Native American Miners Merit Workers Compensation

American Indians have been working in mines deep below the Colorado Plateau for decades. Soft, yellow uranium ore was drilled from the rock by the miners.The uranium that thousands of American Indians dug from the earth went into nuclear warheads credited with helping America win the Cold War.

Meanwhile, these American Indian miners have themselves become casualties of the Cold War as a result of their work.Radiation in the uranium mines has caused the miners a variety of health problems, such as cancer and other illnesses caused by exposure; many have even died.Some still live, but each day is a battle to survive, and most families have lost loved ones to cancer.Find out more about best personal injury lawyer through this website.

It’s very common to find a miner whose arms are covered with scar tissue from the harsh dialysis treatment required to fight the effects of uranium exposure.Dialysis is the treatment that is required in order to aid the workers who are suffering from kidney disease and failure.The drinking water provided to the miners has been tested and proven to contain traces of radioactive minerals which many blame for the kidney failure.

In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.This act was constructed to aid these uranium miners, as well as other miners who suffer similar issues, whose health had been compromised by their work as miners.It is important to remember that most of this work was strictly for the purpose of America???s nuclear weapons program.

Every underground uranium miner was to be granted $100,000.The only condition required was that they should have been diagnosed with one of six possible lung diseases that are linked to radiation exposure.There are hundreds of eligible miners, however, who have not received a single penny of compensation provided by this Act.As a person looking for personal injury lawyer melbourne you should visit that site.

The act, as it was written, forces these miners to face conditions that are almost impossible to meet.The paperwork that is required for submitting a claim must be filled out and written in English.Unfortunately for the Indians, English is a language many do not understand well.

Astoundingly, only 96 miners who have filed compensation claims through the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers have been approved, even though 242 miners have applied.Since the law went into effect in 1990, the Justice Department has approved over 1300 claims from uranium miners.Additionally, they have denied 1,316 applications, to date.

Documentation, such as check stubs, are required to prove the miners’ work hours.Do you save your pay stubs and other work records over a period of years and decades?Obtaining copies of these records through existing authorities is difficult or impossible.

The Navajo Indian Reservation saw the first uranium mines opening in 1947.Jobs were scarce at that time so the new mine was a welcome opportunity for the residents of the reservation.Poor working conditions and low wages involved in the jobs did not lessen the welcoming of the work.

Radon in the mines was one of the worst dangers.A by-product of decaying uranium, radon is odorless, colorless radioactive gas. It is the radon exposure which experts believe causes the lung diseases that afflict the miners who have become eligible for the uranium mine compensation.

Tribal officials and former miners plan to lobby Congress this fall for changes in the compensation law making it easier for former miners to get payments. The government faces the issue that many Navajo miners believe that they are entitled to compensation simply because they worked in these mines, and not because of existing illness.

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