Richard Spoor
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» Spoor unbowed by litigious Anglo Platinum

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AngloGold in dock on health charge
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Sun, 08 Oct 2006

[miningmx.com] -- A R2.6m law suit will be brought against AngloGold this week for a worker whose lungs and health are alleged to have been damaged working on one of the company’s South African mines. It is seen as a test case that could cost the industry and government billions of rands.

A summons will be served on AngloGold Ashanti on Monday and will be brought by a prominent South African human rights lawyer Richard Spoor and Charles Abrahams.

AngloGold Ashanti was aware that some lawyers were considering their options, but it did not have specific knowledge about the summons, said Steve Lenahan, the executive officer in charge of the company’s corporate affairs.
They’re dying like flies
“We will not comment until we have seen the nature of the case,” he told Miningmx.

At the root of the case lies the challenge of the constitutionality of compensation legislation that restricts payouts to miners injured at work to about a tenth of what workers in other industries are eligible for.

Under South African law workers cannot sue their employers for injuries sustained at work and neither can dependents of those killed.

Spoor was not immediately available for comment, but he told Miningmx in July the case promises to be difficult to pursue because similar cases in the past have failed because of legislation preventing workers from suing their employers.

“The worst thing about it is the victims are being erased by time. They’re dying like flies. Every single day companies’ liabilities shrink through the passage of time. That’s an incredibly depressing notion,” he said.
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Spoor has raised the question whether a point has now been reached where corporates can no longer hide behind the law. “We want to know the immunity the companies ostensibly enjoy in terms of the legislation and whether that immunity will withstand scrutiny by the courts.”

According to the Sunday Independent story, bringing compensation for mineworkers up to the level of other industries will cost R10bn, while paying every worker in southern Africa, where the mines draw their labour from, would cost R100bn.

The worker in this case is Thembekile Mankayi, a 48-year-old former employee of AngloGold Ashanti’s Vaal Reefs operation. He was dismissed because of being medically unfit to work. He was paid R16,300. The lawyers will argue his cardio-respiratory illnesses stem from his time on the company’s mine.

Tens of thousands of workers in South African underground mines have contracted silicosis from breathing in the silica dust created by drilling.

Mankayi’s claim includes a demand for reimbursement of R1.4m that he has spent on treating his ailments.

Spoor made a name for himself by winning damages for 1,600 workers whose lungs were irreparably damaged by asbestos mining by the former mining house Gencor and Gefco.

In March 2003, Gencor had to pay R448m into the Asbestos Relief Trust, from which payments would be made to victims over 25 years. It was labelled as the biggest payout of its kind in SA’s history and the first time black workers won a compensation claim against their employers.

Spoor has made newspaper headlines in the past couple of years in a bitter battle with Anglo Platinum for its dealings with communities on the Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex where the company is developing new mines.

Anglo Platinum approached the courts for an urgent interdict to stop Spoor from repeating allegations against them. He has called the world's largest platinum producer a "bully" and "corporate thug". The interdict was not granted.