analysis
Paula Howell
Miners who are suffering from incurable lung diseases, contracted in the course of their employment, are being left to die in poverty and without medical assistance. As miners are not expected to live very long beyond retirement, because of health reasons, the compensation system makes no provision for long-term medical care or financial support. This is an indefensible situation that needs to be urgently addressed by the government.
The majority of miners suffering from occupational lung diseases work in gold mines and most of these fall into a category known as pneumoconiosis. In 2000 more than 10 000 employed and unemployed miners were certified as suffering from incurable diseases. About 2 340 were diagnosed with pneumoconiosis for the first time and a further 10 590 were deemed to be suffering from non-compensatable diseases, which includes those who are in the very early stages of one of the incurable diseases. An average of about 25 000 miners submit themselves for benefit medical examinations each year in order to claim compensation for occupational diseases.
The first question to ask is why are so many miners still contracting these preventable diseases? Part of the answer may lie in that fact that the majority of mineworkers are black and attitudes are deeply rooted in the past relationship between the mining companies and apartheid. This relationship has resulted in a discriminatory compensation system and explains the reluctance of some mine owners to ensure that safety precautions are adhered to.
The Department of Minerals and Energy must also take some of the blame because it is responsible for policing health and safety in the mines and if miners are dying from preventable diseases then the enforcement of good practices is clearly lacking. The risk to workers posed by inadequate working conditions is a cost that mine owners must bear in the same way as they bear the cost of environmental damage caused by their mining activities.
The second question to be asked should be whether miners are sufficiently compensated for the inevitable damage to their health? The answer to this question is clearly “no”. However, miners continue to accept the risks of contracting deadly diseases because these can take some time to develop, giving them a relatively long working life. Nevertheless, many miners are affected by ill health when they are still caring for minor children and the real suffering for these families comes when they become reliant on the compensation that is available in terms of the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act 1973 (ODMWA).
The system of compensation that ODMWA established is separate from the workers compensation system created by the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 1993 (Coida). ODMWA covers specific diseases that are identified in the legislation and, in theory, a miner can only claim through ODMWA for these diseases. The Act also established a compensation fund, under the control of the compensation commissioner, into which all mine owners are required to pay and out of which all miners are compensated.
In terms of ODMWA, a miner can be diagnosed with a lung disease either in the first degree or the second degree. The latter refers to the terminal and advanced stage of the particular disease and the former describes the initial stage. Both stages will trigger an award of compensation, but when a miner is diagnosed with a disease in the second degree he will usually be required to leave the mine and will die within a year or so. When a miner is diagnosed with a lung disease that has not reached the chronic, advanced stage he is allowed to continue working underground and endure further exposure to the material that has damaged his lungs in the first place. This is accepted by miners because they will not receive as much compensation at the first-degree stage as they can when they have reached the terminal, second-degree stage.
A miner who is at the terminal, second-degree stage of a disease receives a lump sum financial settlement that is calculated on the basis of his monthly earning up to the maximum of R2 300 a month. Roughly the maximum compensation will be in the region of R70 000, that is if he has not been already awarded a first-degree payment. This is a one-off payment and the miner cannot return for further compensation even if he develops another work-related disease in the future.
Because a one-off payment is made the former miner does not have the benefit of a monthly income even though he is deemed 100% unfit for any kind of work. When he dies his family will not receive any further compensation. By contrast, if he were fortunate enough to have been able to claim compensation in terms of Coida, he would have received 75% of his income until he dies and he would also have been able to claim medical aid. His widow and minor children would also be entitled to a pension.
Furthermore, the retired miner is only allowed medical expenses incurred on account of his occupational diseases, for a maximum of two years after diagnosis. (The first year of medical treatment will usually be incurred by the mine, which is obliged to pay such expenses because the miner is still employed.) Thereafter, the miner is denied access to any medical assistance from the compensation fund, and must use his compensation award to pay for medication and hospital treatment. If he cannot, then the state has to take over treatment. So, if a miner is desperately ill, he will not be able to go to a hospital of his choice for treatment unless he is able to afford this. The sick miner is thus discarded by his employer who is cushioned from the true consequences of failing to provide adequate protection for his workers and the state is left to pay the cost of that employer’s negligence.
It is intolerable that a worker should be denied adequate medical care, at his employer’s expense, when he is in the last and painful stages of an incurable disease contracted in the course of his employment due to the negligence of that employer. It is inexcusable that a family, deprived of its main breadwinner, should be left unsupported, having exhausted a paltry compensation award on the care of the deceased breadwinner.
Furthermore, there are no rational reasons why miners should receive less compensation than other workers who fall within the wider workers’ compensation system. This is discriminatory and unfair to workers who are exposed to some of the most physically challenging working environments in the world. There are good grounds for demanding that the necessary changes are made to ODMWA immediately and that families of dead miners who were deprived of pensions should be awarded compensation retrospectively. The government is considering a merger of the two compensations systems but should miners wait that long and can they afford to?
ENDS