By Debbie Brennan
The New South Wales Asbestos Ex-Miners Aboriginal Corporation has waged a five-year fight to take James Hardie Industries to court with a community-based compensation claim for asbestos-related diseases and death. It is now close to its goal.
Similar to the Wittenoom atrocity in Western Australia, the asbestos mine at Baryulgil (on NSW's far north coast) poisoned the predominantly Aboriginal work force and their entire community between 1942 and 1979.
Until the Melbourne speaking tour in November 1992 of Charles Moran, former asbestos miner for James Hardie, Bundjalung elder and chair of the Corporation, this historic fight had been isolated. Victorian trade unionists and activists finally learned about the Bundjalung people's struggle for compensation and redress.
Solidarity from Victoria, particularly from unionists, has turned up the heat on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which refused to grant the Corporation the funds needed to monitor the health of the Baryulgil victims and gather the medical evidence for a lawsuit. This union solidarity has now spread into NSW.
Forcibly removed by pastoralists from their Clarence river homeland in northern NSW to Baryulgil, the Bundjalung people were "herded together like a mob of cattle" says Karen Moran, co-founder of the Corporation. They became the profiteer's ideal source of labour — a caged-in work force.
Working without protection in the asbestos dust, lied to by the management about its danger and ignored by their union, the Aboriginal miners and their families have manifested asbestos diseases after 20-30 years of exposure. The death count is increasing and can't be stopped.
"It was premeditated murder", says Karen Moran. "the company knew the effects of asbestos mining before they opened that mine, and yet they blatantly used my people as slave labour".
Moran explains that "women also carry the legacy; they lived in it, breathed it, we all consumed it through the water, the air and the food. It was everywhere."
Karen Moran has pleural plaque. Charles Moran has asbestosis. Every member of their family suffers from an asbestos-caused illness. The Morans typify the health conditions of the entire community.
Melbourne Radical Women is sponsoring two public events for Karen Moran, a reception on Friday, November 26, at 7 p.m. and a forum entitled " Baryulgil Atrocity: Women Speak Out", on Saturday, December 4 at 4.30 p.m. Both events are at the Solidarity Salon, 1 Appleby Crescent, West Brunswick. A dinner will follow the forum. For info or to arrange for Karen Moran to speak to your organisation or workplace, ring (03) 387 1845, fax (03) 386 5053.