos-free fiber cementproducts were having difficulties breaking into the mar-ket, rendering transition to their production untenable.As a result, fiber cement’s share of total earnings for theconglomerate fell from 50% to 40% (20% for productswith asbestos and 20% for those with no asbestos). Theremainder was from fiber cement substitutes and othermaterials.

In 1989 the Swiss and Belgian Eternit Groups werebroken up. The Swiss Eternit Group controlled not onlythe parent company in Switzerland but the GermanEternit, the South African Everite, and affiliates inCosta Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, andSaudi Arabia as well. The Group also controlled in-terests in businesses located in a number of Latin Amer-ican countries, and similarly, it controlled 20 percent in

each of the Belgian entities (CFE and Eteroutremer) ofthe Belgian Eternit Group. The Belgian Group, ownedby the Emsens family, controlled Eternit entities in Bel-gium, Holland, Great Britain, and France, and held in-terests in enterprises in Zaire, Burundi, Angola, Nigeria,Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, andin the Philippines. Stephan Schmidheiny now sold hisshares in the two Belgian entities to the Belgian EternitGroup. The Latin American interests of both groupswere also broken up. With this, Stephan Schmidheinyproceeded with his exit from asbestos. It should benoted that the Belgians were quite active in countrieswhere the asbestos issue hadn’t yet aroused publicawareness to the same degree that the Swiss EternitGroup had experienced.

From Stephan Schmidheiny via Holcim to Swisspor

After this adjustment, Stephan Schmidheiny sold hisshares in Eternit AG, which controlled the Swiss Eternitfactories, to his brother Thomas. His interests in foreigncompanies (in Germany, South Africa, Latin America,and Saudi Arabia) weren’t affected by this sale; theywere transferred to a newly formed company calledNueva Holding. In 1990, his shares in the GermanEternit were sold to Etex (the renamed Belgian EternitGroup), the Belgians already owning a majority interestin the German company.

Prior to the transfer of ownership, Eternit AG had beenthrough a series of changes. In 1986 it was restructuredas Eternit Holding AG and, simultaneously, a newEternit AG was created comprising the two SwissEternit factories and interests in five other (non-Eternit)concerns. A year later this “new” Eternit AG was re-structured as Eternova Holding and yet another EternitAG emerged comprising only the two Eternit factories.It was this Eternit AG that Thomas Schmidheiny ac-quired. By the end of 1989 he had integrated Eternit AGinto a building materials group of companies, later re-named Cemroc, which in 1996 would become a subsi-diary of the Holderbank (renamed Holcim in 2001 )conglomerate.

In Switzerland, the last pipe containing asbestos wasmade in 1994. Sixteen years after Stephan Schmidheiny

4. WHAT ETERNIT IS NOW

Adrian Knoepfl i1

1 Adrian Knoepfli: Economics Journalist, Zurich, Switzerland; email: [email protected] translated from German by Penny Milbouer


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announced his exit from asbestos the era of asbestoswas over. Pipe production in Switzerland ceased alto-gether in 1997 but a new affiliate, Etertub, was estab-lished that same year to make and sell pipes made fromfiber cement and synthetic materials in Germany. Alsoin 1997, in Slovenia, Eternit in a joint venture withSalonit Anhovo Holding established the company ofEsal. The joint venture, it was announced, would helpSlovenia to manufacture asbestos-free fiber cement.

The Holcim conglomerate finally managed to spin offEternit AG in 2003 as part of its long held strategy toconcentrate on its core business. The reason it gave forholding on to the company for so long was that Eternitwas an important customer for cement, but there wereprobably sentimental reasons in play too. The buyer wasBA Holding, controlled by entrepreneur Bernhard Alp-stäg, owner, along with his brother Georges, of theSwisspor Group. In 2005, under its new owner, EternitAG again went through a series of reconstructions andname changes. Firstly, Eternit AG transferred the Swissfactories to its subsidiary Estertub (Estertub was the re-named Etertub; the trade name Etertub having been lostin a management buyout in 2003). Then Estertub wasrenamed Eternit (Schweiz) AG and Eternit AG renamedFibreCem Holding [1 ] . All Eternit entities belonging tothe new owner Bernhard Alpstäg were then merged to-gether into FibreCem.

In 2006 Eternit (Schweiz) AG set up the Stiftung Etern-it-Werke Schweiz (Eternit Works Foundation ofSwitzerland). This provides services primarily of a fin-ancial nature “for active and former employees andtheir families who have been hit particularly hard by theconsequences of having worked with asbestos” [2] .

FibreCem Group: Activities in Switzerland, Ger-

many, Austria, and Slovenia

The spin-offs and changes of ownership had resulted inEternit’s operations being confined to its manufacturing

facilities at Niederurnen and Payerne, Switzerland.Soon, however, the new owner forcefully pursued ex-pansion abroad, starting in 2009 with the acquisition ofthe fiber cement works of the German conglomerate ofKarl Bachl in Porschendorf near Dresden. A little whilelater it took over the Eternit works of Ludwig HatschekAG in Austria. Eternit returned to its roots so to speak,as Hatschek was the man who in his day had foundedEternit and had been the licensor for all Eternitproducts. Ludwig Hatschek AG brought 455 employeesand gross profits of 190 million Swiss francs to theFibreCem Group, which at that time had around 700employees and a net income of 160 million Swissfrancs, and subsequently acquired companies inSwitzerland, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia. “A simil-ar product strategy connects both Groups, which to datehave been doing business in various geographic mar-kets,” the buyer announced at the time of the takeover,which was made public under the rubric “solidarity inthe European fiber cement market” [4] .

In an interview Alpstäg called his takeover of Eternit “asmart decision” in retrospect. Swisspor wanted to givebuildings a special sheathing or skin. “This includes,”according to Alpstäg, “the roof, façades, windows, andthe insulation.” Eternit had a full array of façades in itsprogram where before Swisspor had gaps. The asbestosimage connected with the name, he said, was “no prob-lem” [5] . And the new owner had plans for even greaterthings: the goal, so he said in an interview with theNeue Luzerner Zeitung, was to manufacture an “Eternitbarrier” with factories in Europe from north to south.“Even folks in Lucerne [Alpstäg] dream of Eternitbranches in India, Brazil, and China because these arethe fastest growing markets” [6] .

Swisspor and Alpstäg: Insulation Materials and

Windows

The Swisspor Group, of which Eternit is a part, beganas a small cork factory in 1971 that the brothersBernhard and Georges Alpstäg took over from theirfather. It manufactured insulation materials made of ex-panded Polystyrol rigid foam (EPS) and Polyurethanerigid foam (PUR/PIR). In 1996 the Alpstäg brothers ac-quired their first window factory with the purchase ofKufag, which was soon followed by the acquisition ofDörig Fenster (1999) and Herzog Fenster (2003). Swis-spor lost out in the contest to buy the leading Swissmanufacturer, EgoKiefer. In 2011 Swisspor, now underthe brand name of Swisswindows, held second placebehind EgoKiefer in the Swiss market for windowsmade from synthetic materials.

In 1998, Swisspor – called Alcopor at the time – expan-ded into the German market with its insulation materi-

“Never a relationship”

In October 2010 Eternit (Schweiz) AG was assured thatit would “not be affected by the trial in Turin.” Thecompany announced it was “pleased that the Turincourt had completely agreed with its claims and hadunambiguously disallowed the attempt of the variouscivil plaintiffs to make Eternit (Schweiz) AG civillyliable for the acts of Eternit S.p.A.” The companyclaimed that neither Eternit (Schweiz) AG nor itsowners had ever had a relationship to Eternit S.p.A. inGenoa, and Stephan Schmidheiny had never performedany function at Eternit (Schweiz) AG or even been ashareholder [3] .


29

als, and it made a public offering [7] . Then, as early as2001 , the company was delisted. This brief interludewas accompanied by the takeover of the European affil-iate of the U.S. construction material giant, OwensCorning, which had sought Chapter 11 protection in2000 having become insolvent due to civil damagesawarded in asbestos litigation, and the sale of Alcoporto the German Knauf Group (gypsum products). Ex-cluded from this transaction were the Alcopor divisionsfor rigid foam and roofing tar sealant as well as the win-dow factories, which were transferred to SwissporHolding that Bernhard Alpstäg had re-established in2002; Knauf took over the mineral wool fiber division(glass and rock wool fiber) – once belonging to OwensCorning; and the name of Alcopor Holding waschanged to Knauf Insulation Holding [8] . All these ac-tions are, moreover, filtered out of the company’s his-tory on its website – probably because it disrupts thestraight narrative line upwards. From the late 1990s on(the newer) Swisspor was focussing as it expandedabroad on the growing market in Eastern Europe. In1999 it put insulation materials plants on line in Polandand Romania; in 2002 a second, then a third in 2004,and a fourth plant in 2008 in Poland. It acquired PrimaBau und Dämmsysteme (construction and insulationmaterials) with three plants in Austria in 2006 and in2008 another plant in Romania [9] . The rapid growth inrecent years is evident in the numbers: the SwissporGroup, which boasted as being “the leading expert forthe building envelope of the future” with 26 plants insix European countries and 2,800 employees, had aturnover in 2009 of a billion Swiss francs. For advert-ising Swisspor is relying on soccer: it bought the nam-ing rights for the new stadium for FC Luzern for 5million Swiss francs; the name will be Swissporarena.The company also supports the Lucerne soccer teamwith additional services to the tune of another 5 millionSwiss francs [10] .

Bernhard Alpstäg is a boss of the old school, casual andanti-union [11 ] , and a critic of the emphasis on shortterm profits practiced by today’s managers. “Our profitsare reinvested not drawn off,” said Alpstäg. His goal, hesaid, was to never be beholden to a bank, and that’s whySwisspor was not listed (any longer) on the stock ex-change. His brother Georges has meanwhile withdrawn

from day-to-day operations [12] .

May 2011

References

1 . See www.eternit.ch.2. See www.eternit.ch. Further details about the

foundation can be found here.3 . Press release by Eternit, Oct. 1 8, 2010.4. Press release by Swisspor, Mar. 6, 2009, and May

29, 2009, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 30, 2009.5. Claudia Kock Marti, “Die Übernahme der Eternit

war ein kluger Entscheid,” Südostschweiz am Son-ntag, Sep. 26, 2010. For a more detailed account forEternit’s current view of the asbestos issue see“Asbest ist ein dunkles Kapitel der Indus-triegeschichte,” Interview with Anders Holte, CEOofEternit Schweiz in Maria Roselli, Die As-bestlüge. Geschichte und Gegenwart einer Indus-triekatastrophe. Zürich; 2007, pp. 1 31 -1 37.

6. Charly Keiser, “Der Patron regelt seine Nachfolge,”Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Apr. 9, 2011 .

7. Aron G. Papp, “Alcopor hat viel vor,” Tages-An-zeiger, Jun. 25, 1 998.

8. Georges de Bréguy, “Wolle gegen den Ölschock,”Handelszeitung, No. 39, Sep. 27, 2000. See alsowww.baustoffmarket-online.de, October 10, 2000;Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Sep. 1 4, 2002; Bilanz,1 2/2002; Bilanz, 1 2/2003. Also HandelsregisteramtKanton Zug, entry for Swisspor Holding AG, andHandelsregister Kanton Nidwalden, entry for KnaufInsulation Holding, AG.

9. See www.swisspor-gruppe.ch.1 0. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 1 3, 2008, and

Beat Matter, “Spitzenspiel in Luzern,” die baustel-len, 02/2011 .

11 . Bilanz, 7/2001 .1 2. Claudia Kock Marti, “Die Übernahme der Eternit

war ein kluger Entscheid,” Südostschweiz am Son-ntag, Sep. 26, 2010. Flavian Cajacob, “BernhardAlpstäg, Hart sein mit sich anstatt zu jammern,”Handelszeitung, No. 34, Aug. 19, 2009. AndreasFlütsch, “Krise? Patron Bernhard Alpstäg baut aus,”Tages-Anzeiger, Mar. 1 8, 2009. Sarah Kohler, “Ichdenke in Dekaden,” Interview with Bernhard Alp-stäg, Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Jun. 1 0, 2009.Bernhard Raos, “Erfolgreiche Schaumschläger,”Bilanz, 4/1999.

30


The Eternit factory was built in Casale Monferrato, inthe North of Italy, in 1906. Progress and modernitybroke into the secular rhythms of the Monferrato hillsand countryside, which were made of poverty, starva-tion, wrinkles and hard work under the sun. The loca-tion was perfect for an asbestos cement plant: in aterritory famous for its clay, a necessary ingredient forcement production, and 100 km from Balangero, thesite of the largest chrysotile asbestos mine in WesternEurope.

It was a modern structure that opened up unexpectedemployment opportunities. In a world that had knownemigration as the only alternative to destitution it wasthe “American dream” at home: a well-paid job with setworking hours which also left time to take care of thegarden or the small vineyard, a stable future for the kids– no longer the necessity to slave in the fields or themarl mines. Eternit was the very image ofman’s victoryover nature: it produced only a limited range ofproducts, but had created “artificial stone.”

Leaflets publicized uses for the marvellous new fibre-cement in henhouses, hutches, prefabricated houses,

iceboxes, pre-fabricated schools and gyms, etc., and, ofcourse, all of them accompanied by the adjective “ra-tional,” a real password to the future. In Monferrato,everything that was “Eternit” was “good”: the childrenused waste product from the plant to build their treehouses, the adults to mark off the borders of their gar-dens or level their backyards. Sacks full of scrap, so-called “polverino” (dust), the most dangerous to one’shealth, were given away free, to be used indiscrimin-ately, as a reward for workers undertaking work alreadyknown to be dangerous to health.

The workers did piecework as was common in othercement factories in the area and in the mines in thehills; they were hired by the day and often waited hoursfor work, and this way their working day was incrediblyextended. However, at the beginning of the century,work – whether in a factory, in a mine or on the land –could be compared to the labours of a beast of burden.Society was divided into two main categories: a welleducated elite, which held the power, and a mass of ig-norant and subdued people who could only count ontheir own strength and long hours of hard work, whichcombined meant exhaustion.

5. THE ETERNIT FACTORY AT CASALE MONFERRATO

Fabrizio Meni1

1 Fabrizio Meni: author and historian; email: [email protected]. Translated from Italian by Elena Pertusati.

Stylized image of the Casale Monferatto Eternit plant in the 1920s. AFeVA archive.


31

The elite could not only read and write they also spokethe national language. By contrast, the mass of manualworkers were for the most part illiterate and communic-ated in dialects not recognized outside their local area:viewed by the elite as work animals with no language,but expletives, whispers or curse words. Today itdoesn’t seem believable that such a separation was jus-tified by unquestioned anthropological beliefs. The eliteassumed intellectual and spiritual superiority since theweary masses were regarded as being inherently stupidwith no perception of a spiritual life. But along with theintroduction of paid work in industry, came a sense ofworth for the workers. The working-class felt like abearer of values and for a while thought it was contrib-uting with its own work to the construction of a betterworld for the future.

There was then a special kind of pride in working in afactory, a pride now consigned to the realms of industri-al archaeology. This growing sense of being “a produ-cing class” led workers to question the division oftraditional society, though there was no real change inthe division of labour until the 1960s, in Italy. The oldergenerations that worked side by side with the youngerones, even in the 1960s and 1970s, retained a sense ofreverence toward the elite that commanded them, readyto call them “gentlemen” with a certain respect, recog-nizing a condition that they thought to overthrow (notdestroy) only in their dreams.

Those who worked at the Eternit factory, however, feltprivileged compared to those who had to slave in thefields, who were already old when they turned forty orwho rotted hunched in the mines. Never mind if doingthe factory job they could die. They accepted death withthe same resignation with which they were born.Whatever happened, they “the beasts” could expect todie before their time. It didn’t really matter to them if itwas the “polvere” (dust) that accelerated the process.They said they would have died anyway, that was all. Atmost, people spoke generically about diseases. Usuallythe diagnosis for Eternit labourers was acute exacerba-tion of chronic bronchitis, the heavy smokers’ illness.They also spoke about cancer, but they normally associ-ated the illness with their job – an existential condition.One works, gets sick and then dies. In a field, in a mineor in a factory; it didn’t really matter.

Actually, getting ill because of work could be a sourceof pride, like an award for bravery: “I have the‘polvere,’ you know,” like a confession shouted withdignity, as if “dust in the lungs,” on top of giving youthe right to extra pay and hope for an early retirement,was also the mark of one who worked hard and strivedand sweated to earn a living.

By contrast, the Eternit “owners” represented the pro-totype of contemporary capitalism. In the 1980s, theSchmidheiny family owned Eternit factories in 16countries with more than 23,000 workers, and an annualincome of around 2 billion Swiss francs. For three gen-erations the Schmidheinys strived to show themselvesas deeply animated by a sense of duty comprising thoseingredients that, according to Weber, combine the cap-italist spirit with Calvinist ethics. However, seeminglyfollowing the principle that “money has no smell” manyof their actions were at odds with any moral code: theireconomic success in Nazi Germany thanks to Hitler’shelp, the use of a concentration camp for forced labourin the Berlin Eternit factory, the exploitation of blackworkers treated like slaves in the South African minesduring apartheid, or the way in which they got thechance to rebuild Nicaragua with asbestos cement afterthe country was destroyed by the civil war and theearthquake in 1976, with the financial help of futuredictator Somoza.

Even the last representative of the dynasty, StephanSchimdheiny, now on trial in Turin, is a worthy heir: hestarts his career very early running Everite, the SouthAfrican factory, in the worst years of apartheid. Whenhe takes control of the whole company, in 1975,Schimdheiny is only 28, but already an astute business-man.

By 1991 Schimdheiny had disposed of Eternit’s asbes-tos mines and many factories that made asbestosproducts, hoping to walk away from responsibility forthe catastrophic damage that he and his family’s com-pany had caused through the years. The Italian Eternitcompany, in which the Schimdheiny family had a sub-stantial shareholding, in addition to their control ofpolicy, and in which the Belgian Baron de Cartier deMarchienne was an executive director, and the BelgianEternit a major shareholder, finally declared bankruptcyin 1986. The Casale Eternit plant was abandoned withall its poisonous contents and the last 350 workers losttheir jobs. Shortly afterwards, Schimdheiny changes hisimage and retires to start writing books about the envir-onment and green economy like a perfect anti-globaliz-ation farmer. He has been UN Representative forSustainable Development, a Clinton adviser, professorof economics at several universities, founder of theSwatch company, a shareholder of UBS and Nestle; butmost importantly, he is one of the richest men on theplanet.

It is an indisputable fact that Schimdheiny finallyswitched to non-asbestos production, but he did soreally slowly, claiming for years that there was no ma-terial that could replace asbestos. Even though govern-


32

ments were worried about increasing public awarenessof the dangers of asbestos, the influence of the asbestosindustry was strong enough to delay European asbestosbans – 1992 in Italy, 1 993 in Germany, 1996 in France –despite the mounting evidence provided by health pro-fessionals.

The strategy adopted in the last ten years of asbestos ce-ment production in Casale was for Eternit to apparentlycater to workers’ concerns by improving working con-ditions, thus creating the image of a caring company.Yet it denied that asbestos caused mesothelioma foryears and dismissed as subversive, union battles in de-fence of workers’ health. What has come to light at thetrial in Turin is that Eternit concealed evidence of thehazards of asbestos and hired a public relations agencyto monitor and investigate the activities of unionists,anti-asbestos activists and prosecutors.

The workers knew very well, however, that workingconditions were terrible and that they risked their health– they had known this for the best part of a century.Most of the women worked in the moulding depart-ment, shaping and cutting the various products madethere by hand. “We used to wear a ‘foulard’ on our hairso that it didn’t get covered with too much of that whitedust.” Wagons full of sacks of asbestos arrived at therailway station in Casale; then the wagons had to be un-loaded manually onto carts which were then taken tothe processing departments. The asbestos was stored invery high silos and taken later from the silo doors bypitchforks, to be processed.

Then there were the machines used to separate thefibres prior to being amalgamated with cement, fed withraw asbestos by hand. It was said that even the vine-yards around the factory were white because of the dust.

Till the early sixties the initiatives taken by the union-ists inside the factory were restricted to making requeststhat the management was inclined to perceive as “delib-erately aggravating,” that is, pressing for masks, filters,fans and any other form of protection from that dust.Usually, the solution to these annoying people was the“Kremlin,” the department with the harshest and un-healthiest conditions, the place where unionized work-ers ended up: it was a department for the finishing oftubes, with piles of turnings and very low ceilings. Dustfilters were installed toward the end of the sixties, butthat just displaced the danger: in fact, at night the filterswere opened and the wind carried the dust over thetown.

In the sixties, public opinion supported the factory be-cause it had brought jobs and money for many families:

industrial action could only monetize injuries, but eventhis was appreciated by the workers who accepted therisk in order to guarantee the future welfare of theirchildren. “Why did it take us so long to find out that as-bestos is carcinogenic? Because of anti-union, anti-worker and anti-communist bias. In Casale, only somedoctors and few people from the environmental associ-ation were on our side” says Bruno Pesce.

The idea of “closing the factory” was seen as a crazyplan that would lay thousands of jobs on the line; itwould have meant cancelling that “American dream athome” that Eternit represented. Thus, in pressing foraction, the union had to overcome both the distrust ofthe workers who didn’t want to risk their jobs, and thehostility of local people who did not want to support acommitment against the main economic resource of thearea. However, this attitude changed when people star-ted dying systematically, even men and women whohad never had anything to do with the factory.

In 1988, the “Associazione esposti all’amianto” (Asso-ciation for people exposed to asbestos) was founded inCasale; this was later changed to “Associazione Vit-time” (Victims Association), when not only the correla-tion between asbestos and mesothelioma was proved,but also that mortality in Casale was much higher thanin the rest of Italy.

However, even when confronted with this dark scene ofdeaths and asbestos-related cancer, there were stillpeople arguing that the most important considerationwas to defend capitalism – the bringer of wealth, com-fort and progress; though capitalism and its guidingprinciple – free trade – imply a series of conditions thathad been disregarded by the Belgian-Swiss multina-tional.

Free trade must be based on democracy; if it is to betruly free, it must support freedom of information andexpression. Now, manipulating information, silencingthe voices of scientific research, spreading false ru-mours passed off as scientific data, disseminating pub-lications and providing training courses for architectsand engineers to encourage them to use asbestos insteadof traditional materials – that is not behavior that fol-lows the guiding principles of capitalism.

If in the light of Selikoff’s findings in the 1960s, linkingoccupational asbestos exposure to lung disease, Eternithad switched to the production of non-asbestos fibrecement, the company would not have gained such anadvantageous position in the construction industry. AndStephan Schmidheiny would probably not have becomeone of the richest men on Earth.


33

In Casale Monferrato nowadays, in the area that wasdominated for a century by the Eternit “factory ofdeath,” there is a large expanse of concrete with just afew remnants of buildings – funereal industrial archae-ology. This is the result of a unique decontaminationprocess following the closure of the factory in 1986 anddemolition in 2006; a task requiring enormous effortfrom local institutions since no help was forthcomingfrom the manufacturers that had profited from asbestos-cement production in Casale for 80 years (an estimated23 million tons of asbestos cement was produced in Ca-sale).

Since the end of the seventies, the period for which reli-able figures are available, around 1 ,700 people fromCasale Monferrato have died from asbestos-related dis-eases. Moreover, it is estimated that until 2030 almost50 inhabitants of Casale Monferrato will die every yearfrom such diseases, the majority from mesothelioma. Itis a disaster comparable to Chernobyl in that, for manyyears now, asbestos-related diseases have struck downcitizens and ex-Eternit workers, indiscriminately.

In Europe alone, a person dies of an illness directlycaused by exposure to asbestos every five minutes. Ac-cording to a European Union study, by 2030, aroundhalf a million victims of asbestos-related diseases areexpected in Europe.

The same cynical and ruthless capitalism experiencedby the people of Casale Monferrato, with such tragicconsequences, remains in other countries, to which as-bestos cement production was transferred. The industryis still using the same arguments in these countries thatwe heard so long ago: that “scientific” studies demon-strate the safety of white asbestos, that “controlled use”is safe use, that incorporation into a cement matrixrenders lethal asbestos fibres harmless. No doubt priceshave been kept low, by minimizing production costs,turning a blind eye to parameters of safety and environ-mental protection, and not prioritizing workers’ healthand rights. However, we in the West are not supposed tocare about this, or the fact that asbestos production isrising: it is now being used far away – in China, India,Vietnam….

Asbestos products are cheaper than safer substitutes be-cause the industry continues to operate hazardous pro-duction facilities with few, if any, health and safetymeasures and off-loads its liabilities for the diseases itcauses onto the at-risk workers and communities. As itwas in the 20th century in Italy, so it is today in manydeveloping countries – workers paying with their livesfor the privilege ofworking for asbestos companies.

September 2011



34

The trial of top management figures from the Swiss andBelgian Eternit multinationals finally started in Turin on10th December 2009. (In Italy, the Eternit multinationalsowned five asbestos processing facilities: a large factoryin Casale Monferrato and smaller facilities inCavagnolo, Rubiera, Bagnoli and Siracusa.) We, thevictims in Casale, have been waiting for the top man-agement of the Eternit group to face justice for 25years, a long period of passionate struggle during whichwe won cases against local managers and campaignedfor the national asbestos ban, which was achieved in1992. The Italian General Confederation of Labour(CGIL) and the Association of the Asbestos Victims'Families (AFeVA), have always pursued, stubbornlyand uncompromisingly, three main aims: justice, decon-tamination and research.

On trial in Turin are the Swiss tycoon Stephan Schmid-heiny and the Belgian Baron Louis de Cartier deMarchienne; both are charged with willfully and know-ingly neglecting safety rules and willfully causing per-manent environmental damage. The case has attractedworldwide attention and is by far the most significant ofthe handful of criminal actions indicting asbestos in-dustry executives.

What makes this trial unique is the sheer size of the ju-dicial effort and the number of victims involved: thepainstaking inquiry led by Public Prosecutor RaffaeleGuariniello has resulted in a dossier running to 200,000pages and nearly 3,000 asbestos victims have beennamed. Running in concert with the criminal trial is acivil suit involving around 6,000 people seeking com-pensation from Eternit: asbestos victims and familymembers. Of the victims identified in the trial, aroundtwo thirds have already died; with 75% of these deathsbeing recorded in Casale Monferrato, where environ-mental exposure has led to 500 deaths of residents frommesothelioma, while occupational exposure has causedthe deaths of more than 1 ,000 workers from asbestosis,lung cancer and mesothelioma (recorded up to 2008).To these horrific figures we can add about 1 ,000 peoplewho have died since 2007; Eternit will have to answerfor these deaths in a further trial.

In Italy, more than 1 ,000 mesotheliomas per year arebeing recorded. Just in Casale Monferrato alone, a smalltown of 36,000 inhabitants, up to 45 cases a year arediagnosed; significantly, only 20% of those now beingdiagnosed with mesothelioma were former asbestosworkers. Hopefully the number of deaths will soon startto decline.

6. ASBESTOS ACTIVISM IN CASALE MONFERRATO

“OUR STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE, DECONTAMINATION, RESEARCH”

Romana Blasotti Pavesi, Bruno Pesce, Nicola Pondrano1

1 Romana Blasotti Pavesi is the President ofAFeVA; Bruno Pesce (email: [email protected]) is asbestos litigation coordinatorofAFeVA and former Secretary of the CGIL in Casale Monferrato from 1979 to 1984; Nicola Pondrano (email: [email protected]) isthe CGIL branch Secretary for Casale Monferrato. Translated from Italian by Elena Pertusati.


Members of the public gallery weigh every word of the proceedings - most are relatives of victims.


35

Leading up to what has become the biggest trial inEurope centred on “mass asbestos fatalities,” there hasbeen a relentless effort to combat asbestos hazards, con-centrated on two fronts: union action to protect workers’health and individual rights, and collective action toprotect not only workers but the whole community.

Of particular importance in campaigns on behalf of theworkers has been the role of the workers’ union, espe-cially the local union branch (Camera del Lavoro) inCasale, and INCA–CGIL, (the CGIL's welfare society).Gaining official recognition and compensation for oc-cupational asbestos-related diseases proved to be con-tentious and involved complex medico-legalprocedures. Although the first asbestosis case had beenrecognized in Casale in 1947, it was 1987 before meso-thelioma alone (occurring without asbestosis) was re-cognized by the Industrial Injury Compensation Agency(INAIL).

Collective action within the plant and outside, led ini-tially by the Trade Unions, soon drew the support of en-vironmentalists and asbestos victims. Local Authorities,however, did not join the campaign till the 1980s.

Below is a synopsis of the fight against asbestos in Ca-sale Monferrato, a community struggle which has con-tributed to launching the trial of the Eternit executives.

1st Stage: the 1960s

In the 1960s, arduous, dusty or noisy work conditionswere normally used as bargaining chips to get wage im-provements. Consequently, the negotiation of “cash set-tlements” to resolve problems arising from workingconditions was a normal occurrence.

It was difficult to press for changes in working practicesand quite unthinkable to question the use of a raw ma-terial, such as asbestos, for health reasons. It was con-sidered “normal” for workers to get ill and eventuallydie: after all they “were but workers” and their superi-ors at that time were inclined to accept that “survival ofthe fittest” was the natural order of things for the work-ing class.

2nd Stage: the 1970s

1968 was not only famous for student protests; with thedevelopment of the process which was intended to leadto the unification of the unions and the approval of newlegislation (aka the Workers' Bill of Rights in 1970)millions of workers all over Italy fought to improve theworking environment and to safeguard workers' healthin factories. In Casale, this struggle was helped by asignificant commitment of doctors and researchers toboth minimize risk to workers and to ascertain newcases of asbestos-related diseases as they arose. In this

era, all trade union platforms included specific de-mands, originating at plant level, concerning environ-mental and health issues in the workplace. There weresome improvements at the Casale factory.

3rd Stage: 1979-1998

The real struggle against the continued use of asbestosstarted in the 1980s, when an industrial economic crisisled to a change in public opinion and trade union effortsto improve workplace health and safety were no longeras effective. In 1986, Eternit shut down its operations inItaly. By this time, because of its role in promotingworkers’ rights (particularly, since the end of the 1970s)the union had achieved a degree of credibility and “au-thority” amongst the workers – only much later would itwin the respect of the public. Actually, the transitionfrom action to improve conditions to a full questioningof the asbestos risk was not easy. However, in Casalethere was no real clash between advocates of job pro-tection and environmentalists – between workers and atrade union which was by then working together withthe environmental associations towards the commonobjective of eliminating the use of asbestos. Of course,the workers were very worried about their jobs and itwas pertinent to remind some environmental activiststhat a worker’s pay packet was not an “optional extra”but a basic need.

This 3rd stage can be divided as follows:

•1979

Thanks to the work ofNicola Pondrano, whowas then the new person in charge of the INCA-CGIL office, and Dr. Daniela Degiovanni thatled to asbestos-related diseases and the con-sequent right to benefits being recognized byINAIL, there was a strong development ofmedico-legal procedures (persons sufficientlydisabled to receive benefits from INAIL wereentitled to seek further compensation in a civilcourt). There were hundreds of cases, with themajority having successful outcomes.

• 1981-1983

When INAIL accepted a request by Eternit to beexempted from paying an insurance premium tocover asbestosis/silicosis risks (implying that thefactory was risk-free in that respect), it was de-cided to sue in the civil courts. The outcome ofthis suit was a verdict confirming asbestos risksin all the Eternit workshops, and including someworrying references to pollution within the townitself. Following an appeal by Eternit this verdictwas finally confirmed by the High Court in1989.


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• 1984

INCA and CGIL local union office (camera dellavoro) organized the first conference on asbes-tos-related diseases.

•1986

Eternit went into receivership and then bank-ruptcy: after 80 years' activity and having had, attimes, nearly 2,000 employees, Eternit decidedto throw away what was by then a “squeezedlemon,” leaving 350 workers jobless and failingto keep the promise of a new plant and the pos-sible conversion to “asbestos free” technology.Then came a proposal from SAFE (EternitFrance) to re-open the plant employing asbestosagain, but the trade union turned it down.

•1987

The first epidemiological study (by Turin Uni-versity and the Casale Local Health Authority)revealed a virtual massacre: 200 deaths due to as-bestos exposure among Eternit workers. Furtherresearch, this time on family members and localresidents, was conducted. As a result, Mayor Ric-cardo Coppo banned asbestos in the Casale area:it was the final blow to any attempt to reconcileus with asbestos.

•1988

The Association of the Asbestos Victims' Famil-ies (AFeVA) was founded and its chairmanshipgiven to Mrs Romana Blasotti Pavesi, a passion-ate activist who has lost both her husband anddaughter to asbestos disease. This was followedby the formation of the Asbestos Lawsuit Com-mittee which drew together the main local asso-ciations in the struggle against asbestos.

•1989

A second meeting entitled “No Asbestos” was or-ganized by CGIL in Casale Monferrato. Here,they put forward a draft proposal for legislationto ban asbestos and to establish a national fundfor all asbestos victims, i.e. covering both occu-pational and environmental exposure. CGIL sup-ported the proposal on a national level andinvolved the CISL and UIL trade unions. Sixmonths later they presented a common nationalplatform for the banning of asbestos.

•1992

After three years of sits-ins in front of the Parlia-ment building in Rome, demonstrations and peti-tions, Act 257 was approved. It banned asbestosthroughout Italy. The Act was a big success but itprovided no funding for victims.

•1993

Following eight years of committal proceedings,the first criminal lawsuit against the top man-agement ofCasale Eternit s.p.a. got under way.The end result was disappointing: though the de-fendants were found guilty, on appeal the ac-ceptance of extenuating circumstances resultedin a decreased penalty – not one of them spent aday in prison. Moreover, statue of limitationsconsiderations meant that 800 injured parties –sick or dead workers – were excluded fromclaiming damages in this trial. Luckily, com-pensation of about €3.6 million was obtained forthose who were eligible. (In 2010, with the clos-ing of the bankruptcy proceedings, €5.5 millionwas added.)

•1998

The decontamination project for 48 villages andtowns in the Casale District commenced, thanksto public funding.

To date, decontamination has been completed on allpublic buildings and the former Eternit plant, whichwas demolished in 2006, exactly a century after it hadbeen built. In that same place there will soon be a publicpark and a project of urban reconversion named EterN-ot, which will greatly improve the Ronzone neighbour-hood. While over 50% of private sites have beendecontaminated, there are still 500,000 square metres todecontaminate in the town. Aid grants cover 50% of thecost of replacing asbestos roofs and 100% of the costfor decontamination involving friable asbestos. Forsome time now, the amount of pollution in Casale hasbeen the same as other towns. If the Local Authorityhandles the remaining decontamination successfully, ina few years' time the District of Casale might be themost completely asbestos-free area in Italy.

Our aims of achieving justice for victims and decon-taminating the local environment have been firmly pur-sued over the years and partly fulfilled. Nevertheless,we cannot ignore the fact that there are still problemswhich have not been solved. Outlined below are ournext challenges in fighting asbestos.

Establishing a National Fund for Asbestos Victims

Reference should be made to the French example (thecompensation scheme operated by FIVA). Fundingshould be financed by both public and private contribu-tions. It should grant equitable compensation to all as-bestos victims, covering both occupational andenvironmental exposures, with acceptance of suchcompensation not exempting the guilty party (the pol-luter) from criminal liabilities.


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Italy officially has over 2,000 asbestos-related deaths ayear, as well as about 900 industrial accident fatalities.In spite of these dramatic data, the Italian Parliament istaken up by wholly different matters! By implicationthey are accepting the dreadful toll of industrial injuries.We need, on the contrary, to adopt greater rigour andcommitment, to strengthen inspections and supervision,and relaunch the role of trade unions to provide safe-guards. Don't let us forget that deaths from occupationalillnesses and cancer are often silent deaths, in that theyare infrequently the subject of public debate, eventhough victims suffer terrible pain and distress.

The Fight against Mesothelioma

Further scientific research and treatments are required.Exchanges with other countries are needed to developmore successful and accessible treatments (and therapyprotocols). With this aim, in 2007, the Piedmont Regionand the Ministry of Health decided to set up a RegionalAsbestos Research Centre in Casale specializing in suchareas as: the environment, health care, and IT (to set upa database of asbestos court cases, for example). Wehave made renewed requests for this project, which hasa Scientific Committee headed by Prof. Benedetto Ter-racini, to be given the green light.

New European Policy

We need a more active role to be played by the EU andother international organizations in global efforts to banasbestos (still not banned in around 75% of the world’s

nations), and in the environmental decontamination ofEurope. We also need new EU Directives to make iteasier to identify liability and facilitate compensationprocedures.

The avoidance of responsibility by multinational com-panies when they damage people’s health or the envir-onment is unacceptable. The possibility of legal actionsand investigations to determine the damage must be ex-tended. Since multinational companies, such as Eternit,have very complex organizations, we also need to sim-plify international procedures for investigations and theuse of letters rogatory when submitting requests to for-eign courts – it must be made easier to obtain compens-ation when lawsuits involve cross-border judicialsystems.

Finally, by cooperation at an international level, nation-al laws concerning the environment, health, compensa-tion and welfare should be rationalized and made toconform to globally accepted norms.

We think that the current lawsuit against the Eternit topmanagement will shed light on what led to the slaughterwe have witnessed – expose an economic system thatallowed easy profits to be made, with those makingsuch profits apparently impervious to the harm theywere inflicting on workers and communities. We aresure that the investigation carried out by PP Guarinielloand the members of his team is in itself a huge contri-bution to this international battle of civilization.

August 2011


No to a Reduction of Penalties

Workers Memorial Day 2011 , when hundreds of activists flocked to Italy from acrossthe globe to show solidarity with the people ofCasale Monferrato.

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On 4 July 2011 , Turin public prosecutor Raffaele Guar-iniello concluded his statement of case by calling for20-year jail sentences against the two men in the dock –Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny and Belgium’sBaron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne.

The Turin trial is special – obviously not for being thefirst time the asbestos industry has found itself in thedock, but rather due to the conflation of three things:

1 . It is the outcome of nearly half a century’s directworker action for criminal justice driven basic-ally by Eternit’s Casale Monferrato factory work-ers.

2. It is a criminal trial focused on the social andpublic policy import of cancers caused by work.

3 . It is the first time that representatives of theEternit group’s top decision-makers have been in-dicted for the consequences ofwhat they havedone in a particular country. This gives the trialtransnational importance.

A Trial Crowning nearly Half a Century of Direct

Worker Action

One thing that sets the Turin trial apart from other trialsis its storyline of workers and the population of CasaleMonferrato forming a collective actor. In many othercases, especially in class action litigation in the UnitedStates, a collective actor tends to emerge as the result oflegal action. "Victimhood" becomes a clustering forcebuilt up by the momentum of a trial. The Casale Mon-ferrato situation is very different. Awareness of thedangers of asbestos grew out of direct worker actionthat gradually became radicalized and spread to thecommunity as a whole. It was a process punctuated bylawsuits of one kind or another – not all successful –but was not shaped by them.

By and large, the monumental investigative work car-ried out by the justice administration authorities couldonly be done because of the collective memory de-veloped with its own means of recording and investigat-ing facts. Direct worker action found ways of takingcritical ownership of the reality of work. It produced al-liances between workers and scientists. It challengedthe establishment’s take on reality. This self-empower-

ment through knowledge comes through with clarity inthe detail with which the trial was able to delve into thehistory ofworking conditions, the business organizationand the health impacts of Eternit’s business. It was anindispensable foundation for an innovative reinterpreta-tion of classical legal concepts like causality, liabilityand deliberate tortious intent.

The wide-ranging judicial investigation unearthed 2,969cases – more than 2,200 deaths and some 700 cancersufferers. The roll of death in Casale Monferrato reads:around 1 ,000 Eternit workers, 500 local residents and16 sub-contract workers. Added to those are some 500cases in Bagnoli near Naples, 1 00 in Cavagnolo in theprovince of Turin, and around 50 in Rubiera in theprovince of Reggio Emilia. The liability of Eternit’sboardroom for the deaths of 11 Italian workers who hadworked in Switzerland will also be looked at. This partof the case was one of the hardest to put together as theSwiss National Accident Insurance Organization(SUVA) long refused to hand over the records until itwas forced to do so by a Swiss court order.

Eternit’s Casale Monferrato factory started up in 1906.Located near the Balangero mine, it was a major pro-duction centre for asbestos cement goods, especially therenowned corrugated sheeting synonymous with thename Eternit. The Balangero mine’s output could notkeep up with production demand. Casale Monferratohad the dubious claim to fame of sourcing its asbestossupplies from countries in four continents – Brazil,Canada, South Africa and Russia. Up to 1980, the as-bestos bags were unloaded and slit open by hand, andtheir contents forked into huge silos. The productionprocess at this stage differed little from peasant farmers’hay-gathering techniques. So severe was the pollutionthat the factory seemed shrouded in a permanent haze.During the second world war, US bombers’ repeated at-tempts to blow up the strategically important Po bridgefailed, with pilots reporting a bizarre atmospheric phe-nomenon whereby the small town seemed to be envel-oped in thick white clouds in all seasons.

Eternit was a paternalistic business, and offered itsworkers free asbestos cement “tiles”. The bags the as-bestos had come in could be taken home and used toharvest potatoes. Local people were free to take the

7. A TRIAL WITH FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS

Laurent Vogel1

1 Laurent Vogel is Director of the Working Conditions, Health and Safety Department, European Trade Union Institute. Email:[email protected]


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factory spoil to use for roof insulation, or garden paths.It was a soothing paternalism when works medical of-ficers gave assurances that working with asbestos car-ried no risks. Workers who voiced concerns might beprovided with largely useless protective equipment. Butit turned harsh and repressive when challenged. Oneproduction shop universally known as the Kremlin wassituated in a canal-side building on its own. This waswhere exposure to asbestos was the highest. It waswhere the tubes and pipes were finished, turned atbreast height in a very low-ceilinged room. This iswhere management put activists from the Italian Gener-al Confederation of Labour (CGIL) to work. Few work-ers exiled to the Kremlin saw their 60th birthday.

The first workers' struggles against asbestos-relatedhealth damage date from the 1950s. Recognition of oc-cupational diseases came in dribs and drabs: the firstcase of asbestosis was recognized only in 1947. Theworkers’ growing realization was stonewalled by thecompany’s constant denials. Since Eternit was adamantthat the work was not dangerous, even the most basicprotective measures were considered too costly. In1961 , the workers’ discontent turned to strikes andprotests that were savagely put down by the police. Itwould take another 20 years for the company to yieldfor the first time to union demands.

Bruno Pesce, who headed the Casale Monferrato labourfederation from 1979, focused union demands on healthprotection. A wave of strikes and shop-floor meetingsfollowed. The unions won the right to have a study onharmful exposures carried out by the Pavia institute ofoccupational medicine, with union involvement andoversight. Union reps would tour the plant with the re-searchers and technicians, pointing out where samplesshould be taken. The field work took 40 days, andfound very high levels of exposure to asbestos. The em-ployer’s response was two-pronged: an attempt to breakworkers’ unity by claiming that improvements could bemade, but only if comparatively high danger moneypayments (24,000 lira a month for the workers most ex-posed to asbestos dust) were scrapped; and setting up anemployer-controlled occupational health service whosefirst newssheet cautioned workers against smoking!This provoked a two-hour down-tools. The CGIL uniondecided to hire its own well-qualified doctor, DanielaDegiovanni, who helped uncover the monstrous truth:hundreds dead of mesothelioma and lung cancer; thou-sands more suffering lung diseases and other asbestos-related conditions.

In 1986, the factory shut down when Eternit’s local sub-sidiary went bankrupt, but the toll continued to rise. Thelatency period between exposure to asbestos and the de-

velopment of cancer may be up to forty years. And sopolluted was the environment that most of the popula-tion of Casale Monferrato were constantly exposed tohigh levels. People in Casale Monferrato are still dyingfrom asbestos: new mesothelioma cases are currentlyrunning at around 40 a year, and epidemiologic projec-tions suggest that this will continue until 2015-2020.Casale Monferrato has a population of around 35,000.

At an international conference held in parallel to thetrial in March 2010, Bruno Pesce retraced the historyand singled out the key features of the direct actionmovement.

The approach throughout the 1950s and 1960s was tomonetize the risks. Workers focused on the physicalstrain of work, the high noise levels, and dust-filledworkshops with the main aim of getting compensationin the form of higher pay. There was no question at thetime of looking for an alternative to the production ofasbestos-containing materials.

From 1968, the struggles took a more radical turn. Analliance was formed between union reps and doctorsconscious of their social and political responsibility fortackling disease. Work organization became central tothe agenda. There was no specific demand to scrap as-bestos, but a growing conviction that the bosses shouldnot have the sole say on production objectives andmethods. It was a time of creative ferment and criticalthought which in Italy more than elsewhere in the worldwas to engage the heart and soul of an entire generationof the labour movement.

Unlike in other factories, local environmental demandsand workers’ interests in terms of jobs and wages co-alesced in the 1980s. The factory shop stewards’ com-mittee would organize the growing communityopposition to the Eternit group – an alliance fostered bythe CGIL trade union confederation’s relentless at-tempts to get the occupational diseases recognised, andthe first actions for damages against Eternit from theearly 1980s sparked by INAIL’s (the Italian social se-curity system’s occupational accidents and diseasesbranch) acceptance of a reduced risk premium on as-bestosis despite Eternit’s systematic failures in primaryprevention.

In 1986, Eternit’s Italian branch folded. The promisedindustrial redeployment never happened. A FrenchEternit affiliate offered to take over the factory providedit could carry on using asbestos. The union rebuffed theapproach and backed the local council ordinance ban-ning any production with asbestos in the Casale Mon-ferrato area.


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A first trial in 1993 found only local company managersin the dock. The Supreme Court of Appeal found thecase proved for the death of one worker only, and im-posed a very light sentence. Charges relating to all theother deaths were found to be time-barred.

Exposing Workers to Carcinogens can be a Crime

The Turin trial is unlike many asbestos-related lawsuitsin common law countries where the main aim is com-pensation for victims. Criminal intent is not at issue intort actions on liability, which are purely financial. Theclaimants argue that they have suffered loss that can beassessed in monetary terms. They give evidence that thedefendant is at fault and that a causal link existsbetween that fault and the loss incurred. If they provetheir case, they are awarded compensation .. . providedthe defendant is still solvent. Many multinationals havesuccessfully escaped having to pay compensationthrough complex arrangements, whereby subsidiaries incountries where they were particularly exposed havefiled for bankruptcy. The company that caused the lossmay even get away without paying the compensation it-self if it is insured.

To be sure, the dividing line between civil and criminalliability in some countries may be less hermetic wherepunitive damages are awarded. In certain conditions –which may differ between legal systems – the particularseverity of the fault introduces a punitive element that isdecided by a public authority (a court) and turned intoprivate revenue (victim compensation). In a recent trialin Mississippi, for instance, a jury ordered Chevron andUnion Carbide to pay $322 million to a worker exposedto asbestos while working on drilling wells for the oilindustry between 1979 and the mid-1980s [1 ] . Theworker suffers from asbestosis and must use an oxygenassisted breathing system. This is the highest singlepayout to an individual in an asbestos case in the UnitedStates.

That being said, criminal impunity has symbolic politic-al and social significance since it implies that where as-bestos is concerned, mass murder is not seen as asufficiently serious violation of public policy to be con-sidered a crime.

The Turin trial is the latest in a series of prosecutionsfor exposing workers to asbestos. What is new,however, is that the charges differ from indictments inprevious cases. The Italian criminal case law on asbes-tos can be very broadly summed-up as follows [2] .

Most indictments have been on charges ofmanslaughteror negligent injury so as to look at the criminal liability

of employers in individual situations of workers suffer-ing from asbestos-related diseases. Trials have focusedboth on diseases that can be considered as specificallyresulting from exposure to asbestos (mesothelioma andasbestosis) and cancers that have a range of possiblecauses but for which there is epidemiological evidenceshowing a high probability that exposure to asbestos isimplicated (mainly lung cancer). Reference to epidemi-ological data prevents the causal relationship beingvitiated because no cancer carries the "signature" of aparticular exposure. In a landmark ruling in 2002, theSupreme Court of Appeal held that there was no re-quirement to prove the precise mechanism of carcino-genesis in each individual, and that a high logicalprobability could be deduced from epidemiological dataand statistics [3] .

Sentences have generally been based on three provi-sions of the Italian Penal Code. Article 40.2 specifiesthe criteria of causation that must be considered incriminal matters. It provides that “failing to prevent anevent where there is a legal duty to do so is equivalentto causing it.” Article 589 contains the offence of man-slaughter while Article 590 criminalizes culpable injuryto the person.

The legal duty to ensure a healthy and safe workplacederives from a body of health and safety at work legis-lation. There is a fairly consistent body of case law tosay that such a duty of safety existed where there wassufficient scientific knowledge about the consequencesof exposure to asbestos. The Supreme Court ofAppealwas clear that an employer’s duty of care included tak-ing all technically possible preventive measures andwas not limited to mere compliance with statutory limitvalues.

The Turin trial’s take on what law applies to the facts isdifferent. It is based on two types of offence.

Article 434 of the Penal Code contains the offence ofmalicious commission of a disaster, i.e. , a tortious act oromission which caused an outcome foreseen and de-sired by the person committing it.

Article 437 deals more specifically with working con-ditions and concerns the malicious removal or omissionof protection against disasters or injury in the work-place.

More than technical issues about the definition of of-fences, this approach focuses on the collective aspect ofbusiness, technical and work organization choices byEternit top management. “Disaster” as a concept goesbeyond just multiple unlawful deaths and may well af-


41

ford better insights into the full implications of anEternit-style process of capital accumulation.

One further thing must be said. As with developmentsin French case law, this asbestos trial is not a case untoitself. The criminal case law on asbestos meshes togeth-er with that dealing more generally with all the hazardsof work. To argue this further is beyond the scope ofthis article, but reference can usefully be made to thelandmark trials on the Porto Marghera cancers from ex-posure to vinyl chloride which culminated in a SupremeCourt ofAppeal ruling of 19 May 2006 [4] .

Where work accidents are concerned, it is worth men-tioning that on 15 April 2011 , the same Turin court cur-rently sitting in judgement on Eternit’s top executiveshanded down a 16 ½ year prison sentence to Herald Es-penhahn, managing director of the multinationalThyssenKrupp, for a fire which led to the deaths of sev-en workers. Four other company executives receivedjail terms of 13 ½ years. To be sure, this case is differ-ent, but the legal arguments around the notion of intentcould set a precedent on which the court will rely whendeciding the Eternit case.

In the Turin dock stand Stephan Schmidheiny and Bel-gium’s Baron de Cartier de Marchienne. StephanSchmidheiny comes from a family prominent in Swisseconomic and political circles which for almost a cen-

tury has been the biggest shareholder in Eternit. It hasmanaged to forge the most varied networks of alliances.During World War Two, the Nazi authorities supplied itwith slave labour for Eternit’s Berlin factory. Art col-lector, philanthropist, and the driving force in manynetworks to promote a new green capitalism, StephanSchmidheiny has been a leading light of an employers'association – the World Business Council for Sustain-able Development.

Stephan Schmidheiny played a key role in the Eternitgroup’s asbestos industry branch from the mid 1970s,where he established a policy of risk denial and doublestandards on a world scale, delaying the elimination ofasbestos in the least developed countries. As SergioBonetto, a lawyer for some of the victims, puts it: “Un-fortunately for them, Swiss industrialists are meticuloussorts: everything was written down and centralized. Forexample, we have proof that in Switzerland, all the as-bestos samples were controlled and that productionparameters were set by dust contamination standardsthat differed with the country” [5] .

Baron de Cartier de Marchienne is a doyen of the Bel-gian economic establishment who held executive re-sponsibility in the Belgian branch of Eternit(subsequently renamed Etex), and direct managementresponsibility for Casale Monferrato from 1966 to theearly 1970s.

More than 100 journalists and 150 lawyers, along with asbestos victims, their families, and members of the public who could gettickets, pack the courtroom for the first day of the trial in Turin, December 10, 2009.

Group Top Management on Trial



42

The Turin trial has brought much evidence to show howthe two arms of Eternit management - Belgian andSwiss – tried to airbrush away the dangers of asbestosand stave off a ban. On Schmidheiney’s watch, Eternitsaved money by cutting down on preventive measureswhile spending on PR. A police search of the offices oflobbyist Guido Bellodi found that from 1984 StephanSchmidheiny put money into misinformation campaignsin Italy. A journalist infiltrated the Casale Monferratoasbestos victims committee and Judge Guariniello wasput under surveillance [6] . Papers found show thatEternit "invested" in buying scientists, prominent politi-cians and trade unionists, and journalists.

The Turin trial stands in marked contrast to the apathet-ic criminal justice systems of Belgium and Switzerlandwhere the same industrial group wrought similar havoc.The Casale Monferrato story is not much different tothat of other Eternit group factory towns like Payerne inSwitzerland and Kapelle-op-den-Bos in Belgium. Thelegal inaction in both countries is not down to signific-ant differences in the criminal law, as by and large thesame offences charged in Italy are found in Belgian andSwiss law. The differences stem much more from thesocial dynamic around what Eternit was doing, risingfrom the labour movement to the media and govern-ment. Nothing has dented the respectability surroundingthe Eternit group’s ruling families in their countries oforigin. Fortune brings its own fame and Stephan

Schmidheiny’s conversion to green capitalism hasearned him more bouquets than brickbats.

August, 2011

References

1 . A. John, Mississippi Jury Returns Largest AsbestosVerdict in U.S. History,Wall Street Journal, 6 May2011 and Ch. Graham, Smith County jury awards$322M verdict, Laurel Leader Call, 6 May 2011 .

2. A recent study reports forty verdicts in prosecutionsfor exposing workers to asbestos in Italy. The firstdates back to 1984. Cases have increased over thepast decade. See S. Zirulia, Monitoraggio di pro-cedimenti giudiziari relativi agli effetti dell’amiantosulla salute ed espolorazione della possibilità direalizzare una banca dati, Casale monferrato, 2011 .For a more detailed but older example, see A. DiAmato, La responsabilità penale da amianto, Giuf-frè Editore, Milan, 2003.

3 . Corte di Cassazione, Sez. IV, n. 953, 11 .7.2002,Brusco v/. Macola e altri (Officine MeccanicheStanga)

4. Corte di Cassazione, Sez. IV,, n. 4675/07,1 7;05;2006, P.G. v/ Bartalini e altri.

5. Interview by Jacqueline Roz-Maurette, Viva, No.232, April 2008, p. 30-31 .

6. A Gaino, Le spie dell'Eternit su Guariniello, LaStampa, 1 2 July 2010.


The first ticket for the trial - courtesy ofYvonne Waterman.

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What makes this trial special?

The Eternit case is special because of the sheer size andnumbers: the number of plants involved, the number ofinjured parties. Nevertheless, it is only one of the manycases concerning work-related and asbestos-related can-cers we have dealt with over the years. The Eternit caseis part of a far reaching legal action we have been pur-suing for over 15 years with the creation of an Obser-vatory on occupational cancers. We have alreadystudied over 25,000 cancers and have unsurprisinglyfound asbestos-related occupational tumours associatedwith several companies, including Eternit.

What has the role of the victims' organizations been incommencing proceedings?

The contribution being made by the victims and theirorganizations is essential as they provide informationand knowledge. However, we proceeded because, in ac-cordance with the law, we had to.

Occupational exposure to asbestos, it is often said, hasnot been subject to legislation in Italy, as is the case formany other countries. This is not completely true: wehave an Act which dates back to the early 1900s, man-dating health and safety rules to be applied to teenagersand women working with asbestos. Legislation was notlacking: there were regulations; and in Italy we havehad general rules on industrial health since 1927, re-vised in 1956.

In the 1940s there was a law which decreed compulsoryinsurance to compensate workers for asbestos-relateddiseases, especially for asbestosis; the law included anobligation to monitor asbestos workers’ health.

What is the charge against the defendants?

The criminal case against the Eternit executives in-cludes the following charges: manslaughter, actual bod-ily harm, causing a disaster, failure to comply withsafety rules and negligence. The choice to proceed withthe accusations of “disaster” and “failure to complywith safety rules and negligence” was made because thelength of time it would have taken to obtain medical ex-

pert reports for the huge number of injured parties andvictims involved might have had statute of limitationsconsequences. Consequently, we decided to proceedwith the most serious offences.

At first the proceedings against Eternit involved localand national Italian managers, why?

Because we had not realized there was a connectionbetween the Italian plants and individuals who hadworked abroad. When informed that some workers whohad worked in Switzerland had come back to Italy todie, we widened our accusations to include foreigners.Starting from these cases, we found out that Eternit hadplants in Switzerland; and that’s where the ownerswere. Consequently, we started asking questions aboutthe relationship between the plants and the ownership;gathering data and elements that, according to the pro-secution, would prove the soundness of our charges; nolonger against the national managers but also againstthe owners and the majority shareholders of the com-pany.

How long did the preliminary investigations last?

The preliminary investigations took some years becausewe had to collect rogatories in Switzerland and that washard; in some cases it took up to 4 years. These are theprocedures that our Swiss colleagues evidently have tofollow. There have been some appeals presented by theconcerned parties against the admission of the rogator-ies, I understand.

Our experience in asbestos-related cancer cases datesback many years. Currently there is a vast amount ofcase law (jurisprudence): it was very innovative whenwe started but today it is well known, there are issuesand problems which have already been addressed byjurisprudence. So we just have to follow this path.

There are two specific problems associated with thecase. Firstly, the huge number of injured parties; notonly workers but people, members of the community,who have never entered an asbestos plant. Secondly, theoffences involve defendants who live and work abroad,and are linked to several different plants. This implies

8. INTERVIEW WITH PROSECUTOR RAFFAELE GUARINIELLO1

Niccolò Bruna and Andrea Prandstral ler2

1 This interview was conducted on August 9, 2010; the transcript was translated from Italian by Elena Pertusati.2 Niccolò Bruna (email: [email protected]) and Andrea Prandstraller (email: [email protected]) are documentary filmmakers.


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the need to explore what we call the company’s indus-trial policy; in order to demonstrate the prosecution'scharges we need to reconstruct a clear picture of thispolicy.

And what is the prosecution's hypothesis?

Let's say that key decisions were not made in Italy butat the Company's headquarters, and therefore they ap-plied to their global asbestos empire, not just to Italianplants but to all interests under the control of the major-ity shareholders.

The fact that there were meetings of managers fromseveral different plants who met to discuss problemsmade us realize what was going on; we could actually“see” the industrial policy of the corporation in its en-tirety.

How do you think you will demonstrate this thesis?

Evidence is very important, but even more importantare the documents we acquired: what moves us is truth,the pursuit of truth, so we are open to any truth.

One aim of this trial, an objective we pursue in all trialsof this type, is to obtain a ruling which may lead tocompensation of all the asbestos victims. It is clearlynot the main objective in a criminal proceeding but it'ssomething we care about. It is an objective for any in-dustrial accident, for any occupational disease. Com-pensation won’t save anyone's life, but it can be a relieffor the family and this is an important result.

Then of course there is the problem of criminal liability.We have many laws on occupational health. They areexcellent on paper, but very often they are totally ig-nored and very little is done to have them enacted. Whatdoes this mean? It means that many companies thinkthey can ignore them; the feeling is that, even if youbreak the law, you will never be held responsible.

Well, I think we have a precise duty, we have to fightthis feeling of impunity when disregarding, evenflaunting the law. We must make it understood thatthere are laws and that one can be held criminally liableif you disregard them.

Corporate social responsibility is very important and Ican say that after many years ofwork in this field, muchprogress has been made since the 1970s and the aware-ness of health and safety has evolved. However, what Ifind very negative in Italy, indeed anywhere, is apathy,the passiveness displayed by institutional monitoringagencies (watchdogs).

I think it is inevitable that if the institutions of a countryfail to make their presence felt, this or that companymay think that they can break the law without sufferingthe consequences. That, in essence, is the situation wehave do deal with. In this trial, as in many others, weare brought to the realization that the watchdogs havefailed in their surveillance, very often they have simplyforgotten to follow things up. That this is still happen-ing is one message this trial is sending to the establish-ment.

Chief Prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello pictured during the trial, December 2010.



45

Once there was an asbestos problem in Italy, there isstill an asbestos problem in many countries. When youfail to deal with a problem, when you stop monitoring –this one as well as others for the future, such as electro-magnetic fields, which we still know very little about –then you can't complain 20 or 30 years later, askingyourself “Why all these deaths, why are all these peoplesick?”

The history of asbestos is emblematic because it is thestory of a lack of prevention which could have been im-plemented.

First of all there is the regulatory aspect: asbestos hasbeen banned in some countries, not in others. This lackof consistency puzzles us. I think it is clear that organiz-ations such as the International Labour Organization(ILO), of which most countries are members, do notcondone the use of asbestos that continues in manystates. Either those who have banned it or those whohaven't banned it are wrong; the patchwork picture ofregulation we see is unacceptable.

Instinctively, we now consider the banning of asbestosas normal. So when we learn of a country where asbes-tos is still employed we are surprised and ask ourselves:“How is this possible?”

Of course, we face judicial as well as regularity incon-sistencies. We are holding a criminal trial involving acompany that has asbestos plants in many other coun-tries. I am not aware that any of these countries havestarted proceedings apart from France, where they areencountering serious difficulties. Again a confused pic-ture which is unacceptable. Why do we have these pro-ceedings going ahead only in Italy and not elsewhere?

What's your personal interest in following these cases?

Just this morning I learned of a new case of pleuralmesothelioma in a worker who used to work forhaulage contractors: well, that alone was enough tomake me think: “Why was there no prevention?” It's notthe huge number of cases which astonishes me but thefact that there was no prevention, with very serious con-sequences. We have cases of people who have never

worked with asbestos but who worked in plants whereasbestos was present. It's these depressing stories inwhich one person is brought down by the actions of an-other that I see as dramatic and upsetting, in addition tothe huge number of cases.

Certainly, in this case the main focus is on the disastercaused (hence the charge), not only in the work envir-onment but also in the community.

An expert from the Piedmont Region told us that everyyear 50 people die, of which 10 would have worked atthe plant, but not the remainder.

What do you think ofthe defendants?

It's difficult. Generally I form an opinion of people, es-pecially of defendants, when I cross-question them,which hasn't happened so far. I am waiting for thechance to do so. It will be really interesting to hear whatthey have to say, in order to shed light on the facts andachieve a just outcome. We mustn't have prejudices; it’simportant to listen to all sides to be able to reach a bal-anced judgment.

However, defendants have the right not to answer ques-tions. Whether to answer or not is a defensive strategic-al choice.

Don't you feel you are a minority when compared to thedefence, so numerous and well equipped?

No, we have a solid organization. In fact, I wish theTurin Public Prosecutor's office could serve as a na-tional prosecutor's office, since elsewhere in the countrythere is no comparable organization.

Is the length ofthe trial forseeable?

No, although when we started we thought it might lastyears; now [seven months into the trial] , thanks to thevery balanced and fair guidelines given by the court, wecan envisage a reasonable length for the proceedings.

August 9, 2010


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On September 24 of this year, 2011 , while the trial of anemblematic case involving two Eternit industrialistscontinued in Turin, the Association for the Defense ofAsbestos Victims in the Tarn Department, France (AD-DEVA 81 ) unveiled a stele in memory of workers andother victims of the Eternit factory in Terssac, near Albiin France (see box below). On that day, and with com-plete impunity, the heads of the factory were “celebrat-ing” its fortieth anniversary! And yet in Terssac as inCasale Monferrato, asbestos has killed many people.

This text examines the strategies being used in Franceand Italy for obtaining justice for asbestos victims, andattests to the urgency of creating a full-fledged interna-tional criminal court for cases involving workers andthe environment.

In France: the shift from “inexcusable offense”

(faute inexcusable) to “anxiety damage” (préjudice

d'anxiété)

When the scandal of asbestos-injured workers first sur-faced in France, worker-victims of asbestos and theirlawyers chose the strategy of filing a civil suit for “in-excusable offense” on the part of an employer – an in-frequent move in France before that time. Victimssuffering from an officially recognized occupationaldisease or their legal successors can sue an employer ifthey can prove he or she has committed what is calledan “inexcusable offense,” implying a deliberate breachof official safety and hygiene regulations. In its legaldecisions of February 28, 2002, concerning “inexcus-able offenses” by employers who processed or used as-bestos or asbestos products (decisions consideredhistoric in France), the Court of Cassation chamber incharge of judging labor-related cases put an end to themyth that the company heads in question were unaware

9. DISPENSING JUSTICE TO ETERNIT’S VICTIMS – THE FRANCO-ITALIAN

EXPERIENCE

Annie Thébaud-Mony2

APPENDIX: THE CIVIL SUIT WITHIN THE CRIMINAL TRIAL IN ITALY

Sergio Bonetto

Excerpts of a speech delivered on September

24, 2011, by Jean-Marie Birbes, President of

ADDEVA 81

1971 -2011 : Forty years: a history, our history,made of suffering and struggles but alsocomrades and hope.

The 1970s: The inter-union collective of the twoJussieu universities [University of Paris 6 andUniversity of Paris 7] and women workers atAmisol decide to join forces to alert Frenchsociety to the dangers of asbestos. The scandalbreaks. Eternit France, headed by the Cuvelierfamily, is part of a network ofEuropean Eternitcompanies . . .

July 1996: Monsieur Barot, then labor minister,announces the banning [of asbestos] as ofJanuary 1 , 1 997. That same year, the nationalassociation for the defense of asbestos victims(ANDEVA) is founded. ANDEVA grew out ofthe synergy of revolt, the revolt of professors’

widows, who filed a lawsuit at Gérardmer, and ofworkers and retirees with asbestos-causeddiseases: workers at Amisol, in the naval yards,at the Arsenal, Eternit, Everite, in the steelindustry, together with association activists,unionists, journalists and a few occupationalhealth professionals and researchers. And in1996 our Association too was created. . . .

The problem of the criminal responsibility of the[company] directors in place at the time remainsto be dealt with. The first lawsuit was filed in1996 by comrades at the Thiant factory, backedby the CGT’s Construction Federation. Sometime later, lawsuits filed by the widows ofTerssac factory workers were approved for trialby the state prosecutor in Albi, who transferredthe case to a judge in the public health section ofthe Paris court.

This is what is at stake in our combat today.

1 Translated from French by Amy Jacobs.2 Annie Thébaud-Mony PhD, Association Henri Pézerat: santé, travail, environnement. Email : [email protected]


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1

of the dangers of asbestos, demonstrating that thosedangers were already known in France at the turn of thecentury [1 ] . Worker-victims of asbestos and their famil-ies have won thousands of “inexcusable offense” casesin French courts since 2002.

Faced with a wave of such cases, the public authoritiesdecided in 2000 to create a fund for compensating as-bestos victims, the FIVA. The law stipulates that theFIVA may turn around and sue employers for “inexcus-able offense” when there is reason to believe such anoffense has been committed. While the FIVA has en-abled asbestos victims to obtain compensation who oth-erwise would only have obtained it after extremely longtrials, it also definitively curbed the filing of “inexcus-able offense” lawsuits by asbestos worker-victims,thereby transferring the burden of compensating thosevictims from the industries who committed the “inex-cusable offenses,” and should therefore have to pay forthem, to a common fund for occupational injuries anddiseases called “ATMP” to which all employers contrib-ute, and to the state. Eternit even managed to get out ofpaying anything at all in “inexcusable offense” caseswon by its former employees by getting the courts tohave “inexcusable offense” claims paid by the commonATMP fund due to errors in the procedure for officiallyrecognizing that the victims in question had an occupa-tional disease. As for FIVA suits against employers,they brought in less than 4% of the overall total of€2,782 million paid out by that fund to asbestos victimsfrom 2003 to 2010. Clearly asbestos companies inFrance have not been forced to bear the financial bur-den of compensating the victims for whom they wereresponsible.

In 1996, Eternit workers and their families also filed asuit in the criminal court. This case is still in the pre-tri-al investigation stage. At a hearing in 2005 held as partof the French parliament’s asbestos fact-finding mis-sion, the investigating magistrate Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, coordinator of the public health section ofTribunal de Grande Instance of Paris (the rough equi-valent of a county court), challenged the attitude of thepublic prosecutor’s office in the following terms: “Thefact that the public prosecutor’s office never itself opensa preliminary investigation is a problem: [it is never]the issue of the public health disaster itself or all thepeople affected by it in a given company [that getshandled] but only the file of a single victim or severalvictims, as in the contaminated blood scandal [contam-ination by the AIDS virus of blood used in transfu-sions]” [2] . In France, then, no prosecutors have openedany pre-trial investigations against those responsible forthe asbestos-caused health disaster.

But other means have been used to bring the matter be-fore the criminal courts. In a suit against the multina-tional corporation Alsthom for “endangering others’safety,” the corporation and its directors were ordered topay damages for “causing anxiety” to employees ex-posed to asbestos. This decision has become a legalprecedent. According to the court-approved definition,“anxiety damage” is “damage caused to a victim byknowing that he or she has been contaminated, regard-less of the nature of the contamination (biological,physical or chemical), when that contamination carrieswith it the risk that a life-threatening pathology will ap-pear in the near or more distant future” [3] . In cases ofcausing “anxiety damage” the company’s criminal re-sponsibility is recognized and the company itself mustpay all related damages.

In Italy: suing bosses of the multinational corpora-

tion Eternit for their criminal strategy

The Eternit trial in Turin represents a judicial turningpoint in the international history of cases against asbes-tos industrialists. It targets the strategic behavior of afew heads of multinational asbestos firms, those whoorganized the international-scale disinformation cam-paign on the health effects of asbestos that led to dis-aster not only in Italy but everywhere that asbestos wasbeing used. The conditions for compensating Italianvictims in this case are described, in the appendix tothis article, by Sergio Bonetto, a lawyer for some of theprivate parties associated with the public prosecution.

Here I will just indicate some points of comparison withthe French situation. Firstly, in Italy it is the public pro-secutor himself/herself, independently of the politicalauthorities, who takes the case to court. Secondly, thecriminal case bears on the responsibility of a productionsystem and an overall type of work organization thatextends far beyond local or national boundaries. Theaccused are international-level decision-makers whodeliberately exploited the fact that the health effects ofasbestos appear only after a certain time lapse. Lastly,any damages granted in this trial must be paid in full bythe companies associated with the accused industrial-ists. The judges in Turin should be reaching their de-cision in the coming months, whereas in France we arestill waiting for an actual trial to begin 15 years after thevictims’ lawsuits were filed.

Conclusion

Whatever the differences between the French andItalian strategies, the judicial progress made, thanks tothe committed involvement of a wide range of different


48

The civil suit within the criminal court trial in Italy isregulated by the penal code. This means that the penalsystem principles determine the limits within which aprivate party can act within a criminal trial.

Above all it should be specified, especially for readersfamiliar with legal systems in English-speaking coun-tries, that the Italian system, like most systems of Ro-man and Napoleonic origin, is based on thecompulsoriness of engaging in criminal proceedings.That is, through the penal code or specific laws, thestate defines all conduct it considers criminal and setsminimum and maximum sentences. If such conduct hasoccurred (and the judicial authorities are made aware ofit in any way), then a criminal investigation must beconducted. The institution qualified to conduct such in-vestigations is the Public Prosecutor’s office.

These are secret investigations, in which the Prosecutoris entirely independent and at liberty to use, guide andassign specific tasks to the criminal investigation de-partment and any technicians and specialists he or shedeems necessary. In this phase, private persons whodeem they have been harmed by the offense in questioncan appoint a defense lawyer who may in turn furnishdocuments and information to the Prosecutor, thus in-dicating the names of people familiar with the acts un-der investigation. The Prosecutor is under no obligationto use such documents or to hear persons with know-ledge of the acts in question.

All persons heard by the Prosecutor are interrogatedwithout legal assistance (not to mention the presence ofthe lawyer for private party-victims associated with theProsecutor), unless the Prosecutor himself informs oneor several witnesses that an investigation is under wayagainst them. In that case, only indicted persons canhave a defense lawyer and the victim cannot participatein the interrogatory.

When the investigation is complete, the Public Prosec-utor’s office must have the results evaluated by a judge,making available to him or her all the documents col-lected in the investigation process. At a special hearingin which both defendants’ and private plaintiffs’ lawyersactively participate, the judge has to decide whether thenecessary conditions have been met for taking the caseto trial or if instead further investigation is necessary orthe case should be dismissed. A trial is held only if thisfirst judge finds that the necessary conditions have beenmet. Trial judges are different from the one who de-cided the case could go to trial.

Another characteristic of the Italian penal system whichdistinguishes it sharply from others (particularly sys-tems in English-speaking countries) is that in Italy onlyphysical persons can be held criminally responsible.

The penal code can only be applied to physical persons.No legal entity (organization, company, institution, as-sociation or party) can be charged with a crime or sen-tenced.

A company cannot be indicted or sentenced for murderor pollution of the environment; only the person run-ning the company at the time the crime was committedcan be so indicted or sentenced. However, companiesand legal entities in general can participate in the penalprocess, either as victims or as civil entities responsiblefor the harm caused by the defendants. In the first case,legal entities assume the status of private parties to theprosecution, like any private person. In the second caseand with the court’s permission, private plaintiffs canbring legal entities that are financially responsible forthe damages caused by physical-person defendants intothe trial.

Clearly, then, penal action by the state, action againstphysical persons accused of violating criminal law, is at

Appendix

THE CIVIL SUIT WITHIN THE CRIMINAL TRIAL IN ITALY3

Sergio Bonetto4

3 Appendix translated from Italian to French by Laura Centemeri; then translated from French by Amy Jacobs.4 Sergio Bonetto: lawyer representing a number of plaintiffs in the Turin trial; email: [email protected]

actors in the two countries, suggests the urgency oftaking industrialists to court at an international level.The market for asbestos is flourishing in India, Chinaand many other countries. This industrial crime willonly cease when the impunity of the people running

these companies is shattered. This is what we must fightfor in the years ahead.

October 2011


49

the center of the Italian penal system. No other parties –crime victims, persons who have suffered damages,companies financially responsible for defendants’ con-duct – are considered necessary components of the case.On the contrary, and at the extreme, they are oftenthought of as impediments because in these trials onlytwo main actors are absolutely indispensable: the publicprosecutor (la publica accusa) and defense lawyers forthe accused. In fact, the accused are not even requiredto take part in the trial, since all that is required is thepresence of lawyers with the necessary powers of attor-ney. If the defendants have not hired their own lawyers,the Court appoints them a lawyer as a matter of course.

This arrangement creates obvious disparities in how thedifferent parties are treated, especially when the numberof “non-indispensable” parties is high. Given that, forthe system as a whole, having the trial proceed properlyis a higher priority than any demands by “accessory”parties, it often happens that those parties find them-selves limited in number or that the Court refuses tohear witnesses, let documents be produced or let thoseparties or their lawyers have the floor for more than afew minutes.

The reason justifying this disparity is the presumed dif-ference between the demands that private parties maymake and the state’s prerogative to exercise its funda-mental punitive role. Indeed, in criminal trials, privateparties associated with the prosecution can only claimcompensation for the injuries they have suffered. Theycan only claim in the criminal trial what they could suefor in a civil case. They are only allowed to be presentin the criminal trial for reasons of “procedural eco-nomy”; that is, to ensure that a single trial – the criminalone – will fulfill the state’s function of punishing crim-inals and meet claims for compensation by persons whohave suffered from that criminal’s conduct.

If it appears likely that assessment of the damage claimsof private parties to the prosecution will slow down thecriminal trial, then the criminal court can decide not torecognize those parties’ claims and to send them insteadbefore a civil court, which will examine them in relationto civil law only after the criminal case has been defin-itively concluded.

An important clarification is required here: “definitiveconclusion” means the definitive sentence, which inItaly is determined only after three judicial levels (gradidi giudizio) have intervened: the court, the appeals courtand court of cassation. From five to ten years is usuallyrequired for all these levels to reach their consecutivedecisions.

The alternative available to private parties in a criminalcase is to take their case to civil court from the outset.In this case, it is up to the suing party to prove all itsassertions against the party being sued; legal costs arehigh; there is of course no publica accusa, and such tri-als generally take much more time than criminal courtcases.

It has been rightly claimed that the Italian trial systemdoes not adequately protect crime victims and moregenerally those who have suffered a wrong (damage?).But that’s the system.

To sum up, anyone who thinks they have suffered harmdue to a crime has to act in person if they wish to col-lect damages; they can interfere only slightly in thecriminal trial process and have no influence on the sen-tence. On this point also, victims (i.e. , private partiesassociated with the prosecution) can have only an in-direct role.

Having paid out damages already is a mitigating cir-cumstance for persons convicted of a crime, but it in noway exonerates them from sentencing if the court findsthem responsible.

The state never surrenders its punishment prerogative.If the victim states that he or she has been fully com-pensated and the court finds that compensation ad-equate (congruo), the base sentence alone is reduced.On the other hand, if the court finds that compensationamount too low, it will not take the act of compensationinto account. The opposite also holds: if a convicteddefendant refuses to pay damages, this is considered anaggravating circumstance and the base sentence can beraised.

This arrangement is fairly complex and I have givenonly a rudimentary description of it. There are manypossible complications I have not mentioned, but ingeneral it can be said that crime victims are not likely toobtain any material results in a reasonable length oftime.

It is clear that victims’ choices in such a context are al-ways difficult and debatable. The difficulties increasewhen there are a great many victims suing for damagesand not all of them are in the same situation, as in theEternit trial in Turin.

An example: prescription in criminal cases and civil

suits

In criminal cases the prescription period is the amountof time the state has to obtain definitive recognition of


50

the defendant’s guilt. In Italy it is determined at the endof the trial on the basis of the real sentence, and in gen-eral it corresponds to the theoretical sentence times 1 .5.For example, a 10-year sentence equals a 15-year stat-ute of limitations. If the acts for which the defendantwas indicted occurred more than 15 years before he isconvicted, then prescription or statute of limitations ap-plies (it may also take effect during the trial process it-self). This mechanism explains how Berlusconi couldbe found "responsible" in four cases without being sen-tenced: the crimes of which he was accused werealready prescribed. In cases where the defendant is ac-quitted due to the statute of limitations, victims of thecrime can sue for damages in the civil courts – that is, iftheir claims have not themselves been "prescribed."

The prescription period in civil cases is timed from themoment a victim becomes aware that there has beendamage and that it is possible to identify someone as re-sponsible for it. Usually, in such cases, the victim hasten years to file a written claim for damages. In civilsuits the prescription period can be “extended” indefin-itely if the claim is renewed every ten years. If the vic-tim takes the case to court, the prescription period isdefinitively interrupted and trial time does not count.

Once again, the reality is much more complicated thanthis description of it, but even from the aforecited rulesit is obvious that it is virtually impossible to make real-istic predictions about how a trial will come out – thereare too many variables.

In the Eternit trial in Turin, for example, it is reasonableto assume that even if the accused are convicted andsentenced as criminals, not all victims and associatedprivate parties will be compensated. It is very likely thatsome will not be, because they will not have been ableto demonstrate the reality and impact of the damage(due to the extremely tight restrictions the court im-poses on presentation of evidence by private parties tothe prosecution). Others will not be able to do so be-cause the prescription will have kicked in (there arecases in this trial that date back to the 1970s! ). Obvi-ously I hope this will not happen. I am simply making areasonable prediction – I hope it will prove wrong.

In any case, in addition to the fact that it is extremelyhard to predict whether one’s claim to damages will berecognized, there is the unpredictability of how muchtime will be needed to actually obtain payment, sincethe two defendants in this case are foreigners. It may bethat when all the trials, criminal and civil, are over,those defendants will spontaneously refuse to pay dam-ages, a situation which would then require getting acivil execution order in Switzerland and Belgium. The

time and cost entailed should this occur cannot be cal-culated at the present time.

So much for the very real uncertainties that privateparties to the prosecution are facing in this case. As al-ways in such cases (e.g., multiplaintiff suits againstfraudulent banks), any offers to settle on the part of theaccused and the companies responsible for payingdamages are considered with the greatest attention.

In the Eternit case, for example, the “Belgian side”(criminal defendant plus civilly – financially – respons-ible company) have never made any offers. So here thecase will have to go through the entire process just de-scribed, with the hope that the Belgian defendant, 88years old, does not die in the meantime or get himselfcertified unable to testify, for then the criminal caseagainst him would be dismissed in accordance with theabove-cited principle that a criminal case can only befiled against physical persons.

The “Swiss side” of the case is different. There the de-fendant, through the intermediary of various companiesimplicated in the case as civilly responsible, has madeseveral partial settlement proposals, probably to appearless “extremist” than the Belgian defendant; also tosettle most individual cases for fairly low amounts ofmoney.

Shortly before the court debates began approximatelytwo years ago, the Swiss defendant made a unilateralsettlement offer to the workers and citizens of CasaleMonferrato, an offer then extended to the same groupsin other locales implicated in the case. That offer iscomplex but in substance the proposal was to pay acertain compensation amount immediately to some ofthe victims suing for damages through the Associationof Asbestos Victim’s Families of Casale Monferrato –recipients identified by chronological criteria of lengthof residence and real employment – in exchange fortheir abandoning all civil suits against the defendant S.Schmidheiny and any claims against the various Swisscompanies involved.

The amount for individuals is very low, approximately5% of what the court might recognize and limited to€60,000 per family, but it has been accepted by most ofthose concerned and the money has already been paidout.

Furthermore, in the last few months the Swiss defend-ant has offered to pay damages of €2 million to thesmallest of the municipalities involved (Cavagnolo, ap-proximately 3000 inhabitants) so that the city can payfor asbestos decontamination and cleaning activities.


51

The town Council of Cavagnolo has accepted this offer,arguing that the money could be used immediately andestimating that the amount was equivalent to two years’city expenses. It may be that other settlement proposalswill be made to other private parties to the prosecutionbefore the trial ends.

This type of settlement has certainly not had a great ef-fect on how the case is proceeding: individuals and cit-ies who initially sued both defendants but have nowbeen paid damages by the Swiss one are now suing onlythe Belgian defendant as parties to the public prosecu-tion in the criminal case. Given that they have receivedonly partial rather than total compensation, the sentencethe prosecutor is calling for against the Swiss defendanthas not been reduced and remains the same as for theBelgian defendant: 20 years.

On the basis of the preceding description, it is importantto stress that “big trials” have to cope with realities thatmay not be very “poetic” and are in fact full of uncer-tainties and risks. And for the victims the final result isnever guaranteed.

To establish uniform procedures in all countries andguarantee trial length and concrete results for victims, itis important to act in favor of setting up an internationalcourt competent to judge crimes that bring about envir-onmental disasters.

October 2011

References

1 . Jean-Paul Teissonnière and Sylvie Topaloff, “L’af-faire de l’amiante,” Semaine Sociale Lamy, Supple-ment no. 1 082, July 1 ,, 2002.

2. Replies by Mme Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, co-ordinator of the “public health” section of the ParisTribunal de Grand Instance, excerpted from theminutes of the November 29, 2005 hearing, in Mis-sion d’information de l’Assemblée Nationale (ed.Jean Le Garrec, president, and Jean Lemaire, re-dactor), Ne plus perdre sa vie à la gagner: 51 pro-positions pour tirer les leçons de l’amiante, Reportno. 2884, vol. 2, February 2006, pp. 583-592.

3 . Lambert-Faivre, “Evaluer et réparer,” Les Annoncesde la Seine, June 23, 2005.

Ban Asbestos France members demonstrate in support of Italian victims in Turin, April 2009. Photo: Annie Thébaud-Mony.


52

The Schmidheinys are one of Switzerland’s wealthiestfamilies, their fortune founded on a vast cement produc-tion empire. Stephan Schmidheiny was only 29 when heinherited part of that empire – the Eternit asbestos-ce-ment company – in 1976. Though resigned to the even-tual abandonment of asbestos, he continued to runEternit subsidiaries in Europe, South America andSouth Africa for varying lengths of time through the1980s, whereupon some were sold off or closed andothers converted to non-asbestos fiber-cement produc-tion.

Italy is practically the only country in the world wherebusiness executives have been prosecuted and im-prisoned for toxic corporate crime. In the latest of suchcases, Italy’s most famous prosecutor, Rafaelle Guarini-ello, has indicted Stephan Schmidheiny and BaronLouis de Cartier de Marchienne of the Belgian Eternit.They faced a range of charges: manslaughter (for killingItalians with asbestos dust in Italy, Switzerland, andBrazil), failure to comply with safety rules, negligence,and causing an environmental disaster. At the outset ofthe trial, Guariniello called for sentences of 12 years onconviction.

It is noteworthy that, in the course of his lengthy invest-igations, the Italian prosecutor had little success in get-ting the Swiss government to turn over records offactory inspections and compensation for occupationaldisease of Eternit workers, and other relevant docu-ments.

As the criminal trial loomed closer, Schmidheiny’s rep-resentatives tried to settle the civil claims of somepeople, at the same time requiring that they removethemselves from the criminal case; they were generallyoffering people only €30,000-50,000. Around the timeGuariniello decided not to prosecute Stephan’s cementbillionaire brother Thomas Schmidheiny, on the basisthat he had no direct connection with the asbestos-ce-ment business, Thomas donated €3,000,000 to victimsin the town of Casale Monferrato, home to Italy’sbiggest Eternit factory. This was used for cancer re-search, payment to lawyers, and restitution of the townitself.

The trial started in December 2009 and, when I gavemy evidence in November 2010, was expected to finishin mid 2011 . It followed 10 years of investigation start-ing in 1999 and, initially, trial was scheduled to takeplace only on Mondays (towards the end of the trialthere were to be two sessions some weeks). If con-victed, Schmidheiny would be able to appeal at twomore levels of the justice system in Rome and remainfree during such appeals under Italian law.

It was the people of Casale that brought me to Turin totestify. I was there to provide a global perspective onwhat went on in the asbestos industry, and draw atten-tion to documents implicating Eternit. Much of what Ihad to contribute was based on what the US and UK in-dustry leaders did – we have seen their documents inUS legal cases. But since Eternit avoided the US mar-ket, possibly in some cartel deal with the others, most ofwhat we know about Eternit comes from Johns-Man-ville (J-M) and Turner & Newall (T&N) correspond-ence and documents mentioning them in some way.

In the courtroom, the translator and I took our placeimmediately in front of the three judges, and the pro-ceedings started without the formality of swearing mein as a witness. They asked to see my passport, recordedmy name, and we began. The translation turned out tobe even worse than I realized at the time; the audio re-cording showed that both key questions and answerswere defectively communicated. (Journalistic reports inLa Republica criticized the court for not providing asufficiently competent translator.)

The Eternit documents I introduced included a 1950letter from the Swiss parent group, then run by ErnstSchmidheiny, to the Eternit subsidiary in Holland,which discussed articles on asbestosis. I testified thatanyone reading the literature on asbestosis in 1950could hardly avoid coming across data and commentsalso linking asbestos to lung cancer. From the Johns-Manville archive came a report by consultants for J-Mon a 1971 interview with Max Schmidheiny and his as-sociates at his villa in Switzerland. Schmidheiny and hisassociates were critical of Johns-Manville PresidentBurnett for placing the first vague health warnings onsacks of asbestos exported from J-M’s Quebec mine,

10. THE CRIMINAL TRIAL OF STEPHAN SCHMIDHEINY IN TURIN, ITALY

Barry Castleman1

1 Barry Castleman, ScD, Environmental Consultant, Garrett Park MD, USA; email: [email protected]


53

starting in 1969. (The Eternit men were said to havesuggested, as an alternative, to change to dust-free sackmaterials! )

Later in 1971 , the transcript of the International Confer-ence of Asbestos Information Bodies (from the T&Narchive provided by the International Ban Asbestos Sec-retariat), which Eternit people from four countries at-tended, shows a rapid growth of national asbestosindustry propaganda and lobbying offices at that time.Only one such group existed in 1969: the Asbestos In-formation Centre. This UK group shared offices withexperienced tobacco industry damage control specialistsHill & Knowlton. By 1971 , there were asbestos industrygroups in 11 countries including the US. The UK speak-ers detailed the role the UK asbestos industry played inblunting the impact of government regulation and influ-encing the text of materials the government issued onhow the public and institutions should assess and dealwith asbestos exposures. In warning all the others toprepare for trouble, one of the British speakers observedthat things were still “relatively tranquil” in Belgium,Italy, Germany and France. The presentations show thatproblems were raging over asbestos in the UK, US, andHolland: as a mortal hazard to asbestos factory workersand shipyard workers, over resulting union demands,publicity about the public at large being endangered, in-creased insurance costs, and the increased attentions ofgovernment inspectors and regulators.

The industry set up an umbrella group in 1975 to co-ordinate its defense internationally. A 1978 Asbestos In-ternational Association memo records a discussionabout warning labeling. It describes how the recentlyintroduced UK “Take Care with Asbestos” label hadbeen adopted in several countries as acceptable to theauthorities, and notes the view that when use of somehealth warning label became unavoidable this should bethe style selected. That, it was observed, was preferableto being required to use a label with a skull-and-cross-bones symbol or the word “cancer.” At the end, Etiennevan der Rest of the Belgian Eternit was recorded as re-questing that the British do their “utmost” to avoid hav-ing warning-labeled asbestos products shipped intoEurope.

Last, an exchange of letters from van der Rest to T&Nexecutive Harry Hardie in March 1980 starts with vander Rest whining that T&N was starting to use a “can-cer” warning label on asbestos goods and asking whatthe justification was. Hardie replied that European as-bestos-cement producers had no idea how things werein the asbestos litigation in the US.

[I first met Etienne van der Rest at a conference inWashington in 1977 after speaking about “Hazard Ex-

port,” featuring the asbestos and chemical industries.He was a very tall, pale, cadaverous-looking man, whocame over to me and reached down and put his armaround me as he spoke. If you were making a movie,you couldn’t beat this guy for casting as a characterpersonifying evil. When later I saw the 1978 documentshowing him trying to keep UK-warning-labeled asbes-tos products from coming into Europe, I wrote to himasking how he could live with himself doing such athing. The only other time I saw this guy was at the1986 hearings on the US EPA’s proposed rule to banmost uses of asbestos. There, the Eternit men arguedthat a US ban on asbestos-cement pipe would be dis-astrous for poor countries needing it to supply drinkingwater. I walked over to van der Rest and said that I hadalways attributed most of the human suffering in theworld to the imbalance in power and wealth, but afterhearing from Eternit that day I realized it was all be-cause of the lack of asbestos-cement pipe. I can onlywonder what van der Rest felt when he lay dying frommesothelioma years later. His Belgian company doctoralso died from mesothelioma, I was told.]

The defense lawyers had no time to question me thatfirst day and asked for two weeks to read my book onthe history of the asbestos industry. Like it was a sur-prise! I told the judge I would be able to stick aroundanother week, and he ordered that we continue then.

During that week, I met repeatedly with the prosecutorand his staff, and with the lawyers for the victims inCasale Monferrato (the community most devastated byEternit’s activities in Italy). At their requests, I prepareda 3½ page summary of what I had tried to tell the Court(which was professionally translated into Italian), andwe discussed what additional questions the lawyersmight ask me when the trial resumed.

Prosecutor Guariniello has an extensive network ofacademic consultants and other experts in medicine,epidemiology, industrial hygiene, and accounting. Hehopes to institutionalize a judicial entity charged withinvestigating occupational fatalities that are criminallycaused. He has epidemiologists looking through gov-ernment statistics looking for occupational cancers. Thiscase is something of a breakthrough in charging theforeign owner-executives, not just local managers. Itinvolves legal-accounting detective work in tracing re-sponsibility to the corporate owners for conditions attheir factories.

The new court translator, Victoria Franzinetti, did agreat job, and the second trial day went well. Whennone of the lawyers moved for its admission, I offeredthe judges the summary I had written. The Italian trans-


54

lation of that and my Curriculum Vitae I handed to eachof the three judges. When he requested one, I steppedover to Mr. Schmidheiny’s lead lawyer and handed himan Italian translation of my summary. It was the de-fense’s turn to cross examine me. As I had suspected,Schmidheiny’s main lawyer rose and said he had noquestions. A lawyer for Etex, the Belgian Eternit, therefor civil claims (there are civil claims for damageswrapped up inside the criminal case), for reasons bestknown to himself, asked me for dates of the van derRest documents I had submitted to the court the weekbefore. So, this time with a good translator, I again de-scribed these to the judges in some detail and gave thedate of each.

The deputy prosecutor then asked me for the story ofinternal corporate discussions in the US about puttingthe first mild health warnings on asbestos-containingboards. This was illustrated with internal Johns-Man-ville memos from 1958 and minutes of the AsbestosCement Products Association in the period 1968-70. Inits first health standard, OSHA required warnings onthese products in 1972. But in Europe, the Eternit com-panies made these products through the 1980s and ap-pear to have never bothered to put health warnings onasbestos-cement sheets and pipes.

The burden on Eternit in this case is to have done whatwas technically feasible to protect people both in theirasbestos plants and in the surrounding neighborhoods.So I cited parts of the 1969 UK asbestos regulations and1972 OSHA asbestos rules, to show what other majorfirms were required to do while Eternit was doing little

if anything to protect workers and plant neighbors ex-posed to its pollution in Italy. I noted the UK and USrequirements for wastes to be disposed of in imper-meable containers.

Guariniello and the chief judge each asked one ques-tion, and then I asked to speak. I offered to answer anyquestion the court might have by correspondence, andsaid I might send additional references to support pointsmade in the trial. Lastly, I thanked them for the won-derful translation. After I left the room, I handed a copyof my book to one of the scientists working with Guar-iniello to take to him. It was inscribed with respect forhis efforts to prosecute corporate criminals of the as-bestos industry. It was all over in an hour and a half.

It was widely agreed that the defendants had missedtheir chance by not all telling the court that they wouldhave no questions for me at the end of the firstMonday’s proceedings. They would have been betteroff sending me home then. But it is also believed thatthe defense lawyers are doing all they can to prolongthis trial, then expected to run for another year, so thatmay explain their actions. Schmidheiny’s fleet of law-yers, public relations hacks, etc. is estimated to costabout €10 million a year.

Supplemental Statement to the Court

Upon reflection, I wrote a summary for submission tothe court that elaborated on points made in my secondtrial day, focusing on the issue of warning people aboutthe dangers of asbestos as having central importance.

Barry Castleman giving evidence before Judge Giuseppe Casalbore in the Turin Court



55

The apprehension of US asbestos companies about theirpotential product liability (which would eventually dev-astate them), even before US federal regulatory agen-cies were created to protect workers and theenvironment, goes at least as far back as the 1950s.Soon after it was created by the Congress, OSHA re-quired warnings on products such as asbestos-cementsheets and pipes in its 1 972 asbestos regulations (sayingthat breathing asbestos could cause “serious bodilyharm”).

In contrast, the lack of product liability law in Europeand the lack of warning label requirements in Europeanworkplace asbestos regulations enabled manufacturersin Europe to avoid warning workers and the public at nofinancial risk. Eternit executives accordingly weighedin repeatedly against the use of health warning labelsand even tried to get UK firms to not export labeled as-bestos products to the continent in 1978. Apparently,Eternit went on making these products through the1980s and never placed health warnings on them or inproduct brochures. It appears to me that the prolongedignorance ofworkers and the public at large was vital inthe expansion of markets for asbestos products after the1930s, by which time the lethality of asbestos dust waswell established medically. I quoted a 1975 UnionCarbide internal memorandum saying that it would be“between serious and fatal” to the asbestos business toplace warnings on sacks of asbestos using the word“cancer.”

I also attached material submitted by the Swiss EternitGroup at the 1986 EPA hearings on banning asbestos inthe US. This included statements that the firm regardedworker and environmental protection as the responsibil-ity of top management. One excerpt attached to thecompany’s testimony came from a 1984 asbestos in-dustry report purporting to describe the best technologyavailable in US asbestos-cement manufacturing plants.“All three asbestos cement pipe manufacturers visitedhave full time engineers and industrial hygienists de-voted to minimizing asbestos dust exposure in all worksites.” Fully automated, “totally enclosed” asbestos bagopening machinery was also described in this excerpt.Airborne asbestos fiber measurements were reported.Eternit’s submission of this to EPA, I thought, invitedcomparison with conditions at Eternit’s own plants inthe mid-1980s.

Conclusion of the Trial

In closing arguments in July 2011 , the prosecutors saidthey had re-evaluated the evidence as it came out in thetrial and were now asking for Schmidheiny and the Bar-

on to be sentenced to 20 years each (rather than the 12years originally sought), based on willful and intention-al negligence by the executives and owners of Eternitsupporting indictment for willful environmental dis-aster. They also noted that the disaster was ongoing,with new casualties occurring every year, in addition tothe nearly 3000 victims named in the court proceedings.

The judges seemed anxious to complete the trial andlimited the remaining civil damages plaintiffs’ lawyersto 15 minutes each orally, with the balance of theirstatements to be submitted in writing.

In his closing statement, Schmidheiny’s lawyer madenone of the usual excuses (Schmidheiny didn’t knowasbestos was dangerous or thought it less dangerousthan it turned out to be, he thought his plant managerswere doing a better job to protect people). Instead, heseemed to ridicule the “sacrosanct” principle of rehab-ilitation through punishment for things done 25 yearsago when “a person” is not the same as he was. Thissuggested that Schmidheiny’s philanthropy should takeprecedence over how his fortune was made. The law-yer’s ramblings about the erosion of principles of law inItalian courts compared the persecution of Schmidheinyto acts of the Nazis and Guantanamo. The defense law-yer also claimed that the diagnostic methods used insome of the victims’ mesothelioma cases did not em-ploy state-of-the-art techniques.

Guariniello replied that he had never before asked for20-year sentences in a case of this kind, but this time hehad to because of the enormity of the damage causedand the “intensity of the vicious criminal intent overtime.” The prosecutor also pointed out that there was acomplex media organization paid to hide Schmidheiny’srole, also involving spying on trade unions, magistrates,and victims’ groups “which the defense carefullyavoided mentioning.”

Meanwhile, legislation to better protect the corporatesin Italy from criminal prosecution wound its way to-ward enactment. This would allow endless delays incompleting the trial as defense lawyers would be able tocall as witnesses virtually everyone touched by the case.Guariniello urged that this case be tried under existinglaw even if the new law came into force before the trialconcluded, and the judges seemed to be anxious to fin-ish the trial, too, before legislative changes came. As itturned out, the feared legislation was sidetracked by theeconomic and political crisis that rocked Italy inNovember 2011 .

November 18, 2011


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The plans, strategies and moods of the Casale Monfer-rato campaigners as well as the efforts of individualscharged with holding Eternit’s executives to accountwere meticulously monitored by a network of inform-ants, so-called “local PR correspondents,” and consult-ants. The extent of the super-web of Eternit-paidadvisors, dubbed the “Italy Team” in confidential cor-porate files, is revealed in the extensive archive of sens-itive memos, briefings and telefax messages seized bypolice during raids on the Milan office of the globalpublic relations company of GCI Chiappe Bellodi Asso-ciates (Bellodi).1 From the premises at 16 CarducciStreet, Guido Bellodi coordinated an operation whichreported on developments in Casale Monferrato, includ-ing the efforts of community activists, the vacationplans of key litigators, the resources available to Italianprosecutors, statements by members of the prosecutionteam, the affiliations of local politicians and membersof the Government of the Region, the latest epidemiolo-gical publications, press coverage and filming by Italianand foreign journalists. A “Quarterly Report about theItalian Eternit case” dated September 29, 2000 goes asfar as remarking on the participation of communityleaders at the world’s first Global Asbestos Congress:

“A Casale delegation attended the recent asbes-tos Congress held Sept. 1 7-20, 2000 in Osasco,Brazil. It included the Mayor Mr. Mascarino,Mrs. Degiovanni (oncologist ofASL 21 andmember of the asbestos team), Mr. Pesce and Mr.Pondrano (CGIL). Prof. Terracini was among thespeakers of the epidemiology panel.”2

The fact that Guido Bellodi had a seemingly endlessnumber of individuals to carry out his orders indicatesthe vast financial resources which his paymasters werewilling to throw at the challenge posed by the mounting

death toll of former Eternit workers and local residents.Nowhere in any of the files I read was sympathy ex-pressed for those whose lives had been destroyed by thecompany or its affiliates.

The ultimate aim of the audacious Bellodi defensestrategy was to “have the maximum possible guaranteethat everything is and will be under control.” Time aftertime, the need to ensure that the epidemic of Eternit-caused deaths resulting from the operations of the Ca-sale Monferrato asbestos-cement factory remained justa local story was stressed.3 The rigorous implementa-tion of a communications plan which delineated specif-ic roles and tasks to those on the Eternit payroll was thebedrock of the public relations campaign “to face theCasale issue.” Deviation from the strategies containedin the company’s master plan, known as “The Bible,”4

could result in “a clever journalist writing an in-depthstory on (sic) a major media in Italy or abroad,”5

warned Bellodi. A memo from June 1992 indicates howEternit’s PR commandments were rolled out on a dailybasis; it is of interest to note that the layout of the textshows a demarcation between levels 1 and 2 which arein the public relations area and levels 3 & 4 which arein the “No Communication Area”:

“Strategic Objectives in Italy

The strategic orientation of our PR-policy hasbeen carefully devised and laid down over thelast years. I think it is valid and should not bealtered:

First target:

Try to keep the issue on LEVEL 1 [diagramshows level 1 as controlled by Eternit (Italy) (inreceivership); initials assigned to this level areGB in cooperation with MM].6

11. ETERNIT VS. THE VICTIMS

Laurie Kazan-Allen

1 A 1992 document listed GCI offices in Amsterdam, Bologna, Brussels, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Genoa, The Hague, Hong Kong,London, Los Angeles, Maastricht, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mila, Munich, New York, Paris, Rome, Stockholm Sydney, Tokyo, andToronto.2 The documents available to us for study which were confiscated by the police at the Bellodi offices (the Bellodi files) and latersubmitted as evidence during the Turin trial were written in Italian, English and German and cover the period from 1992 to 2002. Thepdf files we have obtained often contain a mixture of documents. Citations of relevant files will be made according to the originalclassifications: Bellodi_Doc_125-148.pdf (p 40).3 Bellodi_Doc_112_T Martac.pdf and Bellodi_Doc_123_T Martac.pdf4 Bellodi_Doc_182A_T. Crosetto.pdf5 Strictly Confidential Memo. Bellodi_Doc_T. Martac.pdf (p. 2).6 GB: Guido Bellodi; MM: Maurizio Maresca


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Second target:

Try to keep the issue on LEVEL 2, e.g. when me-dia reports in Switzerland or Germany force usto leave LEVEL 1 . [Diagram shows level 2 ascontrolled by NUEVAAG (Thalwill) formerly:Swiss Eternit Group; initials assigned to thislevel are FS in cooperation with IH.]7

Third target:

Avoid at any rate to allow the issue to spread toLEVELS 3 or 4. The essential precondition isthat all inquiries (sic) are consistently directed toLEVELS 1 and 2 and that no comment on thesubject is made in any way whatsoever abovethese levels. [Diagram shows level 3 as con-trolled by ANOVAAG (Hurden); no initials areassigned to level 3. Level 4 is controlled bySTS;8 no other personnel are listed at level 4.]

Recommendation:

Even today (June 1992) it seems quite possiblethat the issue can be confined to LEVEL 1(LEVEL 2 at the most) if everybody involvedstrictly sticks to the objective. That is what weshould try to achieve.”9

To achieve the objectives set for Eternit’s troops of law-yers, public relations advisors, industry consultants andacademic experts, working parties were set up. Themembership of these bodies drew on in-house talentsuch as personnel from Eternit AG, Eternit S.p.A., theSwiss Eternit Group, Nueva Ltd., but also bought in tal-ent from outside companies like GCI Chiappe BellodiAssociates and Buro fur Mediebberatung (Bonn) andhired independent experts and contractors as needed. Tofacilitate communication amongst those involved, con-tact lists were drawn up with details of business andhome addresses, and office and home telephone and faxnumbers. The names of participants in some of the keyEternit groups are noted below:

• Italy Team: L. Mittelholzer, B. Schneider, M.Maresca, H. Thoni, STS (Stephen Schmid-heiny?), G Bellodi, L. B. Fetz, G. Buttiker, A.Barbieri, E. Heini, J. Drolshammer, E. Bontem-

pelli, F. Sommer, U. F. Gruber, E. Costa, H. U.Liniger, W. Schurer, U. Garaventa, K. Villinger,P. Bernasconi

• PR Team10 (nickname “Team Stampa”): Co-ordinator: Guido Bellodi; Press Officer (Milan)Andrea Barbieri; Press Officer (Rome) RobertoMaria Zerbi; Environmental [Issues] : EmilioCosta (Genoa) and Ulrich Gruber

• Crisis Management Team: Wolfgang Schurer,Dr. Gero Buttiker, Dr. J. Kaegi, Dr. BennoSchneider, Walter Anderau, Hans Thoni, F. Som-mer, Leo Mittelholzer, Guido Bellodi

• Legal Team: International – J. Drolshammer andItaly – Prof. Alberto Bosisio, Avv. Ubaldo Fop-piano, Avv. Maurizio Maresca

• Local PR correspondents: Rossanna Revello(Genoa), Maris Cristina Bruno (Casale Monfer-rato), Rino Labate (Messina)

The incredible precision with which the Eternit defensewas conducted is well illustrated by the almost forensicdivision of tasks amongst members of the legal team.Key personnel were asked to develop legal strategies to:counter allegations made by the victims; “overcome orto avoid the corporate veil,” avoid liability for environ-mental damages in Italy and Switzerland and help min-imize Eternit’s liability to third parties such as theItalian government agency, INAIL.11 Other legal pro-fessionals and consultants were charged with: uncover-ing and/or exploiting jurisdictional loopholes, designingcorporate exit strategies such as the setting up of trustfunds, archiving company records and identifying po-tential expert witnesses, representing Eternit employeesin other Italian trials i.e. those in Cavagnolo in 1995 and2000, establishing a fund to pay the legal fees of belea-guered Eternit executives,12 liaising with Eternit law-yers from the Belgian Eternit Group and other sistercompanies and studying the evolution of legal preced-ents such as those emerging from the Seveso case whichmight impact on Eternit’s position.

7 FS: Frank Sommer; IH: Ida Hardegger.8 It is of relevance to note that in none of the Bellodi files I read was mention made of Stephen Schmidheiny. In at least four instances,however, the initials STS were found in the paperwork and they are believed to stand for Stephan Schmidheiny. In a confidential memowritten on September 1 , 1 994, the final section heading is: “Public relations aspects – Relations with Belgium Group.” The notes underthis title state: “Different options in case of developments: (a) strong attacks in the press against the Group/STS related with Casale;(b) direct involvement of the Group/STS …”9 Bellodi_Doc_123_T Martac.pdf10 Bellodi_Doc_101_T Zallio.pdf11 Bellodi_Doc_108.pdf (p. 3-4).12 Bellodi_doc_127.pdf


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The Bellodi network was well aware of the need forconstant input from on-the-ground sources; in the pre-internet age remote access to news on local develop-ments was not possible through the click of a button.Information contained in monthly reports from “localPR correspondents,” which was circulated to Bel-lodi–Eternit personnel not only kept them up-to-datebut also provided impetus for future defensive actions.Feedback from Casale Monferrato was gleaned by thecontinuous monitoring of news releases, keeping cur-rent on local gossip and the infiltration ofmeetings heldby AFEVA, the group representing asbestos victims andfamily members from Casale Monferrato, and AFLED(l’associazione famigliari lavoratori Eternit deceduti:The Association of Dead Eternit Workers), the organiz-ation which preceded it. An individual named in theBellodi files as having undertaken some of these taskswas freelance journalist Maria Cristina Bruno; theremay have been others.1 3 Commenting on the infiltrationof AFEVA by Maria Cristina Bruno, AFEVA’s BrunoPesce said:

“She spied on us day after day, year after year,attending all the union meetings, asking ques-tions on the proceedings… Schmidheiny waspaying the Bellodi practice which paid its in-former(s)…”14

Transcripts of briefings by Maria Cristina Bruno, whichhave been translated from Italian, are attached as Ap-pendices A and B. They are a mixture of tittle-tattle, re-cycling of Casale Monferrato media coverage and, whatappears to be, inside knowledge of current develop-ments. Documents seized by the police reveal thatwhatever the quality of Bruno’s reports, they werewidely circulated to members of the “Italy Team.” Oneof her reports, dated October 6, 1 993, is occupied withnews of scientific developments:

“The detonator is about to be triggered on thefigures relating to the epidemiological study andenvironmental sampling. The trade unions areconcerned and are trying to increase awarenessand public opinion on the severity of the problemor at least of how bad the problem is.

I have heard they are trying to gather informationon the companies that currently operate in theprovince and that are still using asbestos.

The aim of their work is for INAIL [a govern-ment agency providing occupational insuranceand welfare] to be concerned or involved dir-ectly. Data have not yet been submitted or madepublic. The trade unions have been informed ofthe results and currently the data are with thehealth district and with the doctors who arestudying the asbestos-cement issue. As well asthe information I have enclosed I was unable toacquire any more detailed information. The doc-tors have an embargo and are not releasing anyinformation of any kind.

The health district is currently awaiting the Min-istry’s go ahead to be able to publish the data.Currently there are problems which are linked tothe funding of such project which has beenpromised a number of times but has not yet comethrough. While waiting to give you further in-formation best regards.”

In the covering note by Guido Bellodi, which was cir-culated to Gero Buttiker, Ferdinand Elsener, ErichHeini, Ulrich F. Gruber and Frank Summer on October6 along with the text of the “report received today fromour correspondent [Bruno] in Casale,” Bellodi warned“the situation might have alarming developments.”15

The speed with which valuable knowledge was beinggathered and disseminated to Eternit’s “Italy Team” wastruly impressive. Within just a few hours of a November30, 1 993 trade union assembly on Casale’s asbestos is-sue, a typed four-page report detailing presentations bynamed speakers, discussions and plans for future actionon behalf of the injured was being circulated throughthe company’s network.16

The issue of Eternit’s liability for the clean-up of asbes-tos pollution in Casale Monferrato and elsewhere wasregarded as high priority. Commenting on a paper byItalian epidemiologists, in 1995 Dr. Ulrich Gruber, along-time Eternit insider, wrote: “In conclusion, the pa-

1 3 Anonymous briefings from Casale Monferrato dated June 28, 1 993 and November 29, 1 993 were sent to Guido Bellodi and MaurizioMaresca and comment on a variety of issues including: “increasing rumors from the trade unions concerning a possible reopening ofthe criminal and civil proceedings [against Eternit] ;” these cases would be brought on behalf of residents and former workers who havecontracted mesothelioma. The content of a television program shown on November 18 is reported: “The positive side of it, in myopinion, is that there was a very low audience due to the time when it was broadcast.” Statements made in the documentary byEpidemiologist Benedetto Terracini, Raffaele Guariniello, Bruno Pesce and former workers are mentioned and the writer concludes“there is a very bad situation… and there are possible dangers for the future.” Bellodi_Doc-120 pdf14 Espionage and Misinformation. ANDEVA Bulletin. September 2011 .Mossano S. The Continuation of the Eternit Hearing (“Eternit, Seguito Udienza"). Alessandria edition ofLa Stampa. July 4, 2011 .15 Bellodi_Doc_108-124.pdf (page 45).16 Bellodi_108-124.pdf (p. 52, 53-56).


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per is a very dangerous one because it suggests thatEternit has been polluting the entire city of Casale…”17

Proposals being considered by municipal, state, regionaland central authorities to decontaminate Eternit’sformer warehouse in Casale Monferrato and the Po ri-verbanks, where vast amounts of asbestos waste hadbeen dumped, were assiduously monitored by the com-pany. Typical comments in the Bellodi documentationabout the environmental ramifications of Eternit’s Itali-an asbestos-cement operations are noted below. Whilethe English in these passages is sometimes a bit hard tofollow and is often grammatically incorrect, the senseofwhat is being said is clear:

• “The interest towards the asbestos issue is stillalive and especially the first point might well rep-resent the risk to become a wider and serious en-vironmental issue. The most pessimisticforecast would be that, in case of reclamation

of the whole town of Casale, the Italian State

could well try to take the relevant funds out on

the (sic) ‘responsible’ for the pollution. Fromour point of view this means that the situationcould become rather worrying.”18

• “A ‘supercomitato’ (Supercommittee) was con-stituted in order to face the all (sic) environ-

mental problems in Casale. Such aSupercomitato promoted a meeting with the rep-resentative of the Government. They met theMinister to the Environment, Matteoli, and theDirettore General, Clini (June 23rd). Concerningthe bonification [decontamination] of the placesthere is a strong debate. The actual Mayor is con-trary to use state financial aids (in order to avoidnegative publicity) while the others are in fa-vour.”19

• “The expert reports of the Court (not yet offi-cially disclosed) and the Municipality inspectionswould show that all the Targia area (Sicily) ispolluted with asbestos dust.”20

• Regarding an ongoing criminal investigation in

Siracusa related to the Eternit factory: “It seemsthat the Public Prosecutor in the Pretura is in-vestigating concerning the abusive and unau-

thorized discharge and illicit stockage of

asbestos waste within the factory and or on the

seabed in front of the factory.”21

• “The Environmental department seems tohave decided to push for the environmental

actions. The Director General has sent toSiracusa his own representative. Such action,suggested also from the political forces – ForzaItalia (Mrs. Prestigiacomo) and Rete (Mr. Pis-citello) – at the national level, could be initiatedalso within the criminal proceeding sub A.”22

• “Work for cleaning up the [Casale] Eternit fact-ory was finally started in late August (2000).Work for removal of asbestos sheets from differ-ent public buildings is in progress… No devel-opment for the time being about theenvironmental pollution issue [in Sicily] ."23

Eternit’s carefully devised strategy for keeping a lid onthe Italian asbestos scandal worked. Even as the numberof deaths grew, new ways were found to divert attentionfrom the company’s culpability. Lawyers continued tothrive as did spin doctors and Eternit informers. Unlikethe fortune of asbestos conglomerates in the U.S. andthe UK, Eternit balance sheets seemed impervious tocompensation claims from the company’s victims. Thetwo men accused in the Great Asbestos Trial must havefelt secure that they would never see the inside of anItalian jail. Whatever the outcome of this trial and theappeals which will no doubt follow, Eternit has beenexposed as a criminal enterprise dedicated to the pursuitof profit at whatever cost to the workforce and localcommunity. As for the part played in this humanitariandisaster by Stephan Schmidheiny and Jean-Louis MarieGhislain de Cartier de Marchienne, that will be judgedby the Turin Court.

November 2011

17 Bellodi_Doc_149-194.pdf18 Bellodi_Doc_ 118_T Martac.pdf19 Bellodi _Doc_126_T Martac.pdf20 Telefax Message dated June 12, 1 995 from Pier Lodigiani of the Bellodi firm to Gero Buttiker, Ferdinand Elsener and MaurizioMaresca. Bellodi_Doc_149-194.pdf (p 53).21 Report by Maurizio Maresca. February 22, 1 995. Bellodi_Doc_164.pdf22 Ibid.23 Bellodi_Doc_125-148.pdf


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24 Translated from Italian.25 The Italian phrase “monitor Eternit” has been translated as Eternit Monitoring.26 S.A.C.A: Societa per azioni Cemento Amianto (Asbestos Cement Ltd. shareholding company).

Report by Maria Cristina Bruno24 Appendix A

Maria Cristina Bruno piazza Castello 11 1 5033-Casale Monferrato (Al)- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Casale Monferrato 02.09.1 993 Guido Bellodi

Chiappe Bellodi AssociatesVia Carducci, 1 6

Object: Eternit Monitoring25 20123 Milan- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -As usual, I am sending you a report on the press for July and August. The Monferrato, which is a local newspaperthat is published twice a week whose director is Marco Giorcelli has published the following articles:

July 6, 1993

The Casale Deputy (MP) for the “Rifondazione” [the Refounding Communist Party] Angelo Muzio is still involvedin the asbestos problem from a legal point of view. In the meantime, the asbestos problem is still also being dis-cussed in the Province ofAlessandria at the Building School [this was one of the technical and vocational schoolswhere skilled workers for the building and construction industry were trained] .

July 16, 1993

The lower chamber [the Chamber of Deputies in Italy; roughly the equivalent of the House of Commons in Britain]voted on a decree for pensions for former Eternit workers.

The Stampa [Il Stampa] newspaper reported the news on the page of the Province ofAlessandria and also publishedthe following articles:• July 9, 1 993: Delays in the settlements for former Eternit workers.• July 11 , 1 993: The lower chamber ofParliament is examining the decree on asbestos.• July 20 1993: Delays with regional funding for the decontamination ofthe former Eternit warehouses.• July 24, 1 993: Senate approves the decree on asbestos.

• July 29, 1 993: The Senate approved the asbestos decree.[This piece contains] very positive comments by Angelo Muzio, who is local Deputy belonging to the Refound-ing Communist Party.

• August 26, 1 993: The decontamination ofthe former Eternit warehouse is still blocked.[This piece explains that the reason for this delay is] because of the lack of regional funding which was approvedbut never provided. [It also states that] we’re all very pleased by the approval of the decree on asbestos [and in-cludes] comments by the INPS [Italian Pension Agency] .

As far as other news is concerned, unfortunately, I can’t really give you any other information due to the holidaysbut I will be sending you any other information as soon as possible.

The “Vita Casalese,” a local Catholic weekly directed by a priest called Don Paolo Busto, published:

In the debate following MPs from Casale Monferrato spoke. Angelo Muzio from the Refounding Communists, AldaGrassi from the Northern League.

Nothing more to add. Best regards,

July 13, 1993

More early retirement applications by former Eternit workers. The Casale case is also discussed at S.A.C.A.26

Dr. Maria Cristina Bruno

July 27, 1993

On the July 27, 1 993 the same “Asbestos Decree” was voted on in the Senate. It was approved and everyone waspleased and there were comments by Angelo Muzio who was the MP for the Refounding Communists.


I have enclosed the above listed documents and also I am enclosing a copy of the decontamination and reconversionproject of river Po banks which the Department of Environment of Casale has prepared. The project has beencriticised several times by the Northern League and is currently blocked.

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27 Translated from Italian.

Report by Maria Cristina Bruno27 Appendix B

Telefax- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -From: Maria Cristina Bruno piazza Castello 11 1 5033-Casale Monferrato (Al)To: Dr. Guido Bellodi/ cc: Maurizio MarescaPages: 1 + 3Object: The object of this communication is to report on the articles which were published yesterday in the paper IlMonferrato and le Stampa

The detonator is about to be triggered on the figures relating to the epidemiological study and environmentalsampling. The trade unions are concerned and are trying to increase awareness and public opinion on the severity ofthe problem or at least of how bad the problem is.

The aim of their work is for INAIL to be concerned or involved directly. Data have not yet been submitted or madepublic. The trade unions have been informed of the results and currently the data are with the health district and withthe doctors who are studying the asbestos-cement issue. As well as the information I have enclosed I was unable toacquire any more detailed information. The doctors have an embargo and are not releasing any information of anykind.

Casale Monferrato, 06.1 0.1 993- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pictured in Brazil attending the Osasco Global Asbestos Congress in 2000 are Barry Castleman, AnnieThébaud-Mony, Bruno Pesce, Nicola Pondrano, Dr Daniela Degiovanni, Mayor Paola Mascarino, andFernanda Giannasi. The attendance of the Italians had not gone unnoticed by Eternit's informers.

The health district is currently awaiting the Ministry’s go ahead to be able to publish the data. Currently there areproblems which are linked to the funding of such project which has been promised a number of times but has notyet come through. While waiting to give you further information best regards.

NB: The figures referring to the epidemiological data highlight an incidence of an increase of mesotheliomasamongst non-directly exposed citizens that is to say amongst the community or population or residents who were notdirectly exposed [to asbestos at work] .

Maria Cristina Bruno

I have heard they are trying to gather information on the companies that currently operate in the province and thatare still using asbestos.


62

The “Great Asbestos Trial” of the film’s title opened inTurin on December 10, 2009. At last, thousands of Itali-ans whose families had been decimated by the ravagesof asbestos diseases and surviving disease victims couldsee some hope of justice. In the course of the trial theprosecutor called for sentences of twenty years for keydirectors of the multinationals responsible for the re-lease of lethal asbestos dust; more than six thousand in-jured parties sued for damages; lawyers from acrossEurope were empanelled to assist the prosecutor.“Great” was not an exaggeration; there had been nosuch trial greater.

With the commencement of the trial we were able toproceed with what would be the major part of our film.We had waited a long time – our project had been con-ceived in 2006 – but the families of victims had endureddecades of delay. And they had done so with remarkabledignity and resilience. It was for them and the victims,whose daily struggle to salvage what they could of nor-mal life during the brief time left to them was sopoignant to watch, that the film was made.

In the beginning we were quite naïve. We thought, likemost Europeans, that asbestosis and mesothelioma werediseases of the past; after all they were caused by ex-posure to asbestos fibres and the use of asbestos hadbeen banned, hadn’t it? But research for the filmshowed us that the truth was just the opposite: the as-bestos industry was still in full swing, particularlywhere economic activity is currently strongest – China,India, Brazil. In India, we discovered, asbestos use wasrocketing.

This was a dilemma. Apart from covering the trial itself,we had intended to focus on the victims of Casale Mon-ferrato, the municipality that had borne the brunt of theasbestos-disease onslaught in Italy, but now felt a re-sponsibility to spread our net wider.

Seventy per cent of the world’s population lives incountries where asbestos consumption is a daily fact oflife. We felt obliged to unveil this dramatic reality toWestern audiences. To do this, it was decided to film intwo essential locations where awareness of the asbestos

hazard was at a far earlier stage than that in Europe. Theproduction crew would explore the asbestos reality inBrazil, a key supplier, and India, the world’s biggestimporter of asbestos.

In Brazil we found great differences between States andeven regions within States with regard to asbestos reg-ulations. The country, of course is vast, with a widerange of ethnic groups and cultures. However, it pos-sesses only one asbestos mine, so we decided to head tothe remote area where it was situated. Conditions at thechrysotile asbestos mine in Minaçu, the biggest one inLatin America, presented no health hazard to the work-ers according to the company, the company doctor, therepresentative of the company’s trade union and thelocal institute that represents the asbestos industry. Andyet, members of the Brazilian Association of AsbestosVictims (ABREA) and a Senior Labour Inspector docu-mented the horrific impact exposure to asbestos has hadon Brazilian workers. Indeed, Labor Inspector FernandaGiannasi said that the wording of the labels on asbestos-cement roofing panels which warned workers handlingthese products not to breathe in the hazardous fibreswas an absurdity.

In India, we were denied access to many asbestos-ce-ment factories, but finally gained entry to a facilityowned by Visaka Industries, a major producer of asbes-tos-cement roofing. We were also granted an interviewwith Dr. G. Vivekanand, Vice Chairman of Visaka In-dustries, medical doctor and a Member of Parliament,who told us that the conditions at his factory were per-fectly safe. Throughout our trip to India, we observedbroken pieces of asbestos-cement panels littering thecountryside and slums and encountered a widespreadignorance about what asbestos is and the hazard it rep-resents to human health.

At the Turin trial, the accused – Swiss tycoon StephanSchmidheiny and the Belgian Baron Louis de Cartier deMarchienne – were notably absent in person but repres-ented by a phalanx of lawyers and advisers. However,the number of these individuals was dwarfed by thethrong of relatives of victims that we saw filling thecourtroom on each trial day (the hearings initially beingheld weekly, on Mondays, then, towards the end of the

12. THE MAKING OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM: DUST – THE GREAT

ASBESTOS TRIAL

Niccolò Bruna and Andrea Prandstral ler1

1 Niccolò Bruna (Email: [email protected]) and Andrea Prandstraller (Email: [email protected]) are documentary filmmakers.


63

court proceedings, twice weekly). We filmed themstoically making their way to court by bus, many intheir eighties, determined to see justice for those in theirfamilies whose lives had been needlessly cut short.

Wilfully causing an environmental disaster is one of thecharges levelled against the defendants. Well schoolheadmistress Luisa Minazzi knew what that meant. Aswe filmed her going about her daily life, watching herbrave determination to live being battered by the unre-lenting advance of her mesothelioma we saw only to-wards the end her optimism waver. In the film sherepresented the thousands in Italy, probably millionsworldwide, who had travelled this same road. But shewas our friend, the loss personal.

The trial told us about the beginnings and the end ofEternit in Italy. In the early days the foreign capitalistshad been welcomed. Hard and unpleasant as the workwas in the Casale factory, it still paid better than otheremployment in the area. But then we heard from work-ers and heroic union figures who had led action to com-bat the rising tide of disease, first in the factory then inthe wider community. They told of the ever more fre-quent death notices posted at the factory gates. Nowtheir employers were charged – in addition to causingan environmental disaster – with wilfully and know-ingly neglecting safety rules. Workers at the factory inthe early days saw little evidence of any safety precau-tions. We found some archive footage, which we incor-porated into the film, showing the totally unprotectedexposure ofworkers to vast quantities of fibres.

As the trial progressed we became convinced, in our

own minds, that the use of asbestos by Eternit in itsItalian plants (Casale Monferrato, Rubiera, Bagnoli,Siracusa and its subsidiaries in Cavagnolo andOristano) was consciously criminal. We interviewed in-ternational experts who documented Eternit’s strategyfor manipulating public opinion and influencing officialpolicy, not only in Italy but worldwide. Eternit’s publicrelations campaign was, we were told, so successful thatno one questioned the company’s timetable for phasingout asbestos technology in Italy. No one knows howmany lives the delay in ending asbestos-cement pro-duction in Italy has cost.

The whole ofWestern Europe has now banned asbestos– Italy as long ago as 1992, six years after the closure ofthe Casale Eternit plant. Why has the European experi-ence not had more impact on Asian and Latin Americanasbestos policies? With limited overseas screen timeavailable this is not a question we could address in full,but it is hoped that the audience will be able to gainsome insight into this wider question, when viewedagainst the backdrop of the tragic recent history of Ca-sale revealed in the film.

The documentary will be shown on major televisionnetworks in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Francein November 2011 as well as at international film fest-ivals and on other TV channels in 2012. As filmmakers,we hope that our work will reach millions of people.They will be the ones to consider the evidence andmake their judgment as to the guilt or innocence of as-bestos executives past and present.

October 2011


64

A milestone in the trial. AFeVA supporters gather outside the Turin court after the last hearing before thesummer break of 2010.


Asbestos Cement in Brazil2

In 1901 , Austrian Ludwig Hatschek, inventor of fibercement obtained the patent for a production process,based on the manufacture of paper, using a slurry of ce-ment and asbestos fibers to produce a product that henamed Eternit, from the Latin “aeternitas”, due to itsproperties of durability and strength, which presumablycould last an eternity. This material was to becomemore generally known as asbestos cement.

During the first decades of the 20th century, various en-trepreneurs acquired licenses from Hatschek to beginproduction of asbestos cement. The Swiss Eternit andthe Belgian Eternit, among others, were founded in1903 and 1905, respectively. The French Eternit wasfounded by the Belgians in 1922.

In December 1907, authorization was obtained to estab-lish the first asbestos-cement production line in Brazil;Hatschek only permitted a single company to use theEternit name in each country interested in the process.At that time the Pantaleone Arcuri & Spinelli company,in the city of Juiz de Fora, state of Minas Gerais, tookthe initiative to establish this “revolutionary process” inBrazil under the name Cimianto. The customs tariffs toimport the “magic mineral” (asbestos) and the transportand operational costs soon led to its bankruptcy.

In the mid-1930s, the already established Europeancompanies, like the Swiss, Belgian and French, beganexporting the Eternit process to other continents in theirefforts to win new markets, especially to places withpotential asbestos reserves, like Brazil, thus guarantee-ing its supply through acquisition of mining companies.

S.A. Mineração de Amianto (SAMA) was founded inBrazil in 1939, obtaining government authorization todevelop the São Félix mine in the municipality ofPoções, currently Bom Jesus da Serra, in Bahia. On thesame day that authorization to develop the mine was

obtained, SAMA was bought by S.A. Brasilit, belong-ing to the French group Compagnie Pont-à-Mousson,that later changed its name to Saint-Gobain.

On January 30, 1 940, Eternit do Brasil Cimento Ami-anto S.A. was organized as a partnership between theowners of the Swiss Eternit and the Belgian Eternit.

Eternit in Brazil3

Asbestos-cement production in Osasco, in the metro-politan region of São Paulo, began in August 1941 andcompletion of plant construction occurred in 1942, asshown in the photo below.

In 1949, a new plant was inaugurated in Rio de Janeiro.

With the expansion of the Brazilian civil constructionmarket, driven by the feverish developmentalist era ofthe 1950s, Eternit began working with distributor net-works, opening sales offices and expanding its line ofproducts to include besides the traditional corrugatedasbestos-cement roofing sheets, water tanks, pipes andflat sheets, among others.

In 1967, during the military dictatorship and with goodrelations with the military officers in power and theircomplete support, the extension of the asbestos-cementbusiness to more distant regions began, decentralizing

13. ETERNIT IN BRAZIL

By Fernanda Giannasi1

1 Fernanda Giannasi is a civil engineer and post-graduate in Health and Safety Engineering, a Labor Inspector for the Brazilian FederalMinistry of Labor and Employment since 1983 and Coordinator ofGIA— Interinstitutional Group on Asbestos from 1985-1990. She iscurrently the General Manager of the State Program on Asbestos of the Regional Superintendence of Labor and Employment of theState of São Paulo, Coordinator of the Virtual Citizens' Network for the Banning of Asbestos in Latin America, and co-founder ofABREA, the Brazilian Association of People Exposed to Asbestos. Translators: Cooperativa de Profissionais em Tradução - Unitrad.2 In http://www.eternit.com.br/corporativo/historia/index.php3 Ibid.


Photo: Eternit periodical "O Telhadinho."

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the business from the Rio de Janeiro–São Paulo axis.This year, the Simões Filho plant was inaugurated inBahia to service the Northeast region. This same year,Eternit became a partner of Brasilit (Saint-Gobain),with 49% of the capital of SAMA, initiating activities todevelop mining of the mineral fiber at the Cana BravaMine in Minaçu, Goiás, currently the third largest pro-ducer and global exporter of asbestos (accounting for14% ofworldwide asbestos production).

With the discovery of this new pit, the country becomespractically self-sufficient in the supply of asbestos andcompletely independent of imports for the asbestos-ce-ment sector. The old São Félix mine was decommis-sioned, leaving an immense social and environmentalliability, for which Eternit became a successor-in-in-terest by the end of the 1990s as we will see further on.

In 1971 , the Goiânia plant was founded to serve theMid-west region and the Colombo plant, which is cur-rently Eternit’s largest manufacturing unit, followed in1972 to service the South region of the country.

In 1980, Eternit incorporated the Wagner S.A. company,a producer of drywall or plasterboard4 and in 2002 itclosed its operations in Ponta Grossa, Paraná, transfer-ring the entire production line of the Wall Panel divisionto Colombo, leaving a large environmental liability, tobe discussed further on, and a so far unknown numberof people sick or deceased.

In the last decade of the 20th century (although informa-tion on the exact date is contradictory), the Swiss group

officially withdrew from the asbestos business andEternit was sold, falling under the control of the Frenchgroup Saint-Gobain, its partner in SAMA.

Everything seems to indicate that the Swiss group wassecretly involved with the asbestos business in Braziluntil at least 2001 , according to the testimony of ÉlioMartins,5 the current President of Eternit, even thoughthe official propaganda publicly denied any involve-ment after the early 1990s.6

Many explanations exist for this sale of the Eternitgroup to the French. Among them is one found in theautobiography of the heir to the Eternit empire, at 37years old, Stephan Schmidheiny:

“The controversy over the potentially harmfuleffects of asbestos dust was a shock to me inmany respects. I myself had been dangerouslyexposed to asbestos fibers during my trainingperiod in Brazil. I frequently helped load asbes-tos bags and pour the fibers into the mixer,breathing in deeply all the while due to the exer-tion the work entailed. At the end of a hard day'swork, I would often be covered in white dust.”7

The Brazilian weekly magazine Época, issue 285,8 from10/30//2003, analyzed the problem as follows: “The as-bestos scandal was key in pushing Schmidheiny tochange his business practices and become an advocatefor conscientious administration, as a way to pay for hissins.”

4 Drywall is a technology that replaced conventional masonry for internal divisions (walls, ceilings and coverings) of buildings andpanel compounds that are lighter and thinner. It is currently produced, in the case of Eternit, from laminated wood or plasterboard, linedon both sides with wood layers covered by cement flat sheets reinforced with synthetic fiber and pressed (previously the flat sheets weremade of asbestos).5 On May 8, 2001 , in the official transcript of the hearings of the Special Committee of the Federal House of Deputies on Bill No.2186/96, President Élio Martins of Eternit S/A explained the ownership structure of his company in the following terms: “Eternit is apublicly owned Brazilian company, whose shares are traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (BOVESPA). No single owner hascomplete control of the firm. The main shareholders are as follows: DINAMO - Fundo de Investimentos em Ações: 25.17%; Fundo dePensão do Banco Central (the pension fund of the Brazilian “Federal Reserve”) - Previdência Privada - CENTRUS (owned byemployees of the bank): 17.49%; Saint-Gobain (Brasilit): 9.11%; Fundo de Participação Social do BNDES - Banco Nacional deDesenvolvimento Econômico e Social (National Bank of Social and Economic Development) which is a correspondent of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): 8.41%; AMINDUS HOLDING AG: 6.81% ; Empreendimentos e Participações HOLPAR:4.31%."In carrying out a more detailed search of the origins ofAMINDUS HOLDING AG, we run into its ties with businesses which form partof the business empire of Stephan Schmidheiny, such as Nueva AG and Amanco AG, located in the Swiss canton ofGlarus.6 When confronted about this contradictory statement by the President of Eternit, that Schmidheiny had continued to participate in theasbestos business in Brazil for over a decade after he had claimed that he had left it forever, Peter Schuermann, Schmidheiny'sspokesperson, responded as follows to the editor of Sonntags Blick on December 30, 2004: “It is correct that Stephan Schmidheiny soldthe Brazilian shares in Eternit in 1988, as I had wanted; neither he nor any of his holdings hold or have held any stock in Brazilianinterests of that time. Over the decades there were a number of companies that used the name ‘Amindus.’ In the proceedings madeavailable to me there is no evidence that this is the Amindus Holding in Glarus that you are thinking of; there is only mention of anAmindus Holding and an Amindus Holding AG.”7 In http://www.stephanschmidheiny.net/business-career/?lid=18 In http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Revista/Epoca/0,,EDG60937-6014-285,00.html


66

A little later in the same article the magazine pointedout: “Schmidheiny made a public announcement that hewould stop producing asbestos-containing products inthe early 1990s only after he had sold Eternit to aFrench company, Saint-Gobain, along with all of itsemployee lawsuits.”9

Forbes magazine, in its 10/5/2009 issue,10 however,offered another explanation by Schmidheiny for his1 80-degree turnaround in company policy: “My com-pany was heading toward bankruptcy as a consequenceof the combined effects of asbestos-related problemsand a major slump in construction markets. Thus I builtmy group virtually from scratch,” he writes.

In 1993, operations were definitively closed at theOsasco unit, the largest company plant in all LatinAmerica which at the height of production had almost2,000 employees; it was demolished in 1995 for con-struction of a Walmart superstore and a Sam’s Club,leaving behind hundreds of sick people and a large en-vironmental liability, to be discussed further on. Sickformer employees began to meet starting in 1995 and

founded the Brazilian Association of People Exposed toAsbestos (ABREA) in 1996, inspired by the Asso-ciazioni Esposti Amianto (AEA) in Italy.

In 1995, Eternit took 100% control of the Precon com-pany in Anápolis, Goiás. And in 1997, it acquired com-plete control of SAMA, which in 2006 became SAMA– S.A. Minerações Associadas, removing the main op-eration (asbestos mining) from its trade name and be-coming a privately held business corporation.

At the end of the 1990s, Saint-Gobain abandoned theuse of asbestos, following the prohibition in France, andsold its Eternit stock. Together, Brasilit and Eternit, inthe ETERBRAS joint venture, keeping their respectivetrademarks, controlled 55% of the roofing market inBrazil for a decade and, from then on, became compet-itors and got involved in a violent dispute for leadershipof the asbestos-cement roofing market, even trading ac-cusations and insults against each other in the media.

At that point, Eternit was nationalized and right away itbecame state-owned since its preferred shares were held

9 Ibid.10 In http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1005/creative-giving-philanthrophy-bill-gates-of-switzerland.html

The Osasco Eternit plant as it was at the time of its closure in 1993. Photo: Eternit periodical "O Telhadinho."


67

by the Central Bank employees’ pension fund(CENTRUS) and the BNDES (National Bank of SocialDevelopment) social participation fund. As time passedand the company was revitalized, these funds werewithdrawn and, since then, Eternit has become the ab-solute leader of the roofing market with its sharestraded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (BOVESPA).With this injection of funds from both state bank funds,the decline in asbestos production by SAMA, that hadbeen observed from 1998 to 2000, due to laws prohibit-ing its use in several important states and cities of thecountry, was reversed and the sector had a chance to re-build itself, contradicting the most pessimistic corporatepredictions which expected a complete and imminentcollapse in the use of asbestos in the country.

Although it had lost the market for water tanks andpipes for transport of drinking water and wastewaterpipes to the plastics industry in 1990, this presented thecompany with a new challenge, forcing it to diversifyand produce high density polyethylene tanks. Sincethen, Eternit has been gradually incorporating othercompanies in the civil construction production chain,including those in the sanitary ware (2008) and concreteroof tile (2010) markets.

With this, from 2006 to 2010, the number of sharehold-ers rose from 1 ,600 to 6,000, according to the com-pany’s website.11

Upon its “withdrawal” from the asbestos business, theSwiss Eternit left an immense social and environmentalliability in Brazil, for which it did not spend a dimeeither to compensate the victims or for environmentalrehabilitation of the degraded areas. It left this initiallyto its successor-in-interest, the transnational Saint-Gobain group, and later, with the exit of the French, tothe recently founded and nationalized Eternit S/A,which became and will be held answerable for this tra-gic and troublesome inheritance. While it ran the com-pany, the Swiss group never recognized nor officiallyinformed the health authorities of any case of occupa-tional illness caused by asbestos.

Social Responsibility?

The proof of Eternit's irresponsible behaviour in Brazil,was the fact that in 1987 the physician in charge of oc-cupational health for Eternit admitted during an officialinspection by the GIA (Interinstitutional Group on As-bestos of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Employ-

11 In http://www.eternit.com.br/corporativo/historia/index.php

Demolition of the Osasco plant in 1995. Photo: Eduardo Metroviche - Sindicato dos Metalúrgicos de Osasco e Região.


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ment) of the Osasco plant, that he knew of six cases ofasbestos-related diseases. Furthermore, it became clearthat none of these cases were reported to either therelevant Brazilian health or social security agencies, asrequired by law, due to a decision of Eternit's headquar-ters office in Switzerland. In 1996 this same physician,now retired, confessed that he had dealt with many suchcases which were never reported. The order, whichcame directly from Switzerland, was that the cases ofworkers who showed signs of asbestos diseases wouldhave to be filed individually by their own lawyers withthe courts. Such were the policies of “social responsibil-ity” at Eternit in Brazil!

Before the inspections made by Ministry of Labor andEmployment inspectors, a review of Werner Catrina'sbook Der Eternit-Report from 1985 by Daniel Bermanand Ingrid Hoppe had already mentioned the fact that“the Eternit company doctor had already discoveredthree cases of asbestosis, but he admitted that 32 otherworkers were suspected of suffering from pulmonaryfibrosis. This physician denied the existence of cases ofmesothelioma and lung cancer, and argued that it wasunlikely that such cases would occur because of highworker turnover at the factory, which had the effect oflimiting long periods of exposure to asbestos dust. Hedid admit, however, that Eternit only began to carry outappropriate medical examinations and keep accuratemedical records in 1978, and for this reason the totalnumber of cases which occurred from 1939 through1978, would always remain unknown."

The first company laundry only began operating in Feb-ruary 1989, at the Osasco plant, and the Telhadinhoperiodical12 announced that the company was studying"possible locations to install laundries and equipmentfor each of the other plants in the group". Concern withcontaminated clothes at the factory began only at theend of the 1980s. Before then uniforms were washed athome mixed with the clothes of the employees' families.

Waste, before these GIA inspections, was frequentlydonated to employees and to the municipality of Osascofor the pavement of roads, yards and sidewalks or waseven sold as raw material for other activities likestrengthening materials, mainly plastics, for the manu-facture of hangers and ribbons for packages, as wasfound in the N.J. Embalagens company, although Etern-it had officially informed the public health authorities ofthe country that it had a zero waste cycle;13 in other

words, all waste in the production process was reusedby the company itself, avoiding external contamination.

The product warning labels were not sufficiently clearand even less indicative of the risks associated with as-bestos exposure, especially that of contracting cancer:

"I was a member of the Internal Committee forthe Prevention ofAccidents (Comitê Interno dePrevenção de Acidentes -- CIPA)”, says EliezerJoão de Souza,14 President ofABREA. “When Iworked at Eternit I took some courses on asbes-tos-related diseases, but I found out only in 1995that asbestos was carcinogenic. Every two yearswe had chest X-rays. They never told us any-thing about the results. The company doctorknew what was happening but hid everythingfrom us. I myself had pneumonia and other chestdiseases and didn't even know the cause."

The Social Debt

The weekly magazine Época,15 of 10/30/2003, in anarticle titled “He donated US$ 2.2 billion. Swiss mag-nate passes shareholder control of his companies to aphilanthropic foundation that operates in Latin Amer-ica,” while effusively celebrating this donation, couldn’tignore the environmental liabilities and the poisonouslegacy which the Eternit group left in Brazil and wrote:

“Those left behind to run the factory wereworkers like João Francisco Grabenweger.At 77 years of age, 38 of them devoted to Etern-it, Grabenweger can barely draw enough breathto walk. In exchange for lungs ruined by asbes-

12 “O Telhadinho” periodical No. 91 of January/February 1989. A periodical distributed to employees.13 In Wagner, José Meirelles. “Ciclo de Rejeito Zero na Indústria de Cimento-Amianto”. Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional, Nº.63, Vol. 1 6, July/August/September 1989, pp. 69-70.14 In http://www.viomundo.com.br/denuncias/morre-aldo-vicentin-mais-uma-vitima-do-amianto.html15 In http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Revista/Epoca/0,,EDG60937-6014-285,00.html.

Filters from the Hatschek machine and from the ventilationsystem reused by employees for curtains and rugs. Photo byDr. Vilton Raile.


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tos, he earns $1 ,308 U.S. dollars16 a month in re-tirement income. A resident of the state of SãoPaulo, descendant of an Austrian family, he re-members the young Stephan Schmidheiny, whowould chat with him in German. ‘His major sinwas failing to shut down the plant so that nobodyelse would have contact with the asbestos,’ re-grets Grabenweger.”

On December 19, 2003 the same João FranciscoGrabenweger wrote a letter to Schmidheiny in Germanin which he told his former “workmate” at the Eternitplant in Osasco about his pain and anguish. Followingare some of the most gut-wrenching passages fromGrabenweger's letter:

“Do you remember, sir, the time you spent as atrainee in your Osasco factory in Brazil whereyou worked in the departments, and did the workofboth ordinary laborers and foremen? At thattime I was assigned by factory management towork together with you throughout the factory,because I was fluent in German. I am Austriandescendent and my name is João FranciscoGrabenweger. I don't know whether you stillremember this humble worker with whom youused to talk about your passion for underwaterdiving, mostly in the Mediterranean Sea. I wentwith you, personally, to the Butantã Institute,which is world-famous for its collection oflivesnakes and for its production ofanti-venomserum against snakebites and other vaccines.

My life as a worker at Eternit's Osasco plantbegan in 1951 and I worked there until 1989. Ithink I may be the only survivor ofthat period,even though my lungs are damaged by aprogressive and irreversible asbestosis, withdiffuse bilateral pleural thickening and bilateralplaques in the diaphragm.

I am one ofa group of1, 200 former Eternitemployees who are asbestos victims. We havejoined together in the Brazilian Association ofPeople Exposed to Asbestos (ABREA), which, ina great display ofcourage and dedication, fightsboth in Brazil and internationally for thebanning ofasbestos and for compensation forasbestos victims.

Allow me to ask you a question, sir, did you eversee any articles about the victims from the Naziconcentration camps? Those who survived arereceiving very substantial monetary

compensation with all the rights which canpossibly exist. When we former employeesworked at Eternit we were kept completelyignorant about the fact that we worked in anasbestos concentration camp. Being goodworkers, we helped out to the best ofourabilities, with total pride and dedication, inbuilding the asbestos-cement empire oftheSchmidheiny family. But what did we get from“Mother Eternit?” What we got was a bombwith a delayed action fuse which had beenimplanted in our chests.

Perhaps you are unaware, sir, but we victims ofOsasco, those ofus who are still alive, constitutea sort ofjob guarantee for those who defend theexisting Eternit company against its formeremployees, humiliating us on a daily basis withridiculously small offers which they call“compensation,” which are especially insultingto those ofus with white hair and failing health.

I sincerely hope that I will receive a reply fromyou as soon as possible, because it alwaysseemed to me that you and your family were notinformed about much ofwhat took place in thefactories, and also because you seemed like avery caring and respectful person, which hasbeen confirmed for me by the Época Magazinearticle written by Alex Mansur, and so I beg ofyou, in the name ofthe asbestos victims ofOsasco, to help us secure the justice which wehave dreamed offor those who gave their livesfor you, sir, and for your family and yourbusiness.”

João Grabenweger died four years later, on January 16,2008, without ever having received an answer to hisappeal to Schmidheiny, his former co-worker, a letter hehad waited for until the last day of his life. Eternitoffered him US$ 27,24117 to drop his legal suit forcompensation.

ABREA: Visibility for those sick due to asbestos,

social recognition and compensation

Eternit had expected that asbestos-injured workerswould pursue individual legal actions for compensation,a situation which would attract minimal public andpress attention. The last thing the company wanted wasfor a group of victims to pursue a class action, news ofwhich might impact negatively on Eternit’s publicimage and share value. The fact that mesothelioma hadsuch a long latency period and that many sick workers

16 Exchange rate of 1 /6/2012.17 Ibid.


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moved away from Osasco once they were unable towork ensured that the victims’ plight remainedinvisible. The social-environmental-health tragedywhich the company had caused was, for so many years,buried alongside its victims. In 1995, two years after thecompany closing in Osasco, former employees began toget together and collectively organize a struggle to ob-tain recognition of asbestos diseases; in search of treat-ment and compensation for the damage caused, as wellas for the prohibition of asbestos in Brazil – they foun-ded ABREA.

The company’s reaction was immediate and it began toorganize parties to attract former employees and theirfamilies for the purpose of convincing them to sign ex-trajudicial settlements for insignificant amounts alongwith lifetime health insurance, which the companywould manage itself, requiring them to waive any futurelegal claims. These settlements provided for the termin-ation of the health services in case of company bank-ruptcy or asbestos prohibition in Brazil, making theseformer employees and their families hostages to thecontinued use of asbestos.

Eternit confirmed to the press that to date it has enteredinto 3,000 extrajudicial settlements with its former em-ployees of the group’s various asbestos-cement plantsand the asbestos mine of its subsidiary (SAMA).

The Public Ministry of the state of São Paulo, unsatis-fied with this situation of settlements, in litis consorti-um with ABREA, proposed an erga omnes class actionsuit similar to that which was developed in Turin. Thissuit requests compensation for 2,500 victims, for thematerial and moral damage suffered, and demands life-time medical supervision and health treatment for those

who are sick. Unfortunately, due to the slowness of theBrazilian legal system, this suit is still dragging onwithout resolution, in spite of a favorable first instanceruling finding Eternit responsible for having injuredthese 2,500 victims, followed by an appellate court rul-ing, unfortunately against, absolving the company, ac-cepting defense arguments that it always complied withBrazilian labor legislation, even though it was insuffi-cient due to the state-of-the-art and was only rewrittenbased on ILO Convention 162 in 1991 , and on the be-lief that there was no subjective evidence of its guilt.Appeals to higher courts can still be made, but these cantake many years to be reviewed. By that time, many ofthe victims will have died.

With the change of “competent jurisdiction” from thecivil to the labor sphere as a function of ConstitutionalAmendment 45 of December 2004, there has been anacceleration in decisions on compensation suits whichpreviously took up to 12 years or more to be completedand which are now being shortened to 5 years, on aver-age, bringing these poor asbestos victims hope that theymight live to receive their compensation.

Another visible benefit of this change is the suit successrate which went from 10.8% in the civil sphere to75.6% in the labor sphere.18 A substantial increase inthe values that are being awarded has also been ob-served in recent legal decisions, on average, 1 ,000 to2,000% higher than the meager amounts awarded in the1990s.

Environmental Liabilities

The photos below speak for themselves and illustrateEternit’s irresponsibility with regard to its environ-mental liabilities.

18 Mônica da Silva Stella. “A exposição dos trabalhadores ao risco do amianto avaliada a partir da análise de acórdãos judiciais de 1999até 2009.” Dissertation presented to the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo for obtaining the title ofMaster in PublicHealth.

Decommissioning of the Wagner Wall Division plant in PontaGrossa, Paraná. Photo: Fernanda Giannasi.

Decommissioning of the asbestos-cement plant in Osasco,São Paulo. Photo: Eduardo Metroviche - Sindicato dosMetalúrgicos de Osasco e Região.


January 2012

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The first known victim of asbestos in the Netherlandswas recognised in 1930. The link between asbestos andlung cancer was confirmed in 1942 and the first victimsof mesothelioma appeared in the medical literature dur-ing the 1950s. It was, however, 1 984 before a workeraffected by an asbestos-related illness claimed com-pensation from his employer. Since 1984 there has beenan unbroken series of court cases brought against em-ployers and producers. To this day victims of asbestosare forced to go to court to receive recompense for thedamage caused to them. Below, I give a short summaryof these developments, appropriately described as “thedouble agony” – the legal agony on top of the medical.

The Belgian Eternit Group

Even before 1920, the Belgian Eternit company (Bel-gische Eternitbedrijf), which had at its disposalHatschek’s Eternit patent, was a major competitor of thesole Dutch asbestos firm, which also held rights to theHatschek patent, the Amsterdam company known asMartinit. By 1928, Martinit could no longer stand up toEternit Belgium and in 1930 it was taken over by itsBelgian competitor. A large proportion of Martinit’sproduction of asbestos cement moved to Belgium andfrom there Eternit Belgium exported its products on alarge scale to the Netherlands. In 1937, in order to servethe Dutch market, Eternit established a new asbestos ce-ment factory in the village of Goor. Eternit Goorquickly grew to become the biggest asbestos cementcompany in the Netherlands.

Two years earlier, in 1935 in Harderwijk, the Salomonsbrothers had founded the asbestos cement firm As-bestona. Initially, Asbestona strongly resisted the estab-lishment of the rival Eternit factory in Goor, but a fewyears later the Emsens family, which owned the BelgianEternit company, surreptitiously took over the Salomonsbrothers’ Asbestona shares. After the war the Emsensfamily also took over the Oosterhout-based Neder-

landse Fabriek van Asbestproducten (Dutch AsbestosProducts Factory), “NEFABAS,” where the principal

activity involved the use of asbestos paper and card-board for the production of insulation material. BecauseEternit Belgium at the same time also took over thesmall asbestos cement factory Ferrocal, from 1950 thewhole of the asbestos cement market in the Netherlandswas in the hands of the Belgian Eternit group. Sincethen all important decisions regarding investment, ex-pansion and company closures in the Dutch asbes-tos/asbestos cement industry have been taken inEternit’s Brussels head office.

Asbestos victims of Eternit

The first known victim of asbestos in an Eternit factorywas a Mr Christiaanse, a worker in Eternit’s Amsterdamasbestos cement factory, in 1956. He had been hired tenyears earlier as a machine operator. According to an in-vestigation conducted by Eternit in 1951 , Christiaanseworked in “a practically dust-free environment,” but in1956 he was confirmed as suffering from asbestosis.2 In1972, absbestosis was confirmed in a NEFABAS em-ployee. From 1945 to 1972 he had worked at NEFA-BAS in Oosterhout and there suffered prolongedexposure to asbestos. In 1975, both asbestosis and lungcancer were confirmed in an employee of Eternit Goor,and in 1976 he died as a result of these illnesses. Meso-thelioma was recorded in three further workers atEternit Goor in 1975, 1 981 and 1982, respectively. Innone of these cases did Eternit publish any informationoutside the firm. None of the victims was able to estab-lish Eternit’s liability. In view of the long latency periodof asbestos-related diseases, it is worth mentioning thatbefore 1967 it was not possible under Dutch labour lawfor a worker to hold his or her employer responsible foran occupational illness and on that basis to claim com-pensation.

First legal cases against NEFABAS and Eternit

In the mid-1980s, as a result of a number of comple-mentary factors, a sea change occurred in the positionof asbestos victims in the Netherlands. For the first time

14. ETERNIT AND THE “DOUBLE AGONY” OF ASBESTOS VICTIMS

IN THE NETHERLANDS

Bob Ruers1

1 Bob Ruers is a lawyer based in the Netherlands who specialises in asbestos litigation. He is also the legal advisor to the DutchCommittee ofAsbestos Victims and a member of the Dutch Senate. He is currently finishing his PhD thesis on the regulation of asbestosin the Netherlands. Email: [email protected] Between 1945 and 1950 the Van Breevoort brothers also worked at Eternit Amsterdam in the manufacture of asbestos cement fittings.In 1998 one of the brothers was diagnosed with mesothelioma, and in 2001 this was also diagnosed in the other brother. Both heldEternit responsible and were awarded compensation.


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scientists came forward who took the side of the victimsand put their expertise at their disposal. Previously thescientists were almost always employed by, or other-wise in the pay of, the asbestos industry. A secondfactor was the decision by a former employee of NEFA-BAS, who was suffering from asbestosis, to take hisformer employer to court. That meant that the asbestosindustry, which enjoyed huge influence over govern-ment and had long met with a great deal of sympathyfor its views, would for the very first time be held re-sponsible before a judge for its policies, for workingconditions within the industry and for health and safetymeasures. Importantly, the first organisation of and forasbestos victims was established; these same victims re-ceived significant political, organisational and financialsupport from the Socialist Party (SP). In addition, state-financed legal aid provided encouragement for the as-bestos victims.

With the SP’s support, three widows who had lost theirhusbands to asbestos-related diseases were together thefirst to take Eternit Goor to court. At the same time, anemployee of the Vlissingen shipyard De Schelde, whohad been exposed to asbestos between 1949 and 1967,went to court with the support of his union to claimcompensation for the asbestos-related illness mesothe-lioma. The ex-employee’s case led to a decision in theHigh Court in his favour, considerably strengthening thelegal position of those affected by asbestos-related dis-eases [1 ] . Among the ruling’s consequences was a de-cision by Eternit Goor to pay compensation to the“three widows.” The De Schelde worker was also suc-cessful, the High Court ruling in his favour in 1993,with which decision the Court accepted that mesothe-lioma is a disease which can be contracted through theinhalation of asbestos dust, that it can be provoked by arelatively short exposure – “through the inhalation ofone asbestos crystal”– and that the incubation periodamounts to between twenty and forty years [2] .

Organisation and Tactics of the Asbestos Victims

In 1995, on the initiative of the SP, the Asbestos Vic-tims’ Committee (CAS) was established. This commit-tee was an immediate success and answered a pressingneed: in the first year after its establishment 600 victimsand their relatives went to the CAS for advice and as-sistance.3 With the support of the CAS, financial aidfrom the SP and the assistance of scientific experts, nu-merous legal actions were taken against employers, ofwhich Eternit was one of the most important. Develop-ments in the administration of justice were, given theproblems occasioned by the lapse of time and thus the

Statute of Limitations, generally positive. In ever morecases the employers were held liable and ordered to paycompensation for both material and non-material dam-ages. The amount awarded to victims of mesotheliomain the 1990s was in the region of €40,000, increasingafter 2000 to around €50,000. The position of asbestosvictims attracted growing attention in the media, whilethe SP continually ensured that the whole spectrum ofasbestos problems and the issue of the victims remainedon the agenda. In doing so the SP recorded a number ofachievements, including ensuring that the Statute ofLimitations, the effects of which were for victims of as-bestos extremely unjust, would be reformed.

Five Categories of Eternit Asbestos Victims

Victims of asbestos-related illnesses – asbestosis, lungcancer and mesothelioma – can in practical terms be di-vided into various categories depending on the nature oftheir exposure and the degree to which compensationfor damages can be claimed in a court of law. I havedistinguished five groups, which I shall now briefly il-lustrate group by group.

1) Employees and Ex-employees

The first and also biggest group of asbestos victims hasalways consisted primarily of employees and formeremployees of industries that process asbestos, asbestosproducts, and materials containing asbestos, and thiscontinues to be the case. The insulation industry playeda major role in this in the 1950s, followed by shipbuild-ing and later by the asbestos cement industry and thebuilding trade. Because until 1 967 it was not possible,on the basis of the Ongevallenwet (Accident Law), tohold an employer liable, claims based on occupationalsickness were not heard until that year. From the 1980sonwards, however, the number of court cases grew rap-idly. Against the claims of victims who had been ex-posed to asbestos in Eternit’s factories, the companydefended itself with the argument that it had always be-haved “as a good employer,” that before 1970 the firmcould not have known of the risk of cancer associatedwith asbestos, and that after 1970 it had taken every ap-propriate safety measure. Eternit also cited the fact thatuntil 1 990 there had been no scientific consensus re-garding the danger from white asbestos. In most in-stances, the asbestos victims succeeded in court, withthe help of scientists, in refuting these arguments. AfterEternit had lost a number of court cases, the firmchanged tack and declared itself prepared to pay com-pensation to all employees and former employees of itsfactories who suffered from an asbestos-related disease.

3 The number of victims ofmesothelioma in the Netherlands had by 1969 reached 70 per annum, by 1990 270 p.a., by 2000 390, and by2009 470. This means that proportionally the Netherlands belongs to the top five countries with the highest incidence ofmesothelioma.


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At the beginning of the 1990s two further categories ofvictims of Eternit asbestos were evident: those who hadshared living space with employees or former employ-ees of the firm’s factories, and members of their famil-ies. These were exposed to asbestos via the workclothes of their husbands or fathers who had workedwith asbestos in these factories. In the first instance thecompany refused to pay such victims any compensa-tion. The most important of Eternit’s grounds for de-fence was the position that, at the time, the companycould not have foreseen that exposure via clothing wasdangerous. So these victims too were obliged to go tocourt. Among the first to do so were Mr and Mrs VanGemmert, who both contracted mesothelioma early inthe 1990s. Mr Van Gemmert (1924-1993) was exposedbetween 1946 and 1982, during which period heworked at the Eternit factory in Goor. His wife (1921 -1994) was exposed during the same period through con-tact with her husband’s work clothes. Following a longcourt case, Eternit agreed to accept responsibility andpaid the compensation demanded.4 The second, com-parable instance concerned Marino Grootenhuis, bornin 1964, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma at thebeginning of 1996, when he was 32. He turned out tohave been exposed via the work clothes of his father,who in 1966-67 and 1976-77 had worked for relativelyshort periods at the Eternit factory in Goor. MarinoGrootenhuis died in 1997. Once again, in Grootenhuis’scase, Eternit contested liability in court, but to no avail.Soon after this, Eternit altered its policy and announcedthat the company was prepared to pay compensation toany “co-habitant” of an employee or former employeeconfirmed as suffering from mesothelioma.5

3) Environmental Victims

Between 1945 and 1975 the asbestos cement companyEternit Goor and its sister firm Asbestona gave away,free of charge and on a large scale, factory waste con-taining asbestos to people living in their factories’ vi-cinities, which the recipients used to pave and level upyards, roads, paths and gardens. In this fashion, to a ra-dius of some 25 kilometres around the factories, severalthousand locations came into being where dangerous in-dustrial waste could be found, without any warning everbeing given from Eternit and Asbestona to the users thatthey could be in danger. A 34-year old man from theneighbourhood of the Eternit factory in Goor, who in

1991 died from the results of mesothelioma, was thefirst known victim of the Eternit waste. In his youth hehad often ridden his motor cycle over roads reinforcedwith this waste. A few years later, more victims of thewaste emerged, and Eternit for the first time paid com-pensation for this type of exposure; but without admit-ting liability and with the proviso that the payment bekept secret. The recipient was a woman of 38, who hadcome into contact with the waste as a child. In the sameyear, mesothelioma was confirmed in a 44-year-oldwoman who had been exposed to Eternit waste fromearly childhood. Eternit refused to admit liability, afterwhich the woman was forced to take legal actionagainst the firm.6 In 2003, the court dismissed herclaim, arguing that Eternit had not acted unlawfully,because in the period from 1945 to 1972 the firmneither knew, nor could it have been expected to know,of the potential dangers attached to the practice ofmak-ing asbestos waste available for surfacing roads. An-other female victim of mesothelioma from theimmediate vicinity of the Eternit factory in Goor wasexposed to the waste in the farmyard of her homebetween 1960 and 2000. In 2000 she died, at the age of62. She had, together with her husband, during theperiod 1960-1975, regularly used Eternit waste for pav-ing paths and yards on their farm. After his wife’s death,the widower brought a liability action against Eternit,but Eternit denied responsibility. When the case washeard in 2006, the court in Almelo dismissed the claim,but the Appeal Court in Arnhem ruled in 2007 thatEternit had indeed acted unlawfully:

“…in, from 1967 to 1970, without any warningor indication regarding the danger attached to theuse of (freely released) asbestos (and/or pro-cessing and/or wear and tear), regularly and in anuncontrolled fashion distributed quantities of as-bestos cement waste.”

Eternit were ordered to pay compensation for damagesto the widower. The company acceded to the ruling andpaid the damages.

In 2003, epidemiologists Burdorf et al conducted re-search into the occurrence of pleural mesotheliomaamongst women in the vicinity of the Eternit factory inGoor. They found five cases of mesothelioma amongstwomen who had suffered no exposure either in paidemployment or in their housekeeping tasks. That num-ber indicated a mortality rate of over ten times the ex-

4 In 2008, mesothelioma was also confirmed in their daughter G. van Gemmert, who was born in 1955. She established Eternit’sliability and received compensation. In June 2008 she died, at the age of 52.5 After 1994, 30 mesothelioma victims were diagnosed in the category “co-habitant”; in 8 cases these were family members of Eternitemployees.6 Because of the fundamental nature of the case, she received financial support from the SP.


2) FamilyMembers and Co-habitants

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pected incidence [3] . In a more extensive investigationa few years later, Burdorf et al looked into whether “adisease cluster of 22 cases of pleural mesotheliomaamongst women in the period 1989-2002” was linked tosources of exposure in the environment, such as asbes-tos-reinforced roads and yards [4] . The researchers con-firmed that in ten women in the region of Goor, theoccurrence of pleural mesothelioma could be attributedwith certainty to exposure in the environment, while infour more environmental exposure was the most likelycause of their disease. On the basis of this finding theresearchers concluded that environmental exposure toasbestos in the area around Goor was the most signific-ant explanation for the “sharply increased incidence ofpleural mesothelioma amongst women” and that withan equivalent risk to men the result of asbestos contam-ination in the area in the following 25 years would bean additional two cases of pleural mesothelioma per an-num.

In 2005, Eternit decided that, in respect of this categoryof victim also, they would no longer offer any defenceand instead declared themselves prepared, under certainconditions, to pay compensation to this group.

4) Consumers and the Self-employed

The fourth category of asbestos victims consists of con-sumers and the self-employed. The first victim ofmeso-thelioma in this category was a Mrs Nieborg-Horsting,born in 1950, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma in2002. In 1971 , she was exposed for several months onher parents’ farm during the construction of a shed inwhich corrugated sheets containing asbestos were usedas a roofing material. The sheets came from Eternit.Mrs Nieborg’s claim against Eternit was upheld, on thegrounds, according to the court, that Eternit should in1971 have warned users of its asbestos sheets of thedanger attached to their intended use. The ruling wasconfirmed on appeal. On further appeal, however, theSupreme Court quashed the ruling of the court on Stat-ute of Limitations grounds. The Court ofAppeal in Her-togenbosch ruled on referral that Eternit’s Statute ofLimitations-based defence was unacceptable as it wasin conflict with reasonableness and fairness [5] .

Mr Wolting, a farmer born in 1950, in 1979 built a largeshed on his farm, using 669 corrugated asbestos cementsheets as roofing material, the sheets coming from As-bestona (later known as Nefalit). This resulted in expos-ure to asbestos. In 1999, a lung specialist diagnosedmesothelioma in Wolting, who died from the illness a

year later. After his death, Wolting’s heirs brought a li-ability action against Nefalit, but the firm denied re-sponsibility. The court’s opinion was that knowledge ofthe dangers to health of materials containing asbestoswas already available in 1970-71 within the circle ofproducers to which Nefalit belonged and that such wascertainly the case in 1979. For that reason, in 1979 Ne-falit might have been expected, in distributing corrug-ated asbestos cement sheets, to have warned the public,and certainly those such as Wolting involved withhandling the sheets, of the risks to health. The courtconcluded that Nefalit had acted unlawfully towardsWolting and his heirs and had thus become liable fordamages. The Appeal Court of Arnhem confirmed theruling in May, 2010.7

Another example of exposure to asbestos in relation to aconsumer was the case ofMrs Hoeve, born in 1939 andhailing from Amsterdam. In 1972, alterations weremade to Hoeve’s home for which around 30 squaremetres of sheets containing asbestos were used. Thesheets were trademarked Nobranda and produced byAsbestona (later Nefalit). The work resulted in Hoevebeing exposed to asbestos. In January, 2007, she learntthat she was suffering from mesothelioma, for whichshe held Nefalit responsible. Nefalit contested Hoeve’sclaim, taking the position that:

(a) Hoeve’s claim was statute-barred through toomuch time having lapsed;

(b) it was not certain that mesothelioma had only onecause;

(c) Hoeve had undergone only an extremely limitedexposure during the work that she did or haddone in 1972;

(d) Nefalit did not know and could not have knownin 1972 of the potential risk of an exposure to as-bestos of extremely short duration, and

(e) in 1972, there had been no legal duty to provide awarning with its corrugated asbestos cementsheets.

The court’s judgment was that Nefalit’s “limitations”defence was unacceptable on grounds of reasonablenessand fairness and must therefore be rejected. To this thecourt added these remarks:

“It must be judged whether Nefalit at the timethese sheets were put on the market, in 1972,was aware, or should have been aware, that seri-ous health risks existed in relation to the workingof sheets containing asbestos for those using the

7 Gerechtshof (Court) Arnhem 11 May 2010 concerning Nefalit/Schraa,Wolting. In this instance Nefalit, subsidiary of Eternit, hadalready taken the case to the High Court.


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product, of which warning should have been giv-en. A producer does after all in general incurblame should it not take those measures whichmay be demanded of a careful manufacturer inorder to prevent a situation in which the productit brought on to the market causes damage innormal use for the purpose for which the productis intended. For side effects such as a serioushealth risk a warning must be given, even if thefrequency at which the risk arises is low.”

Nefalit’s other arguments were also rejected by thecourt. Thus, the court concluded that Nefalit had actedunlawfully in relation to Hoeve and ordered the firm topay damages to her. Nefalit resigned itself to the ver-dict.8

5) Liability ofManufacturers

Finally, a separate group of asbestos victims are thoseworkers who have become ill as a result of exposure intheir work, but where their former employer can nolonger be held liable because the firm no longer exists,cannot be located or has gone bankrupt. For these work-ers there exists in the Netherlands the possibility to callto account not only their former employer but the pro-ducer of the asbestos-containing materials with whichthey worked. In order to do so they must demonstratethat they became sick as a result of the use of these ma-terials and that the producers of the materials have neg-lected to issue a warning concerning their use, despitethe fact that such a warning might be expected from theproducer.9 In March, 2010, the court at Gravenhagefound in favour of a certain Mr. Langezaal and againstEternit, as producer. His own employer could not beheld liable by Langezaal, who had worked as a car-penter between 1956 and 1967, during which period hewas exposed to asbestos, because the firm which em-ployed him no longer existed.

International Solidarity

In many of the legal cases discussed above, in additionto the extensive scientific documentation and support ofDutch experts, the knowledge and information suppliedby foreign experts in the area of asbestos have playedan important role.10 It is good to be able to take this op-portunity to record the fact that through this unselfishinternational mutual support many victims of asbestoshave been able to realise a stronger position in relationto the internationally organised asbestos industry.

March 2011

References

1 . Hoge Raad (High Court) 6 April 1 990, NederlandseJurisprudentie (Dutch Jurisprudence) 1990, 573,Janssen/Nefabas.

2. Hoge Raad (High Court) 25 June 1993, Neder-landse Jurisprudentie (Dutch Jurisprudence) 1993,686, Cijsouw/De Schelde.

3 . Burdorf, Dahhan, Swuste, Pleuramesothelioom bijvrouwen in verband met milieublootstelling aan as-best, (Pleural mesothelioma in connection with en-vironmental exposure) in: Nederlands Tijdschriftvoor Geneesmiddel (Netherlands Journal ofMedi-

cine) 28 August 2004, 148 (35), p. 1 727-1731 .4. Sinninghe Damsté, Siesling, Burdorf, Milieubloots-

telling aan asbest in de regio Goor vastgesteld alsoorzaak van maligne pleuramesothelioom bijvrouwen, (Environmental exposure to asbestos inthe Goor region as cause ofmalignant pleuralmesothelioma) in: Nederlands Tijdschrift voorGeneeskunde (Netherlands Journal ofMedicine) ,2007; 1 51 (44) p. 2453-2459.

5. High Court, 25 November 2005, Eternit/Horsting,Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (Dutch Jurisprudence)

2009, 103, with note from Giesen.

8 Verdict of the Amsterdam court, Hoeve/Nefalit 24 June 2009.9 Verdict of the ’s-Gravenhage court 3 March 2010 concerning Langezaal/Eternit. Eternit appealed this verdict.10 Namely, B.I. Castleman, G. Tweedale, J. McCulloch, L. Kazan-Allen and M. Peacock.


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A Brief History

Eternit produced and sold asbestos-cement products inFrance for 75 years – from 1922 until 1 997 (the year ofthe French ban). For much of this time, asbestos-cementproduction and marketing in France were controlled bya cartel in which Eternit acted in conjunction with theFrench multinational Saint-Gobain (through its subsidi-ary Everite). The first Eternit plants were built in 1922at Thiant and Prouvy (twin cities in the North départe-ment) followed by factories at Vitry-en-Charollais(Paray-le-Monial, Saône-et-Loire dép), Vernouillet (Tri-el, Yvelines dép), Caronte (Bouches-du-Rhône dép),Saint-Grégoire (Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine dép) and Terssac(Albi, Tarn dép). While the Prouvy and Caronte factor-ies have been shut down, the Vernouillet site houses thehead office of the Eternit holding company; the fourother factories were converted (in 1996-97) to the pro-duction of non-asbestos fibro-cement.

The apogee of the asbestos-cement empire occurred inthe seventies, when Eternit was employing more than5000 people and producing more than 600,000 tons ofasbestos-cement products per annum. In 1970, for ex-ample, the levels of employment and production for thevarious plants were: Prouvy and Thiant 2360 and260,000 tons; Vitry-en-Charollais 11 82 and 180,000tons; Caronte 668 and 72,000 tons; Saint-Grégoire 724and 130,000 tons (the factory in Albi was not openeduntil 1 971 ).

Until 1 965, Eternit also operated the Canari asbestosmine, on the coast of Corsica, where around 300,000tons of asbestos were extracted. Eternit has left on thissite a true ecological disaster; part of the bay has beenfilled with asbestos waste.

The French Eternit branch also developed asbestos-ce-ment production in what were then French colonies.Factories were established in Senegal (company Sénac),Algeria (subsequently shut down, Algeria having re-duced then banned asbestos use) and Indochina (Viet-nam). Eternit also participated in enterprises inMorocco (company Dimatit) and Tunisia (company Si-coac).

“Controlled Use” According to Eternit

Eternit has enormously contributed to misinformationabout the hazards of asbestos. It was clearly one of thepillars of the “Chambre Syndicale de l’Amiante” (Uni-on of Asbestos Producers) and the “Association desProducteurs d’Amiante-ciment” (Association of Asbes-tos-cement Producers). In the sixties, these groups re-cruited the Cabinet Valtat (the public relations firm“Communications Economiques et sociales” estab-lished by Marcel Valtat) to organize the promotion ofasbestos, publishing brochures with telling titles like“Vivre avec l’amiante, fibre de la terre” (living with as-bestos, earth fibre). During the eighties, the hazards andeffects of asbestos were becoming increasingly difficultto hide so the Cabinet Valtat created (officially in 1984)a formidable lobbying tool they christened “ComitéPermanent Amiante” (Permanent Asbestos Committee(CPA)). From 1984 until 1 996, the year that ANDEVAwas created, the CPA essentially determined all govern-ment decisions on asbestos. It succeeded in gatheringtogether asbestos manufacturers, ministry representat-ives, medical doctors and trade union representatives ina structure financed by the asbestos industry in order topromote “controlled use of asbestos.” In 1993, theEternit representatives in the CPA were H. Leclercqdirector of the Thiant factory and B. Votion.2

The efforts to promote the myth of controlled use wereunfortunately not matched by initiatives to improveworkers’ safety and environmental care. Indeed, onecould justifiably claim that if the money invested inpropaganda had been used for safety and prevention wewould today witness fewer casualties due to Eternit as-bestos. The CPA brochures praise the marvellous effortsof members of the asbestos industry in France to im-prove safety in their plants. As an ironical detail andfruit of clever lobbying, in 1985 the French Ministry ofEnvironment awarded a clean technology prize toEternit!

Reality sometimes strikes back: in 1995 the national TVchannel France 2 managed to film an ordinary worker’sday in the Thiant plant (H. Leclercq’s plant) and view-ers discovered that bags of raw asbestos were opened

15. ETERNIT IN FRANCE

Marc Hindry1

1 Marc Hindry: Université Paris Diderot, Paris 7; Association Nationale des Victimes de l'Amiante, France (ANDEVA);[email protected] In 1993, Bernard Votion is listed as a “qualified person” but in earlier publications ofCPA he appears as belonging to Eternit.


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with a knife, then manually emptied by a worker into amixing machine; the worker wore no respiratory protec-tion, the only means of dust removal being an aspiratordevice installed above the mouth of the mixer. A physi-cian working in the nearest hospital, located in Denain,estimated his service was witnessing around 30 newmesothelioma cases every year.

Eternit and French Justice

Despite a number of challenges, to date Eternit has re-mained essentially untouched by justice in France.

On 18th December 1997, the Court ofAppeal of Mâconruled Eternit guilty of “faute inexcusable” (“inexcusablefault”), concerning the diseases of several workers fromthe Paray-Le-Monial factory. Since then, Courts ofAp-peal have sanctioned Eternit for more than a thousandoccupational disease incidences, including hundreds ofdeaths. Each of the Eternit plants has been condemned.One should observe though that, due to a flaw in thelaw, Eternit took the blame but hardly paid any com-pensation; in fact, most of the damages were settled bythe health insurance system. Nevertheless, the Fund forIndemnification ofAsbestos Victims (FIVA) has starteda number of recursory actions concerning domestic andenvironmental asbestos victims of the Eternit plants.

In 1996, ANDEVA filed, in a civil suit, a “plainte contreX” (“complaint against unknown persons”), for invol-untary injuries and homicides, abstention délictueuse

(willful failure to act [to protect persons in imminentdanger]) and poisoning; this suit was aimed at all per-sons responsible for the asbestos health catastrophe: theasbestos product manufacturers, the public health andlabour authorities, the medical doctors that had collab-orated in the process.

Although some fifteen years have elapsed since the AN-DEVA suit no individual has been held responsible forthe crimes listed in the complaint. However, In Novem-ber 2009, M. Joseph Cuvelier, son of the founder ofEternit France, director of the Eternit asbestos-cementgroup from 1971 till 1 994, came under investigation byjuge d'instruction (examining judge) Marie-Odile Ber-tella-Geoffroy for “involuntary injuries and homicides.”He is mainly accused of having failed to implementsafety and protection measures for workers exposed toasbestos dust in Eternit factories. These enquiries arestill ongoing.

The Lives Destroyed by Eternit.

Figures cannot describe the sum of dramas, personaltragedies, rage, despair, resignation and humiliation thatresulted from Eternit’s carelessness, mendacity andgreed. The testimonies and comments below give someidea of the harm the company has inflicted.

CARONTE. Michel Salard3 worked for 22 years in theCaronte Eternit plant, in Port-de-Bouc, near Marseille.As a result, he now has pleural plaques. His wife Zoé,used to wash his working clothes, covered with asbestosdust; she shook the dust off before washing them. Todayshe suffers from mesothelioma which was diagnosed in2008. He tells their story:

“I worked 22 years at Eternit Caronte with as-bestos. Zoé, my wife, washed my workingclothes; 29 years after the plant was shut down,we discovered she had mesothelioma.

Asbestos dust was everywhere in the plant; whenwe were re-cutting the broken asbestos-cementtiles, when we cleaned the machines and the airshafts on Saturday … the ventilation system wasinsufficient.

Today there are many victims among the work-ers but also among their families.

Over the years workers’ union delegates and thehygiene and safety committee requested that ourworking clothes be washed by our employer.They constantly refused, arguing that ‘Eternit isnot a laundry…’

So it was my wife who washed my clothescovered with the dust brought from the plant.She used to shake them before washing them.She breathed asbestos fibres day after day, monthafter month, year after year, for 19 years. Todayshe is very seriously ill. She is not the only one, Iknow of three wives ofEternit workers who fellill. There are certainly others.

The FIVA4 has started a recursory action againstEternit at the civil court ofAix-en-Provence, in-voking article 1 384 from the Civil Code.5 Theaction is being examined by the court.

The ‘ inexcusable fault’ ofEternit has been manytimes recognized by courts but Eternit has suc-

3 Testimony published in the Andeva bulletin No. 34, January 2011 .4 The Fund for Indemnification ofAsbestos Victims (FIVA) has awarded compensation to Zoé Salard.5 Article 1 384 from the French Civil Code says essentially that a person is responsible not only for the damages s(he) causes directly butalso for the damages caused by persons under his/her responsibility and for products in custody.


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ceeded in escaping financial punishment, exploit-ing administrative negligences from the SocialSecurity Organisation.”

THIANT. In the centre of the photo above is picturedRené Delattre, who died of mesothelioma in 2007; im-mediately behind him is Robert Wuilbeaux who died ofmesothelioma in 2005; both worked at the Thiant fact-ory and were very active in the Thiant branch of thevictims association: Comité Amiante Prévenir Et Ré-parer (CAPER) (Committee for Asbestos Preventionand Compensation).

Mireille, Robert’s wife, tells her story:

“My husband Robert Wuilbeaux started workingat Eternit on the 26th ofOctober, 1 953 at the ageof 16, in order to help support his family. Hespent 42 years working there. He worked as amoulder for 30 years, before switching to hoistdriver. In 1995, he went into pre-retirement, for awell-deserved rest.

In 1998, like all the employees having workedwith asbestos, Robert received an appointmentfor an occupational medical check-up. He did notwant to go, I had to push him.

In December 1999, he finally saw a pneumolo-gist, had an X-ray taken, then a scan in January2000. The results reveal pleural plaques. Threemonths later Robert learns that he has a 10% res-piratory incapacity, due to the asbestos he in-haled all those years at Eternit. Andprogressively, asbestos gains territory and contin-ues its slow destructive process.

From a 10% incapacity, Robert moved to 15% inSeptember 2001 then 20% in March 2003. In Oc-tober of that same year, comes the fatal diagnos-is: Robert has developed pleural mesotheliomaon the left side. He knew his days were

numbered. From then on, it was not living butsurviving. He knew what was going to happen tohim because he had seen other colleagues die…

Hell started then: chemotherapy, repetitivepleurisies, more and more frequent draining.From January 2005, my husband had noduleswhich required irradiation, radiotherapy. Then, inApril 2005, a new scan and, an ice shower, thediagnosis of lung cancer on the right side. Hos-pital again; he had oedema in the lower limbsand could not walk anymore. To try to cure thisnew cancer he received heavy chemotherapywhich he barely stood. This therapy attacked hisnervous system; he would tremble, faint, vomit.His whole body was aching: head, belly, legs. Hecould not even drink; we would refresh him withice lollipops.

On 1 st October 2005, Robert died. If hell is avirtual place, I can say my husband lived throughhell and suffering; and I did too during those lastmonths when I stayed by his side.”

PARAY-LE-MONIAL. Maurice Papillon started work-ing at the age of 16, and worked 31 years at the Eternitplant in Paray-Le-Monial. He died of mesothelioma in1986, at the age of 47. His wife Jacqueline tells herstory:

“I will start on the 15th March 1986 … For sometime, my husband had felt very tired, his bodywas aching and he had lost weight; this was thebeginning of his Calvary! Having contacted adoctor and after a blood test, which of coursewas disastrous, he was hospitalised for moremedical examinations, X-rays, scans, etc. Firstdiagnosis: lung cancer! The doctor asked me tofetch the most recent X-ray from the factory forcomparison. I’ ll be brief on the ‘sociability’ ofthe medical staff at the plant! I go back with mypain, knowing already my husband is seriouslyill. Then to Léon Bérard [Hospital] for a com-plete examination; I meet a professor who tellsme ‘Your husband is full of asbestos dust, withcysts specific to asbestos, he has the asbestosdisease’ (all this was orally stated, I never had awritten statement); he explains to me the disasterof this disease.

I was 39 and had never heard about this: whatwas asbestos, asbestos disease? Our life wasnever the same after those days, the descentthough illness, anguish, fear of dying, suffering… during the last months Maurice lost 35 kilos.


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Photo courtesy ofMireille Wuillbeaux

Neither my children nor I will ever forget thephysical degradation, the pain screaming eachtime we must look after him, his eyes where Iread suffering and anguish, because he knew hewas dying. ‘At the age of 47, it is hard to go’were the only [words of] complaint I heard fromhis mouth throughout his illness. He did not wishto receive his friends: ‘ later when I’ ll feel better.’[He wanted] to keep his man’s dignity. He diedon the 5th of July 1986.

I lost my husband, my children lost their father,his mother lost her only son!

I was helped by a medical doctor who advisedme to ask for an occupational disease acknow-ledgement. This I did, because by then I have arage and a need to know the truth that will con-tinue carrying me. In September 1986, the socialsecurity required an autopsy, after which thethree doctor college from Dijon refuse [my ap-plication] because they claim he died from a di-gestive cancer. I rave; at that time there was noassociation to help me. I appealed and 2 yearslater, in 1988, a new college meets and declaresthe cause of the disease occupational. A dooropened, it was a tsunami over Vitry [the townnear the Eternit factory] .

In 1995 the Paray-le-Monial [branch of] CAPERwas created and I joined of course; our lawyerspresented our first cases at the Social SecurityCourt ofMâcon and jurisprudence emerges. The‘ inexcusable fault’ ofEternit is recognized; laterin 2001 my husband’s case is finally won; ‘workto live and not to die.’

In my fight I was alone, distraught, a few times Iwished to give up; I have been finger pointedand criticised, even by a doctor, because accord-ing to him I was doing this for money; but mypain, my sorrow, my family’s pain, what did theymake of that?

I was a housewife, with 3 children, studies topay, daily duties, who cared about that? I stoodup, I fought, I have no regrets and today my fightcontinues for those to come, because asbestosstill kills.”

August 2011

Bibliography

Odette Hardy-Hémery: Eternit et l’amiante, aux sources duprofit, une industrie du risque, Presses Universitaires duSeptentrion, 2005.

Asbestos widows march in Dunkirk; April 2005; accompanying the march are Robert Wuilbeaux (far left)and Mireille Wuilbeaux (light blue jacket); towards the right of the picture (wearing the sash) is NationalAssembly Deputy Patrick Roy, who was also the mayor ofDenain.


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Photo courtesy ofMireille Wuillbeaux

Postscript. Zoé Salard died November on 1 , 2011 , a month before the civil court ofAix-en-Provence declared Eternit guilty ofexposing her to asbestos. The recursory action against Eternit is the first one for environmental or domestic exposure in France.

Introduction

On November 28, 2011 , after eleven years of litigation,Belgian pilot Eric Jonckheere (52) and his family won acivil case against Eternit, the fourth largest producer ofasbestos materials in the world. At stake was the tor-tious death of Françoise Jonckheere (67), Eric’s mother,who died ofmesothelioma caused by exposure to asbes-tos on the contaminated work clothes of her husband,who worked at a Belgian Eternit factory, and by envir-onmental exposure from that same factory. Together, theclaimants were awarded the sum of €250,000 for eco-nomic and non-economic damages, effective immedi-ately. The scathingly phrased verdict is considered to beground-breaking in Belgium, where asbestos litigationhas not occurred before due to constricting liability andsocial security laws. According to official (AsbestosFund) literature, over 200 Belgians die of mesotheliomaevery year; the Belgian victims’ group ABEVA believesthe figure to be much higher. Eternit has already an-nounced it will appeal the verdict, which, given thecompany’s truculent attitude in litigation, will surprisenobody.

How the Case Started

For many years, the Jonckheere family lived besides theEternit factory in Kapelle-op-den-Bos, where PierreJonckheere was employed by Eternit. Father Pierre,mother Françoise and their sons Eric, Pierre-Paul, Xavi-er, Stéphane and Benoit lived and grew up there, in ahouse close to the factory and right next to two desig-nated areas of discarded asbestos waste material. TheJonckheere children used to love playing there withtheir friends, whose fathers also worked for Eternit. As-bestos would be trucked into the factory in open wag-ons, covering the entire area in a permanent thin layerof asbestos dust. The first alarm bells rang in 1977,when the RBTF TV programme “Autant Savoir”spelled out the dangers of asbestos to viewers. Afterwatching that, Mr. Jonckheere promptly went to his su-pervisor and asked for clarification. Eric rememberswhat his father told him happened next: “The supervisor

brushed some asbestos dust together on his desk,pinched it up with his fingers and then swallowed thedust with a smile. He said: ‘surely I wouldn’t do this ifit were dangerous, now would I?’” And that was that. In1986, Pierre Jonckheere started coughing and died sixmonths later.

In early 2000, Eric’s mother Françoise – co-founder ofthe Belgian asbestos victims’ group ABEVA – decidedto sue Eternit for damages. At the time, she herself wasalready close to death with mesothelioma. Eternitoffered her the customary “silence money” of some€42,000 if she agreed not to litigate. But Françoise re-fused and on her deathbed, only some months later,charged her five sons to continue the lawsuit she hadbegun that year in order to call Eternit to account. In2003 and 2009 respectively, sons Pierre-Paul andStéphane also died of mesothelioma, only in theirforties. Their widows and children were entitled to con-tinue the case as heirs to the claim and joined theirbrother-in-laws and uncles. So at the end of the day,Françoise Jonckheere’s case is continued by her re-maining sons, daughter-in-laws and grandchildren.

Eternit did not stop producing asbestos materials inKapelle-op-den-Bos until 1 998.

Eric explains the anxiety that plagued the family aftertheir discovery that asbestos exposure could be fatal:

“My mother mainly worried about us, the fivechildren. ‘ I have washed my husband’s clothes,stroked his hair, kissed him. Perhaps that is howI inhaled asbestos. But what about our boys?’ Wehad ourselves, all five of us, checked for asbes-tos. It turned out that all five of us were chock-full of asbestos. That was doubly hard to accept.We weren’t surprised that asbestos was to befound in our bodies, but rather by the amounts:as much as a labourer who had worked all hislife at the Eternit factory.”

16. BELGIAN FAMILYWINS HISTORIC COURT CASE AGAINST ETERNIT

Yvonne Waterman1

1 Yvonne Waterman, Sc.D. LL.M, is a Dutch independent law practice professional who specializes in employers’ liability foroccupational accidents and (asbestos) diseases, in which subject she also frequently lectures, publishes and speaks at conferences,besides editing the legal journal ‘Letsel & Schade’ (Injury & Damages). In 2009, she received a PhD for her legal thesis on comparativeemployers’ liability. Yvonne Waterman may be contacted at [email protected].


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Understandably, one question now clouds every day’sjoy for Eric and his two remaining brothers: who will benext?

Some Legal Aspects

It was not possible for father Pierre to claim damagesfrom Eternit, as, according to the Belgian OccupationalDiseases Act, employers are immune to civil liability,except where wilful intent of the employer to causeharm can be shown. However, this immunity would notapply to Françoise nor to her sons, as they had not beenemployed by Eternit – and they were therefore notbarred from litigating against Eternit.

In March 2007, the Belgian government established theAsbestos Fund. This provides asbestos victims withcompensation quickly (ranging from approx. €1 ,500 permonth to the mesothelioma victim, while living, to one-time payments of approximately €33,000 for his part-ner, €17,500 for ex-partners and €27,600 for everychild; and similarly about half of this for victims of as-bestosis and pleural plaques). The Fund is fairly easy-going on the question of how the asbestos disease wascontracted. But there is a downside: by applying, asbes-tos victims give up the right to go to court against thetortfeasor. The Asbestos Fund is wholly financed bytaxes paid equally by each and every employer in Belgi-um, meaning Eternit pays no larger a share to this Fundthan any other employer in the country. The Jonckheerefamily did not apply for asbestos related social securitybenefits from the Fund, as it would have denied themthe right (individually) to go to court against Eternit.Legal aid amounts to little or nothing in Belgium: it isevery man for himself, basically. Lawyers’ fees are con-siderable and as such are considered to be very practicalbarriers to litigation. This explains to some extent whyneither occupational victims nor environmental victimshave litigated against Eternit before.

The Case for the Plaintiffs

The claimant’s lawyer, Mr. Jan Fermon, based the caseon two main arguments: that a) Eternit knew of thehealth dangers of asbestos as early as 1964 and that b)Eternit had tortiously failed to take adequate safetymeasures to protect its employees, their families andeverybody in the environmental vicinity of the Eternitfactory against asbestos dangers. Fermon said:

“That asbestos causes cancer was already knownin the Forties and it was mentioned in the Encyc-lopaedia Britannica of 1952. The relationshipbetween asbestos and mesothelioma has beenknown as of 1952 and has been established irre-futably in 1964. It’s totally unbelievable that the

directors ofEternit were not aware of the prob-lem.”

He pointed out that not only did Eternit keep using andproducing dangerous asbestos materials, it lobbied act-ively to repress any ban or limitation:

“To do so, public bodies and the public itselfwere misled and pressure was exerted on labourunions and politicians. Even as late as 1978,Eternit refused to put warning labels on itsproducts.”

The Case for the Defence

The defendant’s lawyer, Mr. Johan Verbist, also reliedon two main arguments for the defence: that a) the casewas limited (“expired”) and should be dismissed out ofhand for that reason and that b) the case lacked cause,as Eternit had never acted tortiously against FrançoiseJonckheere and so had no duty to compensate any of theclaimants. In support of this Verbist said:

“The previous CEO ofEternit NV and the com-pany doctor also died ofmesothelioma. Thosepeople would never have worked with asbestos ifthey had known of the risk involved.” Also:“Mesothelioma was actually not [officially] re-cognised as an occupational disease until 1 982.”

He explained that the dangers of asbestos really werenot all that clear at the time of exposure as the claimantswould have believed that safety measures had indeedbeen taken: “At first, it was assumed that health riskswere related to direct exposure and so, through theyears, the production process was adjusted thoroughly.”

On presenting his plea on the last day of the trial, Mr.Verbist was confident that the claim would be com-pletely refuted. He stated that the company wassaddened by the fact that people had become ill, but itwas certain that no act ofEternit had caused this.

The Judge’s Analysis

In a 48-page verdict, Judge Thiery of the Brussels Dis-trict Court examined all the arguments extensively and,in rather unusually sharp language for a judge, deniedall Eternit’s arguments one by one. Considering that theenvironmental asbestos exposure had continued formany decades until late in Françoise Jonckheere’s lifeand that the environmental damage around the vicinityof the Eternit factory and her home was extensive andstill existing (as implicitly admitted), he denied the de-fendant’s argument that the claim was limited, therebyallowing the case to be heard fully. He also made short


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work of the second main argument that Eternit had notknown of the health dangers of asbestos until the Sev-enties and could therefore not be faulted for not havingtaken safely measures until then, pointing out that afterthe Seventies, the level of safety measures was miser-ably and intolerably low, too:

“At the very latest, the relationship between as-bestos and mesothelioma was known in 1967,but Eternit has always minimalized the negativeconsequences and covered up the truth. The cyn-icism with which the company preferred the pur-suit of profit above public health is unbelievableand it made every possible effort to continue theproduction of the extremely poisonous sub-stance, without giving a hoot about the peoplewho worked with it.”

That perhaps Eternit had acted no differently or worsethan other asbestos companies at the time was no ex-cuse: Eternit was to be judged according to its ownmerits. Much was made of a letter dated April 1 4, 1 950,addressed to the Swiss SAIAC SA in which the Belgianbranch of Eternit clearly professed to be aware of thehealth dangers of asbestos and the need for safety meas-ures. Also, Judge Thiery considered the role of Eternitas part of a vast global conglomerate, in which scientif-ic knowledge had been shared for many decades; thefamous First Asbestos Conference in New York of 1964had been attended by Eternit directors, etc.

Slamming Eternit’s lobbying efforts, the Judge stated:

“It has been sufficiently proven that Eternit hashad its own share in the wrongful manner inwhich efforts were made to belittle the healthdangers of asbestos and to cover up the facts andto fight against legislative measures for the pro-tection of public health, when even at the timethat it [Eternit] developed these activities, [it]knew with surety that exposure to asbestos in-volved a serious risk for the development of dis-eases such as asbestosis, lung cancer andmesothelioma.”

Judge Thiery considered that Eternit should have takenprecautions for the safety of its employees and theirfamilies as early as 1965. He berated the firm for hav-ing little to show on this score, except for some sheetsof unverified and uncertified papers detailing the finan-cial costs of clearly inadequate safety measures when“very drastic safety measures” were required:

“The tort ofEternit, which caused the diseaseand death of [Françoise Jonckheere] , has been

amply shown. […] Rightly, the claimants statethat Eternit has exposed [Françoise Jonckheere]and the other members of her family to an ex-tremely toxic, cancer inducing substance, withgross negligence and full knowledge.”

Switching to the matter of compensation (with the em-phasis on non-economic damages), the judge reflectedon the importance for victims to receive recognition:

“as has been shown in the court case at hand toclearly be the case as evinced by the huge at-tendance in court. The compensation to be gran-ted may then serve as an expression of thisrecognition and may possibly serve as a smallcontribution to the victims so that they may findtheir peace ofmind even partially.”

Continuing, he ruled that as asbestos pollution is an in-ternational problem, the levels of awarded damages inother European Union countries, generally consideredto be higher than those in Belgium, should be taken intoaccount even if these countries have different legal sys-tems. Judge Thiery acknowledged that Belgium did notrecognize punitive damages (usually an almost unmen-tionable subject in a country that is quite averse to“Americanisms”). However, the attitude of Eternit hadsurely increased the measure of suffering of FrançoiseJonckheere and her family members and this increaseshould be compensated concretely and accordingly.

The Verdict and Aftermath

The claimants were together awarded the sum of€250,000 in damages, to be paid at once, regardless ofwhether Eternit will appeal or not. The sum was ex-plained as “5 × €50,000”, which, one might infer, wouldmean €50,000 for each of the five brothers or for hiswidow and children in his place, explicitly for botheconomic and non-economic compensation. Comparedto similar compensations in other countries, this isreally not that much: almost €500,000 for non-econom-ic damages has been awarded in Italy, €150,000 inFrance. In The Netherlands, some €57,000 for non-eco-nomic damages alone is customary; and this country isactually habitually amongst the lowest ranked ofEuropean countries when it comes to non-economicdamages. When one further considers that the Judge(according to Belgian rules of law) awarded an amountof merely €7,700 to be paid by Eternit to the claimantsfor their incurrence of legal fees, when surely elevenyears of litigation must have cost them quite a numberof times that amount of money, the compensation paleseven more.


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At the hearing of the verdict, an ecstatic Eric Jonck-heere told the crowds of reporters that “just for a mo-ment, my parents and my deceased brothers were withme.” He portrayed the case as that of a small familytaking on a global industrial giant.

Mr. Fermon was pleased to tell the world that:

“An impartial judge has given a clear verdict onthe way in which an industry has destroyed thou-sands of lives for the pursuit ofmoney. I hopethat this will be the start of a period in which thepolluter will truly pay and the costs of this dis-aster which he has caused, will no longer be shif-ted on to society.”

The verdict has stirred Belgian politics; politicians arealready discussing whether and how to improve socialbenefits for asbestos victims, to lengthen the period of

limitation, ways to make the asbestos polluter pay, etc.Whether other Belgian victims will follow Eric Jonck-heere into court and what precedent value the verdictwill have in the eyes of other Belgian judges, remains tobe seen. Yet it seems fairly certain that the end of thistale will not be told for a long time.

One wonders, too, what the impact of this verdict willbe elsewhere. For Eternit is indeed, as Judge Thiery re-flected, a vast, worldwide conglomerate; and if evid-ence shows the top hierarchy of this conglomerate tohave been aware of the health risks of asbestos at anearly time, then this might well have considerable liab-ility repercussions in law courts in other countries, evenon other continents.

December 2011

NB: All translations included in this article were by the author.

An aerial view of the Eternit Kapelle-op-den-Bos factory, 1 970s. In theforeground can be seen the Jonckheere's farmhouse (red roof, white walls).

The Belgian Press records the historic court victory.


Photo: ABEVA archive

Photo: Eric Jonckheere

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In 1986, Denmark banned all use of asbestos includingproduction of asbestos cement. The decision followed anumber of actions from workers who refused to workwith asbestos cement and the opening of a dramaticcourt case in which 36 workers sued the Danish Eternitcompany Dansk Eternit-Fabrik A/S (hereafter referredto as Dansk Eternit), demanding economic compensa-tion for work-related diseases caused by the use of as-bestos in the production of asbestos cement.

Asbestos was used in Denmark from 1899 for insulatinghot-water pipes, and in 1928 the production of asbestoscement started. Shortly after, the Danish Working En-vironment Authority, DWEA, realized the healthdangers caused by asbestos. Following WW2, Danishmedical doctors as well as the DWEA had full know-ledge of international research on asbestosis and otherasbestos-related diseases, and regular medical examina-tions of Dansk Eternit workers documented beyonddoubt that many of them were suffering from asbestosis.Yet, it was only in the early 1970s that the authoritiesbegan to prescribe effective workers’ protection meas-ures, and it took another 15 years before a ban was car-ried through.

Dansk Eternit was founded in Aalborg in December1927, and the production of asbestos cement sheeting,

mainly for roofing, started in April 1 928. The foundersof the new company were the leading Danish construc-tion and cement corporation, F.L. Smidth & Co. Ltd,and a group of its subsidiaries, all in the cement in-dustry. The mother firm itself signed up for 40 percentof the share capital [1 ] . Despite subsequent changes informal ownership through the years, Dansk Eternit hasremained under the full control of F.L. Smidth. It alsocontinues to be the sole manufacturer of fibre cement inDenmark.

In the beginning, output was very modest with only oneproduction line; but it grew very rapidly, as is reflectedin asbestos imports. In 1928, the company imported17,000 kg of raw asbestos; this increased to 33,000 kgthe following year, and in 1933 reached 260,000 kg,mostly from Russia, Canada and Rhodesia [2] .

In 1935, the production facilities were extended with asecond production line, and the same year the import ofasbestos reached 680,000 kg, most of it from the Ami-andos Mine in Cyprus that became the company’s mainsupplier for the next 50 years (in 1936 F.L. Smidthbought the mine through an English subsidiary andAmiandos remained under the company’s full controluntil it was sold in 1986). A third line was opened in1937, and shortly after a new product line of asbestos

17. ETERNIT IN DENMARK 1928-1986

Kurt Jacobsen1

1 Kurt Jacobsen: Professor ofBusiness History at the Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business School; email: kj [email protected]

Dansk Eternit workers in 1929 (photgrapher: unknown; photo: Aalborg Stadsarkiv).


85

cement pressure pipes for water supplies and seweragedischarge was introduced. In 1938, the production ofasbestos cement sheeting exceeded the capacity of theDanish market, so the company began to export. It hadgreat success in this regard, and imports of raw asbestossubsequently grew [3] .

By coincidence, the manufacture of asbestos cement inDenmark began the very same year the British Worker’sProtection Board began its examination of workers inthe British asbestos-textile industry. This examinationwould go on to document the health dangers from as-bestos dust [4] .

The results of the report, published in 1930, wereknown to the DWEA. So, too, was the resulting Britishasbestos legislation in 1931 , which prescribed specificprotection measures against asbestos dust and recog-nized asbestosis as an occupational disease. However, itwas not until 1 934 that the DWEA for the first time is-sued a warning against the health dangers caused by as-bestos. In an internal note, the factory inspectors weretold to pay special attention to certain companies’ use ofasbestos so the workers involved could be examined: “Itis a well-known fact that asbestos dust can cause dam-age to the lungs similar to silicosis.” It was specificallymentioned that asbestos was used in the production ofasbestos cement. In its annual report for 1934, theDWEA also issued a warning against the silicosisdangers from asbestos [5] .

In 1938, silicosis was recognized as a work-related dis-ease in relation to asbestos production, but it was onlyin 1941 , that the DWEA’s physicians began to use theterm “asbestosis” to differentiate the disease fromsilicosis. It was pointed out that asbestosis was moredifficult to diagnose on X-rays than silicosis and thatthe disease had “a rather quick and mortal course.” Fur-thermore, it was mentioned that asbestos exposure“seems to predispose the development of lung cancer.”[6]

In 1937, the local factory inspector issued the very firstrecommendation to Dansk Eternit about improvementof the ventilation in a specific part of the production fa-cility. On the same occasion, the inspector recommen-ded that the asbestos workers directly affected byasbestos dust should have their lungs X-rayed and ex-amined by medical doctors. The X-ray examinationswere performed in 1938 in the local public hospital, butorganized and paid for by the company. This made theDWEA’s physicians rather sceptical – especially as theywere receiving the results via the company’s manage-ment. The physicians demanded that the affected work-ers in the future should be X-rayed and examined on an

annual basis by the DWEA’s own specialists with nointerference from Dansk Eternit, which the companyaccepted.

In March 1940, the first 21 workers, with periods ofemployment ranging from one to 12 years, were X-rayed. The medical report of April 7, 1 940 stated thatfour workers seemed to have asbestosis “in an earlystage,” while four had “doubtful” symptoms. Thirteenworkers were definitely free of symptoms. The conclu-sion was that “there is a manifest asbestos danger in theEternit Company,” and it was recommended that imme-diate precautions be taken to “fight the dust danger” andthat the DWEA’s Chief Physician should carry out aninspection of the Dansk Eternit premises [7] .

Nothing came of this, however; on April 9, Denmarkwas occupied by German forces, and during the nextfive years Dansk Eternit was cut off from supplies ofraw asbestos. The precautions now became superfluousas the company, based on a German patent, developedan asbestos-free fibre cement, called Cembrit, usingcellulose fibres that, according to the company, had al-most the same “magnificent qualities” as the asbestos-based product [8] .

Nonetheless, the use of asbestos resumed after the end-ing of WW2 in 1945, and on February 15, 1 947 theDWEA issued its first legally binding prescription toDansk Eternit, ordering that the workers should “un-conditionally” wear dust masks when working with dryasbestos. In the very same letter the company was urgedto develop “methods for dust-free handling and trans-portation of the asbestos.” [9] In its answer of February19, 1 947, the company responded that, though X-rayexaminations of the workers had shown no asbestos-re-lated health effects, it would obtain the necessary num-ber of dust masks. The suggestion to develop dust-freehandling and transportation methods was not noted[10] .

The post-war years showed a remarkable growth ofDansk Eternit. Extension of production continuedsteadily through the 1950s with asbestos cement sheet-ing the main product. As a result, the importation anduse of raw asbestos increased to around 10,000 tons[11 ] .

The DWEA’s physicians again became worried; threedust recordings in 1949, 1 957 and 1958 showed alarm-ingly high concentrations of asbestos dust – up to 26times the American limit values of which the DWEAwere aware – but no actions were taken despite recom-mendations from the physicians [12] . In all, no furtherprescriptions were issued for the next 20 years, except


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that the DWEA in 1960 “seriously” asked Dansk Eternitto react “positively” to its recommendation of develop-ing dust-free handling and transportation methods. Onthe same occasion, and with more binding force, DanskEternit was told that it was “an ultimate demand” thatthe obtained dust masks actually be used [1 3] .

This more stringent attitude, though it was only articu-lated on a single occasion, resulted from the fact that asurvey had revealed that only 7 workers out of 45 werewearing dust masks. More seriously: of 63 X-rayedworkers, 1 0 returned with “evident” and five with “sus-pected,” meaning incipient, asbestosis diagnoses. Thismeant that nearly 25 percent were stricken by thedeadly disease [14] .

Since the mid-1950s the numbers of asbestosis-strickenworkers at Dansk Eternit had been slowly, but steadilyincreasing; but in 1960 peaked, a consequence of thelong incubation period of the disease, and in followingyears the numbers stabilized [1 5] . The workers,however, were not informed – at least only a few ofthem – and neither was the public. In 1960, almost allworkers were told that they were completely healthy,and in the relevant section in the DWEA’s annual reportabout lung diseases caused by dust only a single insula-tion worker who had developed asbestosis was men-tioned. In this sense the year 1960 also marked aculmination of 40 years of suppression and double-deal-ing [16] .

Unlike the affected workers and the public, evidentlythe management of Dansk Eternit was fully informedabout the results of the X-ray examinations and the“health dangers at Dansk Eternit.” [1 7] Their strategy toprotect the health of affected workers involved havingthem transferred to work where they were not directlyexposed to asbestos dust. This meant that the manage-ment had a detailed knowledge of the asbestosisdangers throughout all these years, but only very fewreal precautions were taken to protect the workers andthen only after recommendations and orders from theDWEA.

One reason given for not informing the affected work-ers was to avoid “anxiety,” as a local lung physicianwrote to the DWEA’s Chief Physician in 1948 [18] .Furthermore, DWEA physicians travelled from Copen-hagen to Aalborg on several occasions to calm worriesand prevent disturbances among the workers. At thesame time, however, they were writing articles in med-ical journals and books about the deadly dangers of as-bestos exposure. Following from this other aspect oftheir work, asbestosis was recognized as a specificwork-related disease in 1954.

More particular problems arose when workers askedwhy they were transferred to other work, even thoughthey were told that they were not ill: “There has beensome unrest when it has been suggested to the manage-ment that workers were transferred from dusty to non-dusty work,” two physicians reported to the DWEA in1955 [19] .

As a result of the suppression of information anddouble-dealing, most of the asbestosis cases were notreported to the Directorate of Accident Insurance. Ac-cording to Danish legislation it was an obligation of thecompany to report work-related diseases, but also thephysicians had an obligation to report. However, onlytwo work-related lung diseases were reported before1962, and in the following years the number remainedfar below the ascertained incidents. For quite a lot ofthe stricken workers this meant that they – or their sur-viving relatives – were excluded from receiving eco-nomic compensation to which they were entitledaccording to the law.

1960 was also the year when it was definitely docu-mented that asbestos caused mesothelioma, and in 1968Dansk Eternit’s management and board was informed,that one asbestos fibre might be sufficient to cause thedisease, and so was the DWEA [20] . This did not,however, lead to any stronger anxiety over asbestos ce-ment production in Aalborg. With the economic boomof the 1960s and the rise of the Danish welfare state,Dansk Eternit instead experienced an almost explosiveand unquestioned growth with the opening of five newasbestos sheet production lines and a rise in the numberof workers to 2,000. The company’s annual asbestosimports increased from about 15,000 tons in 1960 to astabilized level of around 25,000 tons from 1970 on-wards. In 1970 the DWEA issued a regulation for as-bestos-work with prescription for wearing dust masksetc, but no progress was made, however, on the protec-tion of Dansk Eternit workers against the dangers of as-bestos until the workers themselves began to act.

In 1969, the Cement Worker’s Union in Aalborg ar-ranged group life insurance cover for its members. Thisgave the union access to all health information on theasbestos workers, from which they discovered that 75of their colleagues in 1969-1972 took early retirementbecause of lung diseases, and that 10 of them diedshortly after [21 ] .

In 1973, the union took action by reporting collectively81 asbestos workers to the Directorate of Industrial Ac-cident Insurance. It was an extraordinary event – andmuch more so as all cases were accepted, 23 with con-firmed asbestosis [22] . An “asbestos committee” with


87

representatives from both the workers and managementwas established at Dansk Eternit, and the DWEAtightened its grip, with annual dust records and a waveof prescriptions throughout the 1970s. This was the be-ginning of a constant struggle between the DWEA andthe workers on the one side and the company on theother about implementation of the DWEA’s numerousprescriptions and recommendations.

But other groups of workers were on the move. AnnualX-ray examinations since 1952 had revealed a high in-cidence of asbestosis among insulation workers inCopenhagen; this led to the recognition in 1954 of as-bestosis as a work-related disease. Now the insulationworkers, supported by shipyard workers, pushed for aban on the use of asbestos in insulation; the industryagreed because it was possible to replace asbestos withother material. In the decisive meeting on November 2,1 971 , Dansk Eternit participated as observer and pro-tested strongly against a ban “for fear that the next stepwould be a ban against the use of asbestos in eternit [as-bestos cement] .” [23]

The company could not, however, prevent a “ban on theuse of asbestos in certain forms of insulation,” whichwas issued on January 14, 1 972. The ban included theuse of asbestos in heat, noise and humidity insulationmaterials. In a supplementary circular letter, the DWEAannounced that no decision had been taken regarding ri-gid building products containing asbestos. Neither waslining for brake blocks included [24] . At Dansk Eternit

the manufacture of asbestos cement sheeting couldcontinue, but time was running out.

In 1978, two medical studies of cancer and lung dis-eases among the workers at Dansk Eternit were re-leased. One of them, performed by the Danish CancerRegister, included 6,094 workers for the period 1943-1972. The other included 189 former workers, em-ployed at the company (1928-75), who had all died after1951 . Among the DWEA’s conclusions on the twostudies was that they both “document an over-frequencyof lung cancer. Two incidents of mesothelioma havebeen documented.” [25]

In the public as well as among politicians a demand fora total ban on all use of asbestos was raised, and onNovember 1 3, 1 979, it finally came. With a proclama-tion from the Ministry of Labour, all importation, man-ufacture and use of asbestos was banned from January1 , 1 980. The ban was modified, however, by two im-portant exceptions, namely the use of asbestos until1 985 in certain asbestos products, mainly asbestos ce-ment products, and “until further notice” in the produc-tion of brake blocks: “In these two fields which have anessential socioeconomic importance … adequate sub-stitutes have not yet been developed,” it was explained.As the manufacture of asbestos cement at Dansk Eternitaccounted for 90% of all import and use of asbestos, theeffect of the ban was limited [26] .

In 1984, Dansk Eternit applied for a prolongation of thedispensation until 1 990, which was met by protests

The Dansk Eternit factory, 1 971 (photograper: Clausens; photo: Nordjyllands HistoriskeMuseum).


88

from the workers and their union – but with little suc-cess. The prolongation was granted in February 1984,but at the same time building workers began to refuse towork with asbestos, and in schools and kindergartensemployees as well as parents protested against the pres-ence of asbestos in the indoor environment. The publicand political demands for an effective ban grew, and thepressure increased when 36 Dansk Eternit workers andwidows, with support from the union, issued a sum-mons against Dansk Eternit demanding economic com-pensation for their losses on March 6, 1 986.

Two months later, on May 28, 1 986, the Danish parlia-ment passed the final decision for an action plan for anasbestos-free Denmark. As a consequence, on the fol-lowing day Dansk Eternit was ordered to stop all pro-duction of asbestos-containing fibre cement by the endof the year. The dispensation for the use of asbestos inbrake blocks was not affected, but a few years later thistoo was dropped.

Meanwhile, the court case was proceeding, and onSeptember 14, 1 988, Dansk Eternit was found to be inviolation of several provisions in the Danish WorkersProtection Act and was ordered to pay economic com-pensation to 24 Dansk Eternit workers and widows. TheCompany appealed to the Supreme Court with the fol-lowing argument from the chairman of the board, Chris-tian Kjær, who is the grandson of the main owner andmanaging director of F.L. Smidth & Co. Ltd, who, inturn, was behind Dansk Eternit: “We don’t feel that weare trying to get out of anything, but no one in the worldhas ever told us that the product caused diseases.”Asked whether he believed that the company would winin the Supreme Court, he answered: “I hope so. If not, Ifear that we will have a situation as in USA, where anumber of firms have to close down every year in orderto avoid demands for compensation.” [27]

On October 27, the Supreme Court found Dansk Eternitguilty. It was over – at least when it came to the use ofasbestos in Denmark. The health consequences,however, remained. A medical study of 8,588 workersfrom Dansk Eternit, performed for the Danish CancerRegister in 1985, revealed that 580 had been stricken bycancer, of which 10 had contracted mesothelioma – asignificant over-representation. Added to this are an un-known number of workers who came to suffer from as-bestosis. The group included all kinds of workers inDansk Eternit, not just those who had been directly ex-posed to asbestos, but excluded personnel like cleaningstaff, artisans and others who had been working in theplant but employed by other companies [28] .

At the presentation of the study, DWEA’s leading phys-ician stated that this was not the end, but that one had toexpect that the asbestos would continue to cause canceruntil at least 2000. However, past asbestos use provedto have even more far-reaching consequences: today,there are about 100 new cases of mesothelioma in Den-mark every year, and the number is expected to increaseuntil 2015, whereafter it is expected to decline [29] .

Dansk Eternit now trading as Cembrit Ltd [30] still ex-ists as a prosperous company and a strong internationalplayer in the (asbestos-free) fibre cement industry. F.L.Smidth & Co. Ltd. also exists as a prosperous companyand is a global player in the construction industry,building cement factories all over the world [31 ] .

The Amiandos mine in Cyprus was sold in 1986 to theBishop of Limassol, but in 1988 it was closed down.Left is a huge scar in the Trodos Mountains and an un-known number of victims who suffered – and suffer –and died from asbestos related diseases of all kinds in-cluding Mesothelioma.

References1 . Cashbook 1928-1929, Dansk Eternit-Fabrik A/S,

Aalborg Stadsarkiv.2. General Balance book 1928-1933, Dansk Eternit-

Fabrik A/S, Aalborg Stadsarkiv,3 . Ibid. 1 935. Unfortunately, the books and records of

the company are far from complete. Therefore thereare no figures for the imports of asbestos after 1935,but they undoubtedly continued to increase until theoutbreak ofWW 2.

4. Merewether & Price: Report on the effects ofAs-bestos Dust in the Lungs and Dust Suppression in

the Asbestos Industry, H.M. Stationery Office, Lon-don 1930.

5. DWEA: Message nr. 35/1934. DWEA: Annual Re-port 1934.

6. DWEA: Annual Report 1939-41 .7. Poul Bonnevie to DWEA, April 4, 1 940. Land-

sarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbejdstilsynets virk-somhedssag vedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 ,løbenummer 2002/331 -349.

8. FLS-NYT. Special issue 1944.9. DWEA, Aalborg Division, to Dansk Eternit, Febru-

ary 15, 1 947. Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbe-jdstilsynets virksomhedssag vedrørende. AT-01 ,løbenummer 2002/331 -349.

1 0. Dansk Eternit to DWEA, Aalborg Division, Febru-ary 19, 1 947. Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbe-jdstilsynets virksomhedssag vedrørende DanskEternit. AT-01 , løbenummer 2002/331 -349.

11 . Susi Handberg: Det kriminelle tidsrum, p. 1 01 .1 2. Ibid., p. 111 . Mads Bülow: Under anklage. En

journalistisk dokumentation om asbesten og dens

ofre, p. 69.

April 2011


89

1 3. Factory inspector K. Hunderup Jensen to DanskEternit-Fabrik, May 9, 1960. Landsarkivet for Nør-rejylland: Arbejdstilsynets virksomhedssagvedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 , løbenummer2002/331 -349.

1 4. Mads Bülow: Under anklage. En journalistisk doku-mentation om asbesten og dens ofre, p. 65.

1 5. Taken from the physician’s reports to the DWEA,analysed in Hans Bülow: Under Anklage, En journ-alistisk dokumentation om asbesten og dens ofre, p.48-49 and Sussi Handberg: Det Kriminelle tidsrum,p. 11 4.

1 6. DWEA: Annual report 1960. That the workers werenot informed appears in the reports from theDWEA’s physicians who handled the X-ray examin-ations and from interviews with some of the af-fected workers: Hans Bülow: Under anklage. Enjournalistisk dokumentation om asbesten og dens

ofre.1 7. Factory inspector K. Hunderup Jensen to Dansk

Eternit-Fabrik, May 9, 1960. Landsarkivet for Nør-rejylland: Arbejdstilsynets virksomhedssagvedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 , løbenummer2002/331 -349.

1 8. Karsten Isager til Poul Bonnevie, January 1 , 1 948.Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbejdstilsynetsvirksomhedssag vedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 ,løbenummer 2002/331 -349.

1 9. Jørgen Frost and Aage Grut: Report nr. 347 ofDecember 17, 1956 to DWEA . Landsarkivet forNørrejylland: Arbejdstilsynets virksomhedssagvedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 , løbenummer2002/331 -349.

20. William Johnsen: Note for the board of30 April1968. Aage Grut: Report to DWEA of11 June 1968.Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbejdstilsynetsvirksomhedssag vedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 ,løbenummer 2002/331 -349. The reports were writ-ten after William Johnsen, who was a technical dir-ector in Dansk Eternit, and Aage Grut together hadparticipated in the 2nd International Congress onthe Biological Effects ofAsbestos, Dresden 22-25April 1 968.

21 . Peter Backe-Damgård (Ed.): Arbejdspladsen Dan-mark.

22. Henrik Nielsen and Per Gregersen: Erhvervssyg-domme anmeldt til Direktoratet for Ulykkeforsikrin-

gen 1961-70. ”Ugeskrift for Læger 1978, p.1 573-79”.

23. Cited from Susi Handberg: Det kriminelle tidsrum,p. 26-27. The story of the insulation workersstruggle against asbestos is told in: Isolering – medlivet som indsats – om 5 års erfaring med arbe-

jdsskader, published by the Insulation Worker’sUnion.

24. Proclamation of a ban against the use of asbestos incertain forms of insulation. Ministry ofLabour,January 14, 1 972.

25. Cited from Sussi Handberg: Det kriminelle tidsrum,p. 1 54.

26. Proclamation about the use of asbestos etc., Min-istry ofLabour, November 1 3, 1 979. Printed inDWEA: Annual Report 1972.

27. Berlingske Tidende, November 26, 1 988.28. Edith Raffn et al: Kræftrisiko og dødelighed blandt

ansatte på en dansk asbestcementfabrik.29. Asbestose og kræft i lungehinderne, Danmark 1977-

2005. Klinisk Epidemiologisk Afdeling, ÅrhusUniversitetshospital 2008. Rapport nr. 40.

30. http://www.cembrit.com/31 . http://www.flsmidth.com/

Bibliography

- Asbestose og kræft i lungehinderne, Danmark

1977-2005. Klinisk Epidemiologisk Afdeling,Århus Universitetshospital 2008. Rapport nr. 40.

- Backe-Damgård, Peter (Ed.): ArbejdspladsenDanmark (Branner og Korch, 1 978)

- Berlingske Tidende, November 16, 1 988.- Bülow, Hans: Under anklage. En journalistisk

dokumentation om asbesten og dens ofre (Tiderneskifter, 1 989)

- Danish Working Environment Authority: AnnualReports.

- FLS-NYT. Special issue 1944.- Handberg, Susi: Det kriminelle Tidsrum (Ce-

mentarbejdernes fagforening, 1 990)- Isolering – med livet som indsats – om 5 års er-

faringer med arbejdsskader (Isoleringsarbej-dernes Fagforening 1988).

- Merewether & Price: Report ofthe Asbestos Dustin Lungs and Dust Suppression in Asbestos In-

dustry. H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1930.- Nielsen, Henrik and Gregersen, Per: Erhvervssy-

gdomme anmeldt til Direktoratet for Ulykkefor-

sikringen 1961-70. ”Ugeskrift for Læger 1978, p.1 573-79”.

- Rafn. Edith et al: Kræftrisiko og dødelighedblandt ansatte på en dansk asbestcementfabrik

(Cancerregisteret, Institut for Cancer Epidemi-ologi under Kræftens Bekæmpelse, 1 987.

- Report on the Health Effects ofthe Asbestos

Mines on the Population ofthe Neighbouring

Communities. Prepared for the Ministry ofHealthin Cyprus by Leonidou Associates in cooperationwith the Institute ofCancer Research, UK, April2005.

Archival sources

- Aalborg Stadsarkiv: Dansk Eternit-Fabrik A/Spapers.

- Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland: Arbejdstilsynetsvirksomhedssag vedrørende Dansk Eternit. AT-01 , løbenummer 2002/331 -349.


90

The history of Eternit in Japan goes back to the early1930s. The Tokyo Gas Company purchased the right tosell asbestos cement (AC) pipe and related productsfrom the Italian Eternit for an initial payment of 6.5hundred thousand Yen (equivalent to about 5 millionEuros today). This led to the establishment in Tokyo (inFebruary, 1 931 ) of the “Japan Eternit Pipe Company”(in this paper: “Japan Eternit”) which began to sell ACpipe in 1932. The payment of the balance (86%) of thepurchase price, paid periodically, would cost JapanEternit up to 3 % of their profit.

Over the course of time, Japan Eternit developed anumber of factories (Fig. 1 ). During mid-1950s andearly 1970s, the company had three large-scale factoriesemploying more than seven hundred people. At thattime, blue asbestos (crocidolite) was used for manufac-turing AC pipe as well as white asbestos (chrysotile).

While there are few documents which described thecontents of workers’ jobs in detail, some workers havetold of their jobs in the Eternit factories. According tothem, the manufacturing process was operated 24 hoursa day, to avoid cement solidification, and shifts changedevery 8 hours. For processing, asbestos was mixed inthe proportion (white:blue) 7:3 . Fig. 2 shows a workerlathing AC pipes wearing a simple mask.

Japan had three big companies which produced ACpipes. After the establishment of Japan Eternit, thesecond company, Chichibu Cement Company, startedproduction in 1939. This was because the Japanesegovernment had requested it to do so to satisfy increas-ing wartime demand. The third company, Kubota, star-ted production of AC pipes in 1955, and continuedproduction with crocidolite and chrysotile until 1 975;then with chrysotile alone until 1 997.

During rapid economic growth in the 1960s, thesecompanies produced the same style of pipes, and theywere cooperative rather than competitive. When onecompany lacked AC pipes, the other companies dis-patched products with the other company’s trademark.In 2005, Kubota announced consolation money formesothelioma victims around their factory; this causeda huge amount of social and media attention to be fo-cused on the asbestos disaster threatening Japanese so-ciety – the so-called “Kubota Shock.” Because the othertwo AC pipe companies produced the same type ofpipes as Kubota, the activities of all three AC pipecompanies gave rise to a number of victims of asbestos-related diseases among people living in the vicinity oftheir factories as well as workers. Fig. 3 shows productsof Japan Eternit.

Advantages of AC Pipe Compared to Competing

Materials

As in other countries, the use of AC pipes was wide-spread in Japan, due to the low cost and ease of install-ation. Until the 1940s, iron pipes were mainly used forwater supplies, with asbestos cement pipes graduallyreplacing them during the 1950s and 1970s. Fig. 4

18. ETERNIT ACTIVITY AND EMERGING VICTIMS: JAPANESE CASE

Takehiko Murayama and Satomi Ushij ima1

Fig. 1 . Periods of operation of the Japan Eternit factories

Fig.2. Lathing ofAC pipes

1Takehiko Murayama: Waseda University, [email protected]; Satomi Ushij ima: Olive Tree Law Office, [email protected]

Fig.3 . Production process and products of Japan Eternit Pipe


The Evolution of Japan Eternit Production ofAC Pipes in Japan

Photo: Hiroko Murakami,Japan Eternit Pipe Labor Union

From brochure of Japan Eternit Pipe company

91

shows the costs of iron pipes and asbestos cement pipesby diameter at that time. In the mid-1950s, narrow as-bestos cement pipes were about 40% cheaper than ironpipes, while the price of wide pipes was about 10%lower. Such differences increased in the mid-1960s,when asbestos cement pipes were 20-60% cheaper. Atthat time, the price of narrow asbestos cement pipes wasless than half that of iron pipes. Another point was thatasbestos cement pipes were lighter than iron pipes,which also encouraged their use.

Emerging Asbestos Epidemic

As of December 2007, large asbestos companies hadacknowledged more than 550 victims. Nichias, the old-est asbestos company in Japan had compensated 307workers. It produced various kinds of materials includ-ing asbestos cloth and insulation, and had links with theBritish owned Cape Asbestos Company. One hundredand forty-seven workers were compensated by Kubota,which had close ties to the Johns-Manville Corporation.

According to some media articles, victims of JapanEternit reached 108 as of December 2007 – which thecompany has never officially admitted. In 1981 , amesothelioma victim was certified for workers’ insur-ance benefit. This was the first case of compensation formesothelioma in Japan. The total number compensatedby workers’ insurance or the new asbestos relief lawreached 80; mesothelioma: 23, lung cancer: 25,pneumoconiosis: 32. In addition, 57 people – ex-work-ers or their family members from one factory(Takamatsu) – sued for compensation. Later, sevenworkers from another factory (Omiya) sued, while aworker had already died ofmesothelioma.

In addition to workers suffering from asbestos-relateddiseases, their families were also damaged. Many fam-

ily members suffered from pleural plaques. The firstlawsuit concerned a worker who had a job that involvedthe handling of raw asbestos from 1952 to 1980; retir-ing due to asbestosis in 1981 . He subsequently died ofpneumoconiosis in 1983, when he was 55 years old. Asa child, his son had handled masks and clothes his fath-er had brought from the factory. Although he worked injobs not using asbestos, he died of pleural mesothe-lioma in 1997, when he was 42 years old. Although hisfamily sued in 2000, the Supreme Court rejected theirclaim due to the difficulty of identifying his disease.Afterwards, one national authority which operates thenew asbestos relief law certified he had had mesothe-lioma.

Violation of Laws Relating to Health and Safety

Japan Eternit began to provide masks for workers in theearly 1960s. Because the masks were very simple, theywere easily blocked with relatively large accumulationsof asbestos dust. This made it difficult for workers tobreath, so, a number of people worked without masks.According to the workers, no explanation of the haz-ardous aspects of asbestos or education for avoidingdiseases was provided. In addition, the company madeworkers take their work clothes back to their houses.Some people wore their work clothes even when com-muting to work. It was not until around 1977 that pre-cipitators for ventilation were installed at workplaces.This fact was revealed in a court case. When govern-ment authorities were due to check factory conditions,the company ordered workers to turn off machines andscatter water on to the floor to suppress dust; anythingto give a good impression.

While the first health checks for Eternit workers startedin about 1975, it was not until 1 980 that the results werereported back to workers. One worker, who directlyhandled raw asbestos materials, was sent to hospitalwith pneumoconiosis; on his return the company did notsee fit to move him to a “safer” job in a less contamin-ated area. Some people were not certified for workers’insurance in spite of their asbestos-related diseases.Even in cases of people receiving benefits from work-ers’ insurance, Japan Eternit did not inform the victims’family that the cause of death was asbestos contamina-tion, and required them not to disclose relevant inform-ation, including workplace conditions, their diseasesand the company’s response. That made the position ofother victims much more difficult. To address thisproblem, unions continue to support ex-workers; help-ing them in a variety of ways, such as explaining thedetails of health checks and the workings of the newasbestos relief law.

April 2011

Source: “Sekisan Shiryo (Data for Estimate)” by Keizai Cyosa Kai(Economic Research Association).

Fig. 4. Costs of pipes for water supply in mid-1950s and mid-1960s (broken line: 1 956, solid line: 1 965).


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Casale Monferrato, a picturesque town in north-westernItaly, has become a universal symbol of defiance to theworld’s worst industrial killer: asbestos. The almostbiblical trial mankind has undergone at the hands ofglobal asbestos profiteers is exemplified by the fate ofCasale’s workers and townspeople. Emerging like aphoenix from the devastation which has befallen thiscommunity, the vibrant and effective grassrootscampaign for “justice, decontamination, research” hasbecome a beacon of hope for civil society the worldover. The “Great Asbestos Trial” of individualsimplicated in this scandal has achieved an iconic statusnot only for the crimes it has exposed but also for whatit has revealed about the way corporations make lifeand death decisions. The Turin proceedings haveexploded Eternit’s attempt to keep control of the Casalestory. The cat is now well and truly out of the bag.There are many lessons to be learned from theexperience of Casale Monferrato not least of which isthe warning to all company executives: you too couldbe held to account for the decisions you make and thecorporate policies you administer.

You would have thought that once the lawsuit wasbeing tried in front of the Turin judges, the Casalecampaigners could have sat back and watched justice bedone. Alas, this was not to be. In July, 2011 , just as leadprosecutor Raffaele Guariniello was making his closingstatement to the Court, it was announced that the townofCavagnolo had agreed a tombstone deal with StephanSchmidheiny’s lawyers. In return for €2 million,Cavagnolo would withdraw “from this and any futuretrials (against Eternit) that it might be involved in.”1

Commenting on that decision, the Mayor of Casalesaid: “It is clear that a proposal such as that could neverbe even considered by a city like Casale.” Yet just a fewmonths later, the council of Casale Monferrato wasengaged in secret negotiations to settle the municipalclaim against the same defendant. The first newscampaigners had of the multimillion euro deal camefrom a newspaper article published in November. Afterthat, all hell broke loose. The town was literally tornapart by the implications of the municipal sell-out.

When the Casale Monferrato council met on December16 to vote on the €18.3 million offer, the town hall wassurrounded by outraged protestors. The members of theCouncil, which voted to accept the deal, were sofrightened by the public unrest that they cowered insidethe chamber till the early hours of Saturday morning. Asthe Christmas holidays loomed, it was widely expectedthat the agreement would be signed by Mayor GiorgioDemezzi by the December 31 deadline. But,Schmidheiny’s legal team had underestimated thedetermination of the Casale campaigners and therespect with which they were held. From church pulpits,religious leaders prayed that the councillors wouldembrace not betray those who were suffering. The localpriest Don Paulo Busto held a mass in memory of theasbestos dead in a church directly across from the townhall. Alceste Catella, the Bishop of the Dioceses ofCasale Monferrato, joined the controversy when heasked the Mayor to “lead the city in this moment ofgreat suffering: ‘please, I beseech you do somethingthat will prove your respect for the suffering of so manyof our citizens.’”2

When news was released, on December 22, that Italy’sMinister of Health himself had intervened, it becameclear that “the Casale issue,” had achieved suchprominence that the Mayor would be forced toreconsider. New Year’s Eve came and went – no dealwas signed. As 2012 dawned, Health Minister RenatoBalduzzi took part in separate meetings with MayorDemezzi and the Casale campaigners; ministerialmeetings on New Year’s Day, a national holiday inItaly, are a virtually unheard of phenomenon. Havingpreviously praised the “leading role” played by theCasale town council in “the long and hard socialstruggle” for justice, on January 1 st the Ministerreaffirmed the Government’s concern for the citizensand support for the town. The response to Italy’s“national asbestos emergency,” would, the Ministerpromised, be spear-headed by Casale Monferrato, thecountry’s “anti-asbestos capital.”3 Recognizing thewider implications of the case against the Eternitexecutives, Minister Balduzzi spoke of the continued

1 Kazan-Allen L. Surprise Moves by Schmidheiny’s Lawyers. November 27, 2011 .http://ibasecretariat.org/lka-surprise-moves-schmidheiny-lawyers.php2 Mossano S. Nessun patto con L’Eternit. (No pact with Eternit.) La Stampa. December 22, 2011 .http://www3.lastampa.it/cronache/sezioni/articolo/lstp/435420/3 Mossano S. La “capitale” anti amianto (The anti-asbestos capital). La Stampa. January 2, 20124 Joint Press Release by AfeVA, CGIL, CISL and UIL. January 3, 2011 .

AFTERWORD

Laurie Kazan-Allen

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production and use of asbestos in Europe and thesymbolic importance of Casale’s struggle at home andabroad. At the second meeting, Minister Balduzziimpressed leaders of the asbestos victims’ group AfeVAand trade union colleagues with his “in-depthknowledge of the ‘asbestos emergency’ as a nationaland global issue.”4 He laid out a detailed approach tothe problem which included meetings in Rome withleading stakeholders such as representatives of theMinistries of Health, Environment, EconomicDevelopment and Labor to plan a coordinated responseby national agencies, local authorities and federalbodies to the asbestos scandal.

A day of civil action, mounted under the banner ofNessun Dorma (Let No One Sleep), on January 7th

attracted crowds of supporters who took part in a silenttorchlight procession through Casale Monferrato,attended a musical tribute to the victims and prayed at amidnight vigil on the steps of the Palazzo San Giorgio,

the Mayor’s office. Outside the church of San Paulo,actress Caterina Deregibus read a poem based on thegrief ofAssunta Prato and Giuliana Busto, women wholost a husband and a brother to asbestos-related disease.Amidst the public outpouring of support, 2000+ peoplecalled on municipal officials to honor their commitmentto the victims and tear up the proposed deal withasbestos defendant Stephan Schmidheiny.

As we go to press, it is impossible to know how thesituation will develop. There have been so many twistsand turns already that one can’t help but feel the masterstrategist himself Niccolò Machiavelli looking over ourshoulder. In such circumstances we might do well toemulate the faith of Romana Blasotti Pavesi, thePresident of AfeVA, who wrote “our trust in justicenever left us.” We hope that the verdict handed down onFebruary 13, 2012 will vindicate that trust.

January 2012

For news of what happened on February 13, 2012 and thereafter see thefollowing websites:

Asbestos in the Dock: http://asbestosinthedock.ning.comAfeVA: http://www.afeva.it/International Ban Asbestos Secretariat: http://www.ibasecretariat.org

Silent torchlight procession in Casale Monferrato on “day of action,” January 7, 2012. Photo Courtesy ofRodolfo Mazzoni.

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