EDITORIAL: Silicosis settlement offers some justice after the horrors
The R5bn silicosis settlement is important and historic for a number of reasons
The name of the R5bn trust established to provide compensation for mine workers made ill by silica dust in the mines — Tshiamiso — is a Setswana word meaning "to make good" or "to correct". It has been appropriately chosen as the legal settlement — signed on Thursday — from which the trust arises is at last a recognition by mining companies of the need for reparations, particularly for black mine workers, who for decades worked in mines in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. All workers were exposed to dangerously high dust conditions, but there is no question that black workers suffered the worst of it. It was black mine workers who worked in the dustiest parts of the mine and did not have showers and changing rooms on the surface to wash the dust from their bodies. In medical examinations, says the Legal Resources Centre (one of the litigants), black miners underwent mini X-ray tests that were difficult to read and did not effectively detect silicosis. White miners, on the other hand...
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