In 2012, the law firm Richard Spoor Inc (RSI) took on SA’s mining industry in an unprecedented class action, spanning as far back as 1965, to claim damages and compensation for gold miners who contracted silicosis — a lung disease caused by exposure to crystalline silica dust over an extended period — as well as tuberculosis.
RSI was given the certification to pursue a class action in 2016 in a landmark judgment, and the mining companies ultimately settled on a compensation award of R5-billion for the affected miners and their families.
Now the firm is spearheading a class action against the coal mining industry for miners who contracted lung diseases such as pneumoconiosis, which it contends is a result of mining companies failing in their “duty of care”.
The mining industry and the government say there have been significant strides made to improve health and safety standards. The latest annual report of the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate, which falls under the Department of Mineral Resources, states that the number of employees exposed to airborne pollutants that exceeded the occupational exposure limits “decreased from a total of 20,675 employees (5.54% of the total workforce at risk) in 2021 to 14,414 (4.08% of the total workforce at risk) in 2022”.
