Asbestos Mining and Occupational Disease in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1915-98

Asbestos has been mined in Zimbabwe since 1915 with the British company Turner & Newall (T&N) dominating the industry for most of its history. From 1930 T&N was subject to health‐and‐safety regulations in its British factories but chose not to apply such measures to reduce the risks to its African workforce. Conditions on the mines were hazardous and many workers were injured in accidents or suffered from asbestos‐related disease. The arena of occupational health is highly contested. Employers tend to have a monopoly over data about the conditions of labour and resulting injury, and there is often an unbridgeable gulf between the oral evidence from workers and claims made by employers and regulatory authorities. This paper integrates testimony from miners and public records with materials rarely available to historians: internal T&N archives, made available as a result of US litigation. Those archives reveal what the company knew about risk and disease on its mines in Zimbabwe.

Asbestos · Business · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Hazardous waste · Market economy · Mining industry · Monopoly · Occupational safety and health · Political science · Subject (documents) · Workforce · Engineering · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses · Law · Medicine · Urban and Rural Development Challenges

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  J Vincent•Genèses•2013

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