The
judicial House of Lords has recently ruled that pleural plaque (scarring of the
lung – a condition caused by breathing in asbestos) is not an industrial
illness for which compensation can be claimed. This reverses twenty years of
common law practice. What do the Law Lords know about it? Asbestosis related
conditions are not exactly an occupational hazard for judicial bigwigs.
Linda
Walman, reporting the House of Lords decision (Guardian 17.10.2007), commented,
“While industry and society have benefited from the use of asbestos, today’s
ruling effectively means that the people who worked with it – mining it,
installing it, using it in manufacture and, more recently, removing it – and
those who lived in the vicinity of asbestos companies will continue to bear the
social and physical costs. It is the workers, ordinary men and their families,
who will continue to pay the price for the mining and manufacture of asbestos.
Their experience – watching friends suffer, dealing with doctors and lawyers,
trying to find a way in which they can support their families – confirms their
deep suspicion of the medical and legal establishment.”
At first
Gordon Brown promised to rush through a law reversing the decision. Now he’s
decided to have a ‘review’. The Scottish Executive responded by tabling a bill
to reverse the Lords’ decision. The English review falls a long way short of
doing the same
Construction
workers will this week target the constituencies of cabinet ministers David
Miliband and John Hutton, in a campaign to force the government to rule that
the insurance industry has to pay a £1.4bn compensation bill to sufferers of
pleural plaque.
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of construction union Ucatt, said: ‘The
insurance industry seems intent on dismantling the industrial injury
compensation system and it has to be fought.’
It seems
the government is the prisoner of big business. How gutless can Gordon get? It appears
pleural plaque is an industrial illness in Scotland, but not in England.
