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  Issue No 100 Official Organ of LaborNet 29 June 2001  

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News

BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim


A massive class action may be brought against the South African gold mining industry, including Billiton predecessor company Gencor Ltd., over compensation for lung disease in former mineworker employees.

Ethical Investor magazine reports that South African specialist health and safety lawyer Richard Spoor - the South African lawyer that has acted successfully for 5000 South African mineworkers in the Cape plc asbestos case brought before the House of Lords in the UK - estimates there are a half-million South Africans with 'silicosis' contracted as a result of poor conditions in gold mines.

In a recent paper "THE CAPE ASBESTOS CLAIMS: The Implications for the South African Mining Industry" Spoor estimates the total compensation owed to these people to average 100,000 Rand each - a total amount of 50 billion Rand.

Assuming that Billiton predecessor company Gencor - historically, along with Anglo American and Gold Fields, one of the largest gold miners in South Africa - carries at least a 10-15 per cent liability for compensation, this equates to a $A1.18 billion potential exposure.

That amount is at least twice as high as the $400-500 million Ok Tedi compensation payout ordered against BHP.

Billiton disposed of its precious metals assets to Gencor - which is still listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange - and many of the gold mines that the diseased mineworkers were employed at have ceased operation.

However, as is revealed in Ethical Investor, Spoor believes that Billiton (now BHP Billiton) could still carry liability and, as the company with deepest pockets, may well be the target of litigation.

The Cape plc asbestos case, one of the first workers compensation cases ever mounted in South Africa, is widely predicted to be headed for a multi-million settlement since the House of Lords upheld an argument that the matter should be heard in the UK.

In Spoor's view, the Cape case forms a precedent for the bringing of such workers compensation actions against an overseas parent company although that company is not directly the operator of the facilities in question.


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*   Issue 100 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Baptism of Fire
It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory.
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*  Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World
Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided.
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*  History: History Sometimes Repeat
This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration.
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*  Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now?
Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.
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*  Media: The Printed Word Revisited
Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members.
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*  Unions: Time For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.
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*  Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution
The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people.
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*  Review: The Insider
Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.
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News
»  Picket MPs Face More WorkCover Heat
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»  Della Tries a Henry VIII
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»  Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front
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»  The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy
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»  Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance
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»  Email Surveillance Report Gathers Dust
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»  Fifty Years On, Women Still Short-Changed
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»  Firefighters Withdraw Strike Threat
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»  Telstra�s Sells Off Skills Base
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»  BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim
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»  Activist Notebook
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»  STOP PRESS: Quite Frankly, Reith Goes!
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Picket at Parliament: Police Respond
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»  Time to Break
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»  Well Done for the Ton
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»  The Life and Soul of the Party
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»  A Tuckpointer Is ...
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