Section A SCXJTH AFRICAN PRODUCTION AND MINING 6 A.1 i Ownership of South African mines 6 ii Production of raw asbestos in South Africa 9 iii International production. of raw asbestos 11 iv South Africa, other producers and the world market 11. CONFLICT RESULTS: OFFICIAL SITUATIONS WITH RFIARD TO SAFETY MEASURES AND CONTROL MEASURES. At one end of the spectrum is Sweden, which has banned the use of raw and.
At the other end of the spectrum are the Latin American and Far Eastern countries, which have no official safety levels for exposure at all. The second section will attempt to explain the scope of ARDs and discuss some of the issues involved. This will include a historical case study of awareness of ARDs in the United Kingdom.
At the time of writing (early 1980), there were three major companies that owned most of the mines. In addition, GEFCO owns 100% of the following selling organizations. a) Asreco Forwarding Agency SA Pty Ltd b) Central Asbestos Co Ltd (UK).
MANUFACTURED ASBESTOS PRODUCTS
Company reports comment on a decline in profits after 1976 due to the abandonment of township development. Ltd. in B·loemfontein has been producing beer pipes since 1976 and is a joint venture between superocla (51%) and Turner and Newall Holdings (49%). This is one of the largest insulation companies in the country and belongs to the Cape Industries Group in the United Kingdom.
It is interesting to consider the possibility that the asbestos industry's initial resistance to replacement will now collapse in the face of increasingly restrictive health and wellness concerns. safety regulations. The mixing plant for the products for the whole of South Africa is located in Johannesburg and employs approximately 200 employees. Until recently, the market in South Africa has not justified the production of asbestos textiles, gaskets, etc.
ASBESTOS SALES
There is no possibility of most of them being picked up in statistical studies, leading to underestimation of the risks involved. It is a process by which the lungs or the linings of the lungs become scarred by asbestos fibers inhaled from the air. If only the lining of the lungs is damaged by scarring (Pleural Asbestosis), the person will not show signs of disease such as breathing.
Some estimates put death from lung cancer at more than 50% of asbestos-related deaths. This is a form of cancer of the lining of the lungs and less commonly of the lining of the stomach. In most mesothelioma registries, up to 2/3 of the cases appear to have been exposed to asbestos.
THE HISTORY OF THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ASBESTOS AND THE ARD'S - EVIDENCE FROM THE U.K
From the turn of the century, ARD in the form of asbestosis was noted in the UK. One study in the asbestos textile industry showed that as many as 28%28 of the workers suffered from scarring of the lungs (ie, Parenchymal asbestosis alone). It had to be that of the safe level of exposure or threshold below which there was no danger to health.
They then hypothesized a mathematical relationship between cumulative exposure and disease incidence. Much of the focus is on the fact that there are few good national or other records of ARDs, deaths from them, exposure rates, or the number of people exposed. From the table we can see that the ratio of white to African cases is very different from the normal composition of the labor force in mines or in manufacturing and different.
Among asbestos workers in Great Britain, it is as much as 7%. and more of all deaths were due to mesothelioma.46 Smoking and lung cancer. At the top of the smoking scale were miners and quarries, while experts and managers smoked the least. This strongly suggests that the person's occupation (ie, industrial exposure to carcinogens) rather than smoking was the cause of lung cancer.
Another problem is that many fibers are too small to be seen with a light microscope. Most laboratory animal studies and epidemiological studies indicate the inevitability of lung damage from asbestos. 69 In Table VII, the source of the analyzed data is associated with the estimated risk of lung cancer.
The history of the association between these diseases and asbestos exposure was presented along with the main arguments applicable to the association. These were interventions of a type specific to the State, and expressed in the language or discourse of the State (ie a statistical discourse). Since most of the large producers and manufacturers are transnational companies, this is not an overly complicated procedure.
THE STATE
On the other hand, the state must have a relative distance from the special interests of the other two parties in order to maintain national unity. In countries where labor is organized and constitutes a strong social presence, the state is forced to include its interests. Implicit in the state's role as a guarantor of production is the fact that it leans towards the dominant side ie.
Other manifestations of the structural relations between management and the state are the state's support of industry for income and the financing from profits (deductible tax) of research, the bias of researchers for industry that can be evident in their assumptions, similar. attitudes about unemployment and the common belief that industrial profitability equals national prosperity. There are often close economic relationships between the state sector and the private sector of production. The involvement of high-level management representatives with important competencies in state research bodies has been mentioned. Since most research is conducted on private property (in some cases industry even provides its own laboratory equipment), management may be allowed the right to suppress research findings.
Nevertheless, one can clearly see the relative distances between the state and management when one compares their respective interventions in the debate. Nevertheless, it can be seen that government researchers, who are not the same as management employees, generally lean towards the position of management, due to the general connections. This is especially the case when these groups are strongly represented in the structures of the State, as is the case with trade unions and environmental lobbies.
State research in the field of the working environment is often characterized by cost-benefit analyzes in the sense of costs. But this is merely the transformed form of the unequal struggle between management and labor rather than. Another aspect of the government's role is that the factory inspectorate monitors safety regulations once safe levels and practices have been defined by government research.
In these areas, the phenomenon of state bias towards industry, although separate from it, will be discussed in section D.
THE UNIONS
It goes without saying that where there are no forms of labor organization whatsoever, the position of the individual exposed at work is likely to be grim indeed and the possibilities of intervention minimal. The inequality in the power of these parties is clear and at the same time hidden in the. Analyzes based on these assumptions, formulated in the State Language, then appear as choices within a range of possibilities that do not do the material harm.
THE OFFICIAL SITUATION WITH REGARD TO SAFETY MEASURES AND POLICING OF MEASURES
INTERNATIONALLY
- COMPENSATION
There is some dissatisfaction with the efficiency of factory inspection, and the General Maintenance Workers Union has called for a workers' inspection. Compensable diseases (CD) in terms of the 1973 Act include asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer in asbestos miners. For whites and 'coloured' people there is a 'comparable disease' in the first degree, involving less than 40% damage to lung function.
Should the person die due to the cause of the incapacity, a lump sum equal to 2 months' salaries or R300, whichever is lower, together with 40% of the above pension will be paid to the dependent each month. Even for whites, people of color and people, a good knowledge of the LTH is required to seek compensation after discovering a disease. Nevertheless, arguments can be heard to exclude people from compensation for pleural asbestosis alone, because there is no functional damage.
It is interesting to compare the reluctance to compensate those with X-ray pleural asbestosis and no clinical lung dysfunction, and compensation under the WC Act for clinical dysfunction alone. I tried to do some background analysis of the general policy determinants specific to different industry sectors and different countries. Followers of the types of hazards that European and American workers endured during the early part of the century with devastating results (83).
During the removal of dust filters in the factory, a cloud of asbestos dust was released, which required the intervention of the fire brigade. There is no general legal restriction in different production sectors. safe levels' are prepared by various government departments at the discretion of officials who consult with employers on the basis of the 'best practicable means' of reducing the hazard to those exposed. It turns out that the monitoring of these levels is carried out mainly by mine and factory owners, rather than the more independent government departments concerned with occupational health.
Control of industry self-monitoring activities appears to be common only in mines. Asbestos and lung cancer: an analysis of the epidemiological evidence on the interaction between asbestos and smoking. 9/19/79 Denies NCOH Director permission to publish results of research conducted at asbestos cement plants.
SOUTHERN AFRICA LABOUR &, DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH UNIT
SALDRU
Division of Research School of Economics
