It took more than seven years of legal challenge before mining companies based in South Africa, faced with a class action for compensation by gold miners affected by Silicosis and TB, gave in to pressure and set up a compensation scheme. Since 2019, only a small percentage of an estimated 500,000 former miners under this scheme have received compensation. Hundreds of thousands of miners or their widows are still waiting for compensation to be paid. Every day one more life is lost to the painful disease caused by exposure over many years to fine silica dust, caused by mining.
Mining companies have known for more than a hundred years of the risks to health – the cancer caused by silicosis in particular. Until now however, miners were entitled to very limited benefits or support when they were dismissed from work because of ill-health due to silicosis or TB.
Quite literally, miners were dying for gold; their families left destitute. Despite efforts to monitor and manage dust levels by the industry, more could be done. A research study published in the British Medical Journal in 2004 [source 1] was the first South African study of the prevalence of silicosis among in-service black goldminers over 40 years of age, looking at dust exposure estimates. It concluded, ‘The high prevalence (almost 20%) of silicosis among older in-service black mineworkers confirms the existence of a significant epidemic of silicosis in the South African goldmining industry’ [source 2]
The roots of this approach lie in the colonial-era, bringing massive industrialization of mines to scale, extracting mainly gold and later other minerals, to benefit western governments and their populations. In order to extract the minerals from South Africa’s particularly deep mines, cheap labour was exploited by the mining companies who set up special ‘recruiting offices’ in rural areas. Black men were transported to mining locations, often forcibly, and became virtual slaves to the industry. Trapped without other means of work, millions of men from across the region were ‘recruited’ into what might be called ‘the killing fields’ of gold. Although the mining industry claims to have improved its practice (and certainly since 1994 apartheid laws were overthrown by the people, mining companies have had to adapt their tactics and strategies), why was compensation resisted for decades? An average compensation award today is R83,000. That’s just £4,368.
Compensation is just one aspect, however. Based on the impact for human life and the climate, surely we need to ask ‘is the global price of gold still too cheap?’ Why must millions of people suffer slow and painful deaths, and families live in poverty, to keep the cost of gold mining to an acceptable ‘market price’?
The award-winning documentary film, ‘Dying for Gold’, tells the story of this colonial scar inflicted on the people of Southern Africa in horrendous detail. ACTSA has been part of the campaign for compensation since 2017, and now four years after the settlement, we’ve been asked to re-open a campaign with our partner in the region ‘Justice for Miners’. Our campaign includes screening the film and inviting people to get involved to support Southern Africans as they continue to battle for their rights. You can read more here http://www.dyingforgold.com/ and follow international screenings of the film here @DyingforGold. You could also approach local film festivals and/or independent cinemas in your area and ask them to consider screening this film. The more people who see it, the better for the claimants and their families.
Justice for Miners is a non-profit campaign and support initiative between former miners, their families and wider society. JFM’s primary task is to monitor the roll out of compensation and to act as a watchdog that alerts institutions to problems with the intention of seeing improvements in timely and appropriate payments to those who qualify under guidance of standards set by the SA government. However, it’s not straightforward due to language, distances, lack of access to documents, physical frailty, and sometimes the sheer inhumanity of the system. To ACTSA, the system repeats the disadvantage, and the racism, which colonial-era mining operations set out to exploit. The campaign call developed by former miners sums up the challenge: #ourhealthbeforeyourwealth
To get involved follow us @ACTSA_UK or email us: [email protected] and put JFM in the comments/subject line. You can help us host screenings, write letters, share stories and build up our social media following so that we can support the #healthbeforewealth voices. For too long black lives have paid the price for excess wealth in the global North. Only in solidarity can we demand that this changes. ACTSA calls for an end to complicity with racist histories. We specifically call on mining company shareholders to demand that the lives of miners and their families are respected equally, without delay.
David Kenvyn is the Vice Chair of ACTSA and formerly a life-long Anti-Apartheid Movement leader.
Source 2 ibid