Native American Miners Deserve Workers Compensation
For decades, Native American miners have worked the mines of the Colorado Plateau
. Soft, yellow uranium ore was drilled from the rock by the miners. This uranium was used in the nuclear warheads that the US deployed around the country and that eventually helped win the Cold War.However, many of the miners themselves have become Cold War casualties. They are either dead or drying from cancer and other ailments blamed on exposure to radiation in the mines. There are many Native Americans who have lost their families, and those who have survived are still fighting for their lives.
A large majority of the miners have patterns of scar on their arms caused by the required dialysis treatments. Such dialysis is required to keep miners who suffer from kidney failure alive. Blame has been placed on the mines' drinking water, which has been proven to contain traces of radioactive minerals in scientific testing.
In 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was ratified by Congress. This act was designed to assist uranium miners that are enduring various health problems due to the work they performed in the radioactive mines. The fact is that the majority of this work was simply done to advance the country's nuclear weapons program.
Every uranium miner is entitled to $100,000. They must meet the condition that they suffer from a specific variety of lung ailments that have been associated with exposure to radiation. While hundreds of miners have met all of the preconditions necessary to begin receiving payments, most have yet to see a single dime.
The miners have found that filing a claim is almost impossible because of many of the requirements of the statute. First, the paperwork must be filled out in English. However, there are many Native Americans who do not speak or write English.
Only 96 of the 242 miners who have gone before the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers to make a claim have received the payment due. The Justice Department states that a total of 1,314 claims filed by uranium miners have been approved. This is less than half of all claims that have been filed.
In order to establish how much time the miner labored in the mines, Congress demands check stubs and other documents in order for the miners to prove their claims. However, for many people the damage occurred decades ago and those records have long since been lost or thrown out. These records are even more troublesome to get a hold of later on.
These uranium mines first became active sometime in 1947 on the Navajo Indian Reservation. At the time, the jobs and occupations which opened up as a result were welcomed. Despite the fact that the wages were low and conditions were poor, many were happy to just have a job.
Radon poses one of the biggest dangers in the mines. Radon is a radioactive gas, that is both ordorless and colorless, which is a result of decaying uranium. The government provides compensation to these miners because the lung diseases that most are suffering from is caused by radon exposure.
The current plan this fall is for former miners and tribal officials to lobby Congress to make changes in this compensation law to clear the way for these former miners to receive the payments due. The government's biggest concern is that many miners feel that they deserve compensation simply because they worked in the mines, rather than due to the illness and disease they acquired as a result of that work.
Native American Miners Deserve Workers Compensation
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