Can mining ever become a safe industry?

Mining is a dangerous business and working as a miner can be detrimental to your health. According to the construction, forestry, mining and energy union (CFMEU), mining is the most dangerous occupation in Australia. Coal miners for example have a 1 in 28 chance of being killed over their 40-year working life. Figures obtained from the International Labour Organization (ILO) show that miners account for 1 per cent of the global work force yet at the same time contribute to seven per cent of global work fatalities.

On a national level, statistics show that the trends of mining fatalities are only worsening - figures from the national occupational health and safety commission (NOHSC) show 12 fatalities in the mining industry in 2003-2004, which is up from five in 2001-2002.

One reason given by the union for this worrying rise in deaths is the various states' legislative structures decreasing their hold over regulations standards. According to the CFMEU, the past 10 years have seen "the dissemination of workers' rights and their ability to influence their workplace conditions due to regressive anti-union, anti-worker industrial laws."

In a recent interview with Assia Benmedjdoub and Robert Kotevski for their article, The legacy of Gretley, CFMEU president Tony Maher says of the New South Wales coal industry, "there are serious changes that need to be implemented within the coal mining industry in NSW. There needs to be a vigorous system of enforcement aimed at industry compliance with the current legislation. Many breaches go unreported and certain laws unenforced."

As Maher explained, "although the government is introducing a revised NSW Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, there are no significant improvements. It's merely changing it from a prescriptive style of safety legislation to a roved style. Employees are merely required to fulfil various health and safety obligations."

A four-year study from July 1999 to June 2003 by the NSW Risk Management Research Centre showed that while coal mining deaths and injuries are dispersed throughout the state, most incidents are from the Hunter Valley region. This region produces over 50 per cent of the state's raw coal production and 60 per cent of NSW thermal coal production.

The report indicated that the underground coal sector is incurring the highest number of accidents and also concluded that contact with electricity is steadily becoming the most common form of injury.

One factor that has a positive impact on safety in mining is technology. Thanks to a number of technological advances since the end of the second World War, fatalities in the mining industry across Australia have fallen from about 75 mining deaths annually in the 1940s, to about 25 per year in the 1970s to about 10 deaths per year presently.

Though currently, not everyone in the mining industry agrees that technology is the only way to save lives. In fact, the competence and skills of miners themselves are thought to be a contributing factor to the whole issue of mine safety. According to one mining company executive from Western Australia, who asked not to be named, "Whilst there is improvement in procedures and policy throughout the industry there is a decline in knowledge due to a shortage of skilled personnel. Every company will always endeavour to maximise output but I don't believe any will compromise safety to do it as it is very easy to show that an unsafe operation is not a cost effective one."

Others though, think that improving safety in mining is only possible with an integrated range of forward-thinking policies, technological advances, proactive employee training regimes and responsible management. Steve Smith, the West Australian safety supervisor for Alcoa World Alumina Australia says, "the key ingredients to any safety mature workforce is leadership and stability. Stability being the low turnover of employees, including the management team. Alcoa's WA mining operation has a very stable management leadership team. All department managers and coordinators have held their position for some time, which allows them to send, through demonstration - a constant and continuous message on the importance they place on the health and safety of the workforce. This helps, not only to develop a safety culture but also to sustain it over time."

Having said that, Smith too is convinced that technology, coupled with behavoural change, have prime roles in making mining safer. "An improvement in technology will eliminate or control many hazards to an acceptable risk level, but behaviour is the key to achieving the vision. Management and employees have the responsibility to eliminate hazards or reduce the level of exposure but this will not be possible until they embrace the concept of totally safe and actively work to achieve it."

Moreover, according to some experts, staff levels, training and behavoural changes seem to go hand in hand with efficiency and productivity issues when talking about safety. Until recently, companies had to run the leanest, most efficient types of operations possible, as prices languished for coal, copper, nickel, iron ore, gold and all the other commodities on which their fortunes rest. Staff ceilings fell and hard-won skills and responsibilities - including safety and training - were inevitably concentrated into the hands of fewer people. Then, in the space of a few short years, the industry's fortunes turned around completely. Iron prices soared, 70, 80, 90 per cent and more in recent contracts. Gold jumped from the low $200s an ounce to well over $400. Other metals and coal rebounded strongly, due to expanding demand from China and other places, with demand surging for scarce resources that had suffered from restrained exploration and limited new production.

"The market for skilled people in mining has become very competitive over the past year or two. This has placed pressure on some companies to meet training and safety objectives, which are a high priority within our industry," says Frankie Standley, the customer training manager for Outokumpu Technology, a global supplier of mining-related machinery.

The anonymous West Australian mining spokesman tends to agree. "I think that with good supervisors and well thought out procedures the industry can be safer. Some residual risk will always be 'acceptable'. The risk of a vehicle accident is lower on a mine site than in the general community but with any piece of equipment operated by a person there is always the chance of incident. The task is to minimise the risk by use of the hierarchy of control."

On top of the issue of falling staff levels, there has been a trend within the industry to increase work hours to levels that could facilitate an increase in workplace accidents - and the reasons for these increases in working hours are numerous.

For example, NSW coal production has increased almost 10 per cent to 145.1 million tones in the past 10 years. In the same 10-year period, the average number of employed miners dropped 30 per cent, to 10, 334 workers.

According to the CFMEU's Maher, "laws in coal mining in NSW are inadequate in terms of dealing with the changing workers composition. Thirty per cent of all workers are contracted, with long hours; some up to 100 hours per week. Current legislation is inadequately enforced and this is highlighted by the woeful prosecution record."

And on this issue, it seems the unions have found an unexpected ally within the legal fraternity. According to Samantha Betzien, a Brisbane-based senior associate with law firm Minter Ellison, in her report Mine health and safety: could you be liable?, "despite the significant number of mining deaths in NSW history, only four companies have faced criminal prosecution in relation to mine deaths. Of those four, three are now appealing their convictions; indicating a broad industry push to overturn the existing OHS law."

Betzien says that when compared with other industries such as manufacturing, the number of OHS prosecutions in the mining industry has been "far lower", adding the reasons for this being that the "mining OHS legislation is far more prescriptive making prosecutions much harder to pursue than in other areas."

So the question remains, can mining ever become totally safe or is it an inherently unsafe industry? According to Steve Smith from Alcoa, it all depends on your definition of a 'totally safe' industry.

"There will always be hazards. Whether they are the general hazards we all experience, such as driving a car or crossing the road, or the many hazards of industry, there will never be a totally hazard free mine. The vision should be, must be, a workplace where all hazards are eliminated or totally controlled. Improvements in technology will eliminate or control many hazards to an acceptable risk level, but behaviour is the key to achieving the vision. Management and employees have the responsibility to eliminate hazards or reduce the level of exposure but this will not be possible until they embrace the concept of totally safe and actively work to achieve it. Will there ever be such a thing as a totally safe mine? Yes, but not tomorrow", says Smith.

However, some of the omens for increased mine safety do not bode well. In what could be interpreted as a window in the 'soul' of the big four mining companies' attitudes towards safety, not one of them was prepared to go on record and speak about the subject with Safety Solutions, despite repeated and numerous requests to do so. Whether it is a fear admitting some form of liability or perhaps a corporate philosophy of 'better to say nothing at all rather than make a public gaffe', the impression seems to be that the attitude towards safety is reactive rather than proactive in the Big End of town.

So perhaps improving mine safety is really all about changing the corporate culture - starting from management and slowly working your way down. Whatever method is used, the mining industry in Australia will not get any safer than it is today until it makes changes - either of its own accord or by some form of regulatory or legislative control.