Mining gold and manufacturing ignorance. Occupational lung disease and the buying and selling of labour in Southern Africa / Неграмотность в добыче и производстве золота. Профессиональные заболевания легких и купля-продажа рабочей силы на юге Африки

In early August 2012, following failed wage negotiations and civil unrest, about three thousand striking platinum miners employed by Lonmin plc gathered on a hill close to the town of Marikana in the North West province of South Africa. Nine out of ten Lonmin miners were migrants, mainly from the Eastern Cape, who lived next to the mine in squalid shacks and informal settlements.1 During a confrontation on 16 August, police opened fre, wounding 78 miners and killing 34 others. Many of those killed and injured were shot in the back.
As required under the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act, the cardio-respiratory organs of the deceased men, who were deemed to have died suddenly on the mine, were sent to the National Institute for Occupational Health for examination.2 Te autopsy results were telling. Of the thirty-four, three miners had silicosis, with nodules in both lungs. Another four had silicotic nodules in adjacent lymph glands. Evidence of previous pulmonary tuberculosis was found in two of the miners and a further two had emphysema. One contract worker from the Eastern Cape, who had not been diagnosed in life, had extensive silicosis, warranting frst-degree certifcation. Te other two mine workers in whom pulmonary silicosis was found at autopsy had also not been previously diagnosed. Te deceased had a median age of thirty-three and more than half had previously been employed in gold mines. Five were migrant workers from neighbouring countries; like all such workers, they had limited previous access to health services. Lonmin had incomplete work histories for the deceased, and this compromised their families’ claims for compensation. <...>