BY TONY HUNT AND JIM SPAUL
LONDON - The murderous "safety" policies of successive Labour and Conservative governments, who ran the previously state- owned coal company, were highlighted January 23 with the conclusion of the longest-running industrial injury court case in Britain. In a test case ruling, a High Court judge awarded damages to six former coal miners who suffer from incurable lung diseases caused by fine coal dust. Since the mines were nationalized in 1947, both Labour and Tory coal bosses refused to install the available and necessary safety equipment and refused to acknowledge the link between airborne dust in the mines and lung disease among mineworkers. The court judgment opens the way for around 100,000 former miners to lodge claims against the government.

Two years ago a judge in Newcastle ruled that British Coal, the state-owned coal company whose remaining working mines the former Conservative administration sold to private capitalists, had knowingly exposed its workers to the risks of working with pneumatic drills and power tools since 1973. In October 1997 ex- miners were awarded between 5,000 and 40,000 in this case.

"I'm very bitter towards the bosses in the coal industry," Glyn Jones, 71, told the Daily Telegraph. "They knew what was happening but did nothing to protect the workforce." Jones, a miner for 36 years in south Wales, was one of the six former miners who were awarded initial damages for "pain and suffering" of between 3,200 and 10,500 in the most recent ruling.

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president Arthur Scargill explained January 23 that the union had fought for 35 years to force British governments to accept the link between coal dust and lung diseases. The judge acknowledged that the National Coal Board (NCB), later renamed British Coal, had "failed to take all reasonable steps to minimise the creation and dispersion of respirable dust .. from about 1949 to 1970 and to a lesser extent thereafter."

In 1974 the NCB finally conceded the link between larger dust particles inhaled by miners and the disease pneumoconiosis, or black lung, after many years of struggle in the coal fields on this issue. They held themselves blameless however, with a "no- fault" scheme that paid 165 million to 75,000 miners.

The coal bosses refused to admit a link between fine coal dust, which penetrates the lungs, and diseases such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and small airways disease - despite the evidence of their own research in the 1970s. This link was officially conceded in 1993 in an effort to head off resistance to a savage round of mine closures. A year earlier, leaked correspondence showed that the government and British Coal had delayed that decision to ensure as many sick miners as possible died in order to save the government money in benefits and compensation.

Jim Spaul is a member of the National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) in London. He is a former member of the National Union of Mineworkers.  
 
 
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