Feature magazine of The Daily Tar Heel
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Thursday, February 7, 1 980
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Courtesy of Cvotinas Brown Lung Association
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pyssinosis and compensation for it loom as problems for mill workers
By DINITA JAMES
T A ilHe Rappe spent more than 50 years in Southern textile mills.
7 Vf He held just about every job there is in a cotton mill, from
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sweeping to running a carding machine.
When Willie retired in 1973 from Cone Mills in Greensboro, he was
63. The year before, he had been told by his doctor that he had
emphysema. But what Willie had was byssinosis brown lung.
Willie was the first member of the Greensboro chapter of the
Carolinas Brown Lung Association to receive workmen's
compensation for byssinosis from the N.C. Industrial Commission.
He filed in June 1975, appealed to the full commission in December
1977 and was given his award in May 1978.
When Willie died Oct. 18, his money had run out.
"I had a room over here, and Willie had one over there' said
Flossie Rappe, Willie's surviving wife. "We used to sleep together,
but Willie was up and down about every two hours with his nerves all
tore up and his head busting open."
When the coroner's report on Willie's death was released, it
showed he died of heart failure due to his lung condition, a death
that Betsy Hailey, staff member of the Greensboro chapter of the
CBLA, said was common for brown lung victims
Willie was not alone in his plight. State and federal officials
estimate that up to 15,000 people in North Carolina and more than
100,000 across the country suffer from varying degrees of byssinosis,
characterized by wheezing, shortness of breath, dizziness and
headaches.
The CBLA, an advocate organization for textile workers, estimates
that 35,000 workers older than 45 are totally disabled from the
disease, 30,000 are partially disabled and hundreds of thousands of,
others now working in the mills suffer from "Monday-morning
asthma," the first sign of the illness.
Willie's hope that workers now employed in textile mills would not
be subjected to the same hazardous conditions and would be more
readily compensated for byssinosis is less of a dream today, largely
because of his and other's work with the CBLA.
Brown lung has become much more of a political issue in recent
years. It was only in 1971 that the first company, Burlington
Industries, recognized the existence of byssinosis and began
compensating workers for it monetarily. Many observers say the
See BROWN LUNG on page 8
: InsidQ -: - -
New jazz Mountain spring
...See page 4 ...See page 11
Rules for rays Bikini beach
...See page 14 ...See page 10
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