Newspaper Article

occupational health: Belated justice Richard Schilling, who devoted his life to health and safety at work, died last year. Here, his daughter Erica Hunningher imagines sharing some good news with him

HUNNINGHER, ERICA

1998

Overview

Wish you were here, Dad. There's some news you'd have loved to hear: the High Court has ruled for a payout to the miners. The headline in the Guardian was `Miners died without justice'. Mr Justice Turner didn't mince his words: `This judgment is a damning indictment of British Coal at all levels throughout its entire history, all the way back to nationalisation in 1947.' The unions are up in arms and old Scargill is very bitter about the long struggle and about it being too late for nearly 50 per cent of the miners who died from lung diseases. Prevarication has saved the Government pounds 1 billion - not much really, when work-related illness and injuries already cost the British economy pounds 11- pounds 16 billion a year. Even so, I know you'd want to know that the longest-running industrial disease trial in British legal history has ruled in favour of the workers. And, what's more, that the case has prompted the president of the Law Society to challenge the proposed abolition of legal aid for civil cases and called for the Government to find fairer ways of achieving savings in the legal aid bill - more grist to the underdogs' mill, as you would have put it.

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Occupational safety / Schilling, Richard