WASHINGTON - More than four months of talks between the labor movement, affected businesses and the insurance industry over a solution to asbestos illness lawsuits - through creation of a trust fund for the estimated 1.8 million victims - collapsed in late May when a key GOP lawmaker introduced his own legislation.

The deal-breaking bill by Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) "is merely a vehicle to relieve business and insurers of hundreds of billions of dollars of liability while significantly short-changing the asbestos victims of the fair compensation they are due," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Organized labor sought a no-fault system and a larger trust fund for the asbestos victims with fair compensation "based on sound medical criteria," Sweeney and federation General Counsel Jon Hiatt said.

The Hatch bill (S.1125), which was introduced on May 22, would set up a $108 billion trust fund to pay the claims of some of the workers who have been injured by asbestos. Under the Hatch plan, asbestos-injured workers would no longer be able to file a lawsuit to obtain compensation for an asbestos injury. Instead they would apply to the trust fund for compensation, which would be awarded according to a schedule of payments and medical criteria.

"Many recognize that it may not be the perfect solution," Hatch testified, "but it is close to being one of the best workable solutions. It establishes a system to pay victims faster, ensures that it is the truly sick getting paid and provides the business community with the stability it needs to protect jobs and pensions."

In a prepared statement, Hiatt said "in substance, the Hatch bill is a step backward. On appropriate medical criteria, exposure definition and compensation the Hatch bill's positions are more restrictive than those contained in the Manville and other existing bankruptcy asbestos trust funds, and even more begrudging than the position taken by the business groups and insurers in these negotiations four months ago."

There are an estimated 1.8 million victims of asbestos-related disease in the U.S.

"The story of asbestos is one of the most shameful in the annals of the American workplace. Long after manufacturers, their insurance companies and the government knew asbestos was a deadly poison, millions of workers were and still are being exposed to asbestos on the job," Sweeney said.