Mine safety - is the mining industry putting profits before safety?

Mining in Australia is big business. The combined mining and minerals sector was worth some $54billion to Australia in sales last financial year alone. The industry as a whole contributes some $33billion to Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) and is ranked tenth out of the 17 industry divisions that comprise the economy.

Nationally, the industry employs some 66,000 people across a number of mining sectors. To say that it is an important contributor to the national economy would be an understatement in the least. The industry itself has gone through a transformation in recent years. It has adopted, and is a world leader in developing leading edge technologies, shaking off the perception of an old industry where once the hand pick and human sweat were standard equipment. Hi-tech equipment and computers, along with improved processes and practices have enabled the industry to strategically manage operational risk, however it would not be incorrect to say that mining (along with agriculture and construction) is still one of the more hazardous occupations around.

Safety in mining has always been of paramount concern. Not just to the mineworkers themselves but also to the mining companies that employ them. However, safety has not always been synonymous with the minerals industry and even today the figures for mine related accidents are a cause of concern.

According to the latest figures from the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), in the 2001-2002 financial year, the minerals industry in this country recorded some seven fatalities with the largest number of those (three) being recorded in Western Australia.

Furthermore, the total Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) which is calculated as per million employee hours worked, for the entire minerals industry was 9 in the reporting year 2001-02. By far the greatest contributor to the LTIFR rate was underground coal mining, with a rate of 31. The most common injuries reported were bone fractures, followed by crush injuries and burns.

And while the fatality rate of seven equals the lowest on record in Australia, the industry acknowledges that any fatalities are unacceptable. To back up its commitment to zero harm, the MCA says six years ago the industry took action to ensure that safety and health does become synonymous with the minerals industry. CEOs, through their representative organisation, the Minerals Council of Australia, collectively agreed to make safety and health its highest priority, adopting the vision of an industry free of fatalities, injuries and diseases.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), some 15,000 miners die around the world each year, with the bulk of these fatalities, or around 10,000, occurring in the Peoples Republic of China.

According to the mining council, 30-50 per cent of all mining industry deaths worldwide are caused by or related to rockfall; a quarter of lost time injuries in underground mines are the result of rockfall incidents and in the last 10 years over 55 workers have died from rockfall related incidents in Australian underground mines.

However, in terms of the industry as a whole, the question that needs to be answered is, "Has the minerals industry lifted its game in relation to safety?" The answer to this question is both complex and relative and depending on who you talk to, also somewhat ambiguous.

In relative terms, Australia has one of the best mine safety records in the world. Australian mines are in general well maintained, highly automated, and routinely inspected. However, the perception about mine safety is as relative as the direction it is coming from.

One perception is offered by Peter Colley, the National Research Director of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) who notes that, "Although the LTIFR has improved over the past few years, fatalities for the same period have stayed about the same."

Colley says that the greatest number of mining deaths are in the "Metalliferous mining sector (gold and nickel) where long working hours, prolific use of contractors and the relatively average young age of the mining crews has a tendency to increase the frequency of mine-related accidents."

Colley also notes that in terms of the LTIFR, there" has been some massaging of the figures." He says that it is common knowledge that some mine owners on occasions are "known not report on-site accidents and have been driving injured miners to work to clock on and then driving them straight back home to recuperate." The implication here as given by Colley is that safety and profit margins are inexorably tied together.

It is surprising that on the other side of the mining industry fence, in the corporate offices of the safety equipment manufacturers, the view about safety standards differs only by a matter of degrees to that of the unions. Mike Marciniak, Technical Manager of Celtite Australia, a leading manufacturer of mining safety consumables, says "Certainly Australia is a world leader when it comes to developing and implementing safety equipment, procedures and standards. Having said that, over the past decade there has been considerable pressure on mines to cut costs as the overall profit margins decrease." As a company, says Marciniak, " We have been forced to sell our roof anchors and bolts at a lower and lower cost to enable us to keep supplying the market."

He says that although all mine operators have a vested interest in safety at their sites, it does come at a cost to the bottom line at a time when profits from mining are relatively low. "Safety is driven by the needs of the workforce but these needs do incur a significant long-term cost," he notes.

This raises an important as well as a sensitive issue. Published standards are one thing, but a religious adherence to them, like all ongoing processes, carries a cost. This may seem like a commoditisation of worker health and safety, however, regardless of any lofty ethical debates, the costs involved in keeping mines safe do play a part in determining whether mining safety statistics will improve, stagnate or in the worse case scenario, decline.

Modern technology also has a positive effect on the statistical trends in mine safety. Whereas 80 years ago there may have been 40 or 50 miners standing at the coal face digging out the black rock by hand, today only 6 or 7 may be present at any one time in the same spot, with machines doing most of the work. Therefore, if a methane gas-induced explosion occurred in the 1920s, many more fatalities could be expected than if that same scenario were repeated today.

This is underlined by Rick Sewell, National Sales Engineer for Rockwell Automation, a company that has a presence in all of the top five producing coal mines in Australia. "The mines are getting a lot safer", says Sewell, "basically because more and more mines are installing technology that reduces the amount of human interaction required at the coal face."

There of course can be no set price for the life of a human being and at the same time the numerical value to what companies should raise the bar of safety standards in itself is incalculable. It may be refreshing to know that the actual safety standards in relation to mining are being constantly updated and reviewed. But review and adherence are not the same thing. According to the MCA, for success, it's imperative to integrate a culture of safety across the board. The MCA says its safety and health strategy is driven from the top, to ensure that there is a strong business case for improved safety performance.

The question remaining is will the mining industry, and in particular the mining companies, continue to insist and implement worlds-best practice at their mines or will the temptations of rationalisation and putting profits before people hijack the future of safety planing in Australia's all-important mining industry?

In the past, many industries around the country have allowed the lure of better profitability to impinge on their decision-making process, although very few industries endure the obvious connection between looking after a healthy bottom line and looking after the health of their workers. Mining is such an industry where the margin for error is so acute that even the slightest change in the corporate philosophy could lead to a lowering of safety standards, the consequences of which could well be disastrous.