TimesLive reports that the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) announced on Thursday that it was providing assistance to ill miners who were about to sue the coal mining for failing to protect them from black lung disease.  

Pneumoconiosis, also called black lung disease, is a preventable but incurable disease that is contracted in coal mines through inadequate protection from coal dust.  Bishop Abel Gabuza of the SACBC’s Justice and Peace Commission said in a statement on Thursday:  “The mines need to take both ethical and legal responsibility for the sick miners.”  Richard Spoor Attorneys are preparing the class action on behalf of the ill miners.  He was one of the lawyers involved in the silicosis class action against gold mining companies‚ which resulted in a R5-billion settlement.  The ill coal miners are from Limpopo‚ Eastern Cape‚ Free State‚ Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal‚ said Gabuza.  South Africa is one of the countries with highest prevalence rate on black lung disease.  “The fact that South Africa has hundreds of sick miners from coal industry is an indictment on corporate greed in the mining sector and its insistence on profit over the dignity of mine workers,” said Bishop Gabuza.

• Read this report in full at TimesLive

Read the SACBC’s press statement at SA Labour News

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