Miners In South Africa Sue Gold Mining Giants Over Lung Diseases, Could Win Hundreds Of Millions In Damages,The livelihoods of bags of above gold miners with painful, abiding and baleful lung diseases are at pale as what’s been accounted the “trial of the decade” opened Monday in Johannesburg. Ex-miners -- whose careers began as aboriginal as the 1950s -- are suing 32 gold-mining companies, including some of the world’s largest, like AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields, for crumbling to accept able assurance measures.
The acknowledged claiming threatens to forward shockwaves beyond the mining industry, an bread-and-butter and political assertive in a nation that harbors bisected of the world’s accepted gold resources. Studies advance about a division of above gold miners in South Africa may accept silicosis, an cureless and baleful lung ache acquired by the assimilation of ashamed beach particles accepted as silica dust. People adversity from silicosis are at college accident for tuberculosis.
Occupational bloom experts accept accustomed the hotlink amid underground mining and silicosis for added than century. And South Africa, already the world’s ascendant gold producer, was the aboriginal country to atone silicosis as an anatomic disease, in 1912. But workers bringing clothing say mining companies consistently carelessness to yield measures to ascendancy silica dust levels.
Lawyers apery miners argued for class-action cachet Monday. If granted, the appellation would acquiesce bags of above miners to accept advantage beneath a abeyant adjustment instead of banishment workers to sue for amercement individually. One of the law firms apery miners said amercement could bulk to billions of rand, an bulk agnate to hundreds of millions of dollars.Gold mining companies argue chic activity cachet and wish a adjustment alfresco court.
“It’s not in anyone’s absorption to absorb hundreds of millions of rand and 10 to 20 years in cloister ambidextrous with this issue,” a agent for mining companies told South Africa’s state-owned media. “We are acquisitive to acquisition a fair band-aid but one that is aswell acceptable for the industry.”
The Chamber of Mines of South Africa did not anon acknowledge to a appeal for comment.
The accusation comes at a aerial time for the nation’s gold-mining industry, bedridden by ascent activity costs and crumbling all-around prices. In contempo years, achievement has slid dramatically. The hearings over chic acceptance will advance until Oct. 23. A accommodation may not appear until next year.
A 2009 abstraction by advisers from Johannesburg's Witswatersrand University and University College, London, estimated 288,000 cases of compensable silicosis in South Africa.
The acknowledged claiming threatens to forward shockwaves beyond the mining industry, an bread-and-butter and political assertive in a nation that harbors bisected of the world’s accepted gold resources. Studies advance about a division of above gold miners in South Africa may accept silicosis, an cureless and baleful lung ache acquired by the assimilation of ashamed beach particles accepted as silica dust. People adversity from silicosis are at college accident for tuberculosis.
Occupational bloom experts accept accustomed the hotlink amid underground mining and silicosis for added than century. And South Africa, already the world’s ascendant gold producer, was the aboriginal country to atone silicosis as an anatomic disease, in 1912. But workers bringing clothing say mining companies consistently carelessness to yield measures to ascendancy silica dust levels.
Lawyers apery miners argued for class-action cachet Monday. If granted, the appellation would acquiesce bags of above miners to accept advantage beneath a abeyant adjustment instead of banishment workers to sue for amercement individually. One of the law firms apery miners said amercement could bulk to billions of rand, an bulk agnate to hundreds of millions of dollars.Gold mining companies argue chic activity cachet and wish a adjustment alfresco court.
“It’s not in anyone’s absorption to absorb hundreds of millions of rand and 10 to 20 years in cloister ambidextrous with this issue,” a agent for mining companies told South Africa’s state-owned media. “We are acquisitive to acquisition a fair band-aid but one that is aswell acceptable for the industry.”
The Chamber of Mines of South Africa did not anon acknowledge to a appeal for comment.
The accusation comes at a aerial time for the nation’s gold-mining industry, bedridden by ascent activity costs and crumbling all-around prices. In contempo years, achievement has slid dramatically. The hearings over chic acceptance will advance until Oct. 23. A accommodation may not appear until next year.
A 2009 abstraction by advisers from Johannesburg's Witswatersrand University and University College, London, estimated 288,000 cases of compensable silicosis in South Africa.
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