Sick but still at work

According to a just-released survey, South Africans won’t let a cold or flu get the better of them with 8 in 10 determined to go to work even though they are sick– a phenomenon known as "presenteeism".

48% said they just can’t afford to take a day off work due to mounting workloads, while 33% argued that they’re just too essential to the business operation.

17%, however, said their employer discourages them from taking sick leave or when they do, they get penalised for it, and a further 11% fear of losing their jobs when they do take time off to recover.

Mariska van Aswegen, spokesperson of Pharma Dynamics says many organisations have reported a growing culture of "presenteeism" in the workplace, which usually leads to lower-than-normal productivity levels and can actually cost employers more than it would if sick employees would just take a sick day. “Studies show that productivity levels only drop to about 28% when employees take sick leave compared to a much more significant drop of 72% when they show up at work feeling lousy.” She attributes this trend to the prolonged economic stagnation. “To some, physically showing up at work every day means job security. People want to make sure that they are not forgotten about and want to prove that they are committed to their jobs.” But, with more sick employees hovering around the office, the risk of spreading viruses and making others sick, increases substantially. 

Too Late for Many

When Oupa Sonopi started working in the mine at the age of 25, he was never informed of the high risk of contracting tuberculosis (TB). "Although we would hear about colleagues in the mines being treated for TB, I was not aware that the environment we worked under could be a huge contributor to me getting TB. We were not informed when we were recruited," he says.

According to Sonopi, most of his colleagues who work at the gold mines in Carletonville, a small gold-mining town 86 kilometres west of Johannesburg, suffer from airborne diseases such as silicosis, pulmonary TB and other lung infections such as chronic obstructive airways disease and lung cancer. 

Data from the Department of Health indicates that about half-a-million mineworkers in South Africa and about two million former mineworkers, spread across Mozambique, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, are at a high risk of contracting TB, just like Sonopi. They are vulnerable to lung disease because of their exposure to multiple risk factors, including their overcrowded living settlements, which usually increases the risk of infection with airborne diseases. The high rates of HIV infection as well as their exposure to silica dust in the deep mine shafts - which are often poorly ventilated - also increase the risks.

Project Ku-Riha (Ku-Riha, a Xitsonga word for compensation), is being implemented by the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases and the Compensation Commission for Occupational Diseases (CCOD) of the Department of Health. According to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi,  "The department has identified 103 000 active and ex-miners with compensable claims for the pneumoconiosis which includes silicosis asbestosis, TB, chronic obstructive airways disease, progressive systematic sclerosis and lung cancer among others." Authorities have set aside R1.5-billion that will go towards compensation. Migrant workers from other countries who have worked in South African mines and who account for around a third of the South African mining work force are also eligible to apply for the fund. The minister said thousands of people had died without ever receiving or even being aware of the country's Benefit Medical Examination and the autopsies their families were entitled to under the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act of 1973. However, the CCOD has such a huge backlog of claims from mine workers with lung disease that it will take years to process. 200 000 claims had been checked while about 500 000 were yet to be touched. A preliminary analysis of the claims held by the CCOD showed that more than half (56%) were for TB and 17% for silicosis.

Motsoaledi acknowledged that compensation could never be enough to address the difficulties that the affected miners faced. "Compensation will never be enough. We need to change the laws to ensure that our miners are protected," he said.

The fund derives its income from levies paid by mines themselves. Claims are assessed by the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases' certification committee, which determines whether or not they qualify for pay-outs, which usually range from R3 000 to R100 000. Other work-related injuries and diseases, such as loss of limb or finger, are dealt with by the Department of Labour.

Radiation poisoning

In 1975 Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto set up its Rössing uranium mine. It needed a place to house its black workforce so it built Arandis in Namibia. Arandis is still the home of the workers, but has lost the financial support of the company. It looks like it is doomed to decay.

Many men who worked in the mine's early days claim to suffer from severe illnesses including cancers, hypertension and anaemia.  Hoseas Gaomab, worked in the mine's laboratory for 23 years. He knows many men who have died. But he doesn't know why.  Gaomab is sick, too. He suffers from a disease that has made his legs and hands numb for the much of the past 20 years. It simply didn't occur to Gaomab that his illness could be work-related. Then, in 1993, a medical student named Reinhard Zaire arrived, interviewing miners and taking blood samples. "He asked us how long we worked for Rössing and when we got sick. Then he called us together to tell us we were irradiated."

He concluded that there was an increased risk for uranium miners to develop malignant diseases such as cancer. Shortly after the report was published, Zaire was dismissed by the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, his research permission was revoked, and he was accused of practising as a medical doctor illegally. Rio Tinto slammed Zaire's report.
 "To date, there have been no confirmed occupational illness related deaths," said Rio Tinto spokesperson
There are no records available from the company of what happens to workers once they leave Rössing. After their retirement, the men return to their homes in rural Namibia, where they rarely have access to proper healthcare facilities.

The Scourge of Silicosis

According to the South African Department of Labour, there are currently as many as 2,000,000 former gold miners suffering from silicosis.  Tens of thousands of gold miners - many of them migrant workers - who have registered for what is thought to be South Africa's largest class action lawsuit in history. Three law firms - Richard Spoor Attorneys, Abrahams Kiewitz Attorneys and the Legal Resources Center - have filed affidavits against 31 mining companies accusing them of damaging their clients' health by exposing them to elevated levels of dust underground.

South Africa's gold industry was founded on the migrant labour system, a system that heavily linked to the apartheid era. Black men from poverty-stricken areas across the south of the continent were cheaper to employ than locals. Even now, more than half of the total workforce in the mining sector is recruited from neighbouring countries. Once they leave the mines, however, they disappear from the radar of the occupational health institutions and the mining houses.

In South Africa, one of the world's largest gold producers, silicosis was identified as an occupational lung disease in 1911. The implementation of the Miners' Phthisis Act of 1922 allowed white miners to receive compensation for diseases contracted in the mines. In 1930, the first conference dedicated to the illness was held in Johannesburg. The current health and safety legislation, however, excludes gold miners. For mine workers, there is a separate act, named the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODMWA), which for a long time "only served the white and coloured workers", explained Thuthula Balfour-Kaipa, the head of the health department at the Chamber of Mines, an institution funded by the mining companies.

The majority of the miners have been and still are black. Up until the 1990s, black men comprised some 90 percent of the mines' workforce, a statistic which has not changed significantly. The majority of those men traditionally came from countries other than South Africa.

According to Balfour-Kaipa, the compensation act has not been implemented properly, even after it was reformed following the fall of apartheid in 1994. "The men are getting less compensation than they should - if they get anything," she said. Balfour-Kaipa does not blame the mining companies, but the government. She says the lack of a functioning public health system in the provinces or countries of origin of the migrant workers is at fault. "The Eastern Cape is one of the most dysfunctional provinces in South Africa," she said. "For Lesotho and Mozambique, there isn't even legislation about occupational health."

Dr Thabiso Kolobe is a general practitioner from Maseru, Lesotho, who only learned about the disease last year. "Silicosis is not a common word here," he said. "Doctors don't think that way, they are not aware of this disease when they see an X-ray." Once a worker returns to his home, chances drop that he will ever be diagnosed with silicosis. "They just die outside in the villages," says Kolobe. "Because there is no organised service, no database of ex-miners, no screening system... Many of those men live in rural areas, so even if it's clearly indicated that they have to come for a screening every six months, they'd have to travel far."

poisoning children for capitalism

Children picking tobacco in the fields of Malawi for consumers far beyond the African country's borders are being poisoned as they absorb up to two cigarette packs' worth of nicotine each day, a children's rights organization said.

The "extremely high levels of nicotine poisoning" produces not only nausea, headaches, dizziness, difficulty in breathing and other symptoms but "long-lasting changes in brain structure and function," London-based Plan International said in a report.

More than 78,000 children, some as young as 5, work on tobacco estates across the southern African country, some up to 12 hours a day for less than 1.7 cents an hour and without protective clothing.Large-tobacco production has shifted from the United States to developing countries like Malawi, where "children are being exposed to exploitative and hazardous working conditions." Malawians are so poor that many families send their children to work in the fields.Tobacco is an important cash crop in Malawi, generating 75 percent of foreign exchange income. More than 80 percent of Malawians are directly or indirectly employed by the tobacco industry, which contributes up to 30 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product.

Chasing the Chinese

Socialist Banner has often reported on the Chinese colonial expansion into Africa and in particular we said here that :

"...It is alleged that Chinese investors mistreat ordinary Zambian workers ... The ZCTU (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) has spoken out strongly against the New Economic Zone by pointing out that Chinese investors pay low salaries and the incidence of accidents at workplaces..."

We now read in this report :

"A Chinese manager at a copper smelter in northern Zambia has been admitted to hospital after being assaulted by workers demanding better conditions. An estimated 500 workers at the Chinese-owned Chambishi mine site started throwing stones at the managers as they attempted to hold talks. Police came in to restore order and rescue the Chinese who had taken refuge by locking themselves in their offices." [ Chambishi Smelter, which is under construction, is part of a huge multi-million dollar Chinese investment in the area. ] .

A kitchen for Chinese workers and a guard's house were set alight and hostel windows smashed .

"The Chinese are not respecting Zambian labour laws," said a workers' representative .

While fully sympathising with the reactions and resistance of those Zambian workers , the previous Socialist Banner article cited, concluded "...chasing away Chinese investors is not a method of abolishing capitalism..." and what was really required is workers of Zambia uniting under the banner of international working class solidarity—Socialism.

Solidarity

South African mine workers are starting a one-day strike in protest at poor safety in the country's mines. About 240,000 workers are to take part in the 24-hour stoppage, the first countrywide strike by miners. About 40,000 workers are expected to join a protest march in Johannesburg .

"Workers are saying enough is enough. Safety is needed now," said Erick Gcilitshana, the health and safety head of the National Union of Mineworkers, which is organising the strike.

"Our safety records both as a company and a country leave much to be desired." Harmony Gold mine executive Patrice Motsepe has said

More than 180 workers have been killed this year in the country's mines, with another two dying in recent days, slightly fewer than 200 deaths in 2006. In October, more than 3,000 miners were trapped a mile underground at a Harmony Gold mine.

South Africa's Business Day newspaper, in an opinion piece, said mine supervisors "remain hostile to the introduction of new safety values into a traditionally conservative environment."

Yet the average miner still earns only $US500 per month. Fourteen years after the end of white rule, miners are still the poorest paid workers of the industrial sector.