I don't believe that. People who work in any activity will always learn what's dangerous and take precautions to avoid dying. 2,000 years is not as long a time length as we sometimes think, people then were pretty much exactly like us, except for their culture. And I don't think there's any culture where people don't tend to try to not die.
Surely the miners tried to not die, but, being enslaved, they were under the command of people who didn't care if they died or not. Many kinds of mining have historically had very high fatality rates; even 300 years ago the mita to Potosi was basically a death sentence.
Roman culture considered pity and sympathy to be weaknesses and obedience to be a virtue. Hunger strikes would not have been very effective, and we don't have any evidence of them having been used in Classical times.
I don't believe that. People who work in any activity will always learn what's dangerous and take precautions to avoid dying. 2,000 years is not as long a time length as we sometimes think, people then were pretty much exactly like us, except for their culture. And I don't think there's any culture where people don't tend to try to not die.