The Catholic church in SA aims to bring a class action lawsuit against four major coal mining companies.
This is on behalf of a group of more than 1,000 retired miners, including 15 migrants workers, now back home in the Eastern Cape.
SA Catholic Bishops Conference director Father Stan Muyebe said the workers were affected by pneumoconiosis or black lung disease, a progressive massive fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The four companies operate in Free State, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
He said the church was looking to secure a deal similar to the 2018 R5bn compensation agreement reached between the gold mining industry and mineworkers affected by silicosis.
“All the applicants in the case are people who are no longer working in the mines,” he said.
“They are back in their homes sick and living in poverty.”
The church was producing a documentary to expose the ex-coalminers’ plight.
Muyebe said the church had established a justice and peace commission, which reached out to voiceless South Africans.
“While the owners of the mines have made billions from the mining, the ex-mine workers and their families remain with a negative legacy of mining, which is sickness and death. This is very unfair,” he said.
“It is important the companies responsible for the illness of workers take some responsibility and compensate the ex-miners and their families.”
The victims are represented by Richard Spoor Attorneys. Spoor said he hoped to wrap up another class action against Sasol, before the coalmine lawsuit. The Sasol class action, reportedly at R80m, is set for pre-trial conference in 2019...