Category: mining

The OHS obligations of global corporations

BHP Billiton has issued a media statement concerning the death of a miner, Gregory Goslett, at its coalmine in Khutala in South Africa.  Due to the number of deaths the company has had over the last two years, attention on any safety issue at BHP is intense.  BHP’s short statement reads:

“It is with deep regret and sadness that BHP Billiton announces a fatal incident at its Khutala Colliery opencast operations in South Africa. At approximately 05:02 am on Tuesday, 20 October 2009 Gregory Goslett (27), Mining Operations Supervisor, was fatally injured whilst driving a light vehicle at the mine.

An initial investigation indicates that Gregory was travelling in a light vehicle when a piece of coal fell from a loaded 25 ton haul truck travelling in the opposite direction. The piece of coal went through the windscreen of the light vehicle and struck Gregory causing fatal injuries to him.

The company is offering all comfort, assistance and support to Gregory’s fiancée Tarryn, his parents and those affected at the operations. Our thoughts are with Gregory’s family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time.

Mining at the opencast area has been suspended and investigations are underway.”

The Age newspaper points out that

“The accident was of the type that BHP has previously moved to eliminate from its Pilbara iron ore mines in Western Australia after several deaths last year…..”

“A key safety change made by BHP in the Pilbara in response to last year’s run of fatal accidents was the improved management of the interaction of light vehicles with heavy vehicles.”

The circumstances of Goslett’s death illustrates the obligations, some would say challenges, that multi-jurisdictional corporations need to ensure that safety improvements are consistently applied across their workplaces, regardless of location or remoteness.

BHP Billiton has been tragically reminded of this but BHP is only one corporation in the global mining industry.  Safety solutions and initiatives must extend beyond jurisdictions, countries and commercial entities to each workplace where similar hazards exist.  (The oil refinery industry was reminded of this with the Texas City Refinery explosion) The communication and sharing of solutions is a crucial element of the safety profession around the world.

Kevin Jones

CFMEU, IPA, Gretley Mine – political lessons

Readers outside of  New South Wales may vaguely remember that in 1996 four miners died in a coalmine in the Hunter Valley 0f New South Wales.  They may also remember that the was some press about the prosecution of some directors of the mining company.  It was one of those incidents and court cases that should have gained broader attention that it did.

As OHS stakeholders in Australia ponder the ramifications of the Government’s proposed Safe Work Bill, it is important to also ponder the legal legacy of the Gretley mine disasater.  It may provide non-NSW and non-mining readers with a better understanding of the resistance to the new harmonised laws from the mining industry in both New South Wales and Western Australia.

Cover ARTAndrewVickersOpinionPiece091009On 15 October 2009, Andrew Vickers of the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union used the Gretley saga as a justification to call for the harmoinised legislation and support systems to allow for variations to meet the special needs of the mining sector.

cover PHILLIPS 5.04925E-210RETLEYOn the other side of political fence, Ken Phillips of the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative thinktank, produced a document about the politics of the Gretley saga.  The publication was supported by a video, available below. Phillips’ paper is a useful illustration of business’ opinions of the unions and New South Wales’ OHS legislation.  This legislation is a centrepiece to the ACTU and union movement’s concerns and opposition to many elements of the current draft Safe Work Bill.

Prominent sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has written about the OHS management issues raised by the disaster and its aftermath.

SafetyAtWorkBlog believes that these political and safety resources can provide a primer to many of the issues being discussed in the current debate on OHS laws.

Kevin Jones

OHS model law remains divisive

An article in the Australian Financial Review (not available on line) on 16 October 2009 provided some additional legal opinions on the implementation and aims of Australia’s draft Safe Work Bill.

Other than Michael Tooma’s well established thoughts on the draft law, Liberty Sanger of Maurice Blackburn, a law firm with strong trade union links, is said to support the capacity for jurisdictional variations in the harmonisation process. She is quoted as saying there

“need to be regional difference in a country as vast as ours and with such a different industry composition as ours…”

This position is supported by a call from the CFMEU’s General Secretary, Andrew Vickers.  In a media statement released on  15 October 2009, Vickers uses the aftermath of the Gretley mining disaster of  1996 as an indication of the need for OHS laws specific to the mining industry.  He says

“Under the Federal Government’s National OH&S Harmonisation Review, there is a growing view among lawyers and bureaucrats that industry specific safety laws – laws that protect coal and metalliferous miners for example – ought to be scrapped.

The trouble is miners and their families and their union have been left in the dark. We still do not know if the new laws will be tailored to meet the safety needs of our industry. Despite this, the Federal Government is pressing on with its changes.

Yet the reality remains that the safety of miners and their families and the future of our mining communities are too important to ignore. And we have fought too long and too hard for tough safety standards in our industry to give them up now.”

The AFR article also quotes Miles Bastick of Freehills.  The article says Bastick believes that the jurisdictional changes that have so alarmed some are likely to relate to only peripheral issues.  The article says that although Bastick generally supports to the Safe Work Bill

“….he said, that in practical terms, OHS laws were likely to be enforced differently across Australia, even if laws were nationally consistent because of the different prosecution policies of OHS authorities and the approaches of different courts and tribunals that would hear prosecutions.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog would argue that the variations Bastick identifies provide very strong reasons for the Government to take the big step forward of one national OHS law supported by a nationally consistent enforcement policy through a single national safety authority and a coordinated court system.  This may be a fantasy but it remains an option for the Federal government.  Some lawyers believe the Government has not dismissed the  application of the Corporations Act in the OHS field as it has already unified the IR system through a similar process.

Such a national system would achieve many of the aims of the government by

  • reducing red tape across States, businesses and Courts,
  • reducing the number of OHS regulatory authorities saving considerable expenditure from many areas of duplication from administrative staff to publications and advertising,
  • providing a single focus to business for clarity and consistency of information; and
  • still allowing for industry-specific variations that can be coordinated consistently with the general OHS principles.

If Australia is looking for an OHS regulatory system that it expects to last as long as the previous system, all stakeholders may need to look in a slightly longer term and broader perspective than they are currently.

Kevin Jones

Another mining death in Western Australia

Rarely have workplace fatalities gained as much political attention as the current spate of deaths in Western Australia.  Most have related to the iron ore operations of BHP Billiton but, according to one media report, on 8 August 2009

“New Zealander Daniel Williams, 26, died … at the Kanowna Belle mine site near Kalgoorlie, operated by Barrick Gold, after falling from an iron ore path into a hole.”

The media report clearly indicates that there are wider issues in the enforcement of OHS in that State other than just the operations of Barrick Gold.

Not surprisingly the unions are calling for a broader inquiry into safety of the industry.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has heard that Daniel Williams fell over 30 metres while checking a blockage in an ore pass grizzly shortly after midnight.  Perhaps, this should be considered an example of a fall from height moreso than a mining death.

Barrick Gold has been contacted for any additional information

Kevin Jones

BHP Billiton’s safety record is again in the Australian media

BHP Billiton’s production report has generated some OHS-related interest in the Australian business media on 23 July 2009, but not all.  [SafetyAtWorkBlog has written several pieces about BHP Billiton‘s safety record]

The company’s iron ore production has fallen short of its May 2009 guidance.  Iron ore is the only division where production has dropped.  The Age newspaper reports that the five deaths “forced a production slowdown” and noted the Western Australian government’s review of BHP’s safety management.

Malcolm Maiden’s commentary in the same newspaper mentions the BHP production results but describes the five workplace fatalities as “production glitches”.   He writes

“Production glitches for both companies [BHP Billiton & Rio Tinto] might have been handled better if their iron ore operations were merged, as is now proposed.”

Safety management may have been improved.  Rio Tinto’s OHS performance is considerably better but the description of the fatalities as “production glitches” is cold.

This contrasts considerably with the coverage provided to the BHP results by the Australian Financial Review (AFR) which listed the issue on the  front page  with the headline “Poor safety record hits BHP output” (full article not available online without a subscription).  AFR says

“the safety issues overshadowed better than expected results from BHP’s petroleum and  metallurgical coal units….”

There was no overshadowing according to the writers in The Age.

The AFR article identifies a raft of safety matters that illustrates well the OHS status of BHP Billiton and emphasises just how serious the workplace fatalities are.

  • “Tensions with the WA government [over a variety of issues, including safety] have escalated…”
  • Seven BHP workers died in Australia and South Africa in 2008/09.
  • “Eleven BHP staff… died while on the job in 2008.”
  • On 22 July 2009 WA Minister for Mines & Petroleum, Norman Moore, praised BHP’s efforts to improve safety but said “It is very difficult to understand sometimes why fatalities occur within the safety frameworks that operate in most major mining companies…” said on 22 July 2009

Warren Edney, an analyst with the Royal Bank of Scotland and occasional media commentator, spoke in relation to the safety record of BHP’s Pilbara operations, where five workers died.  He said in the AFR article:

“It’s better than Chinese underground coalmining but that’s not a big tick, is it?… In part you’d say that we’ve undergone this mining boom in WA so you’ve got workers who haven’t had the safety brainwashing that other parts of the workforce may have had over the last 10 years.  Part of it reflects that and part of it may be that people get pressed to do things quicker.” [my emphasis]

It seems odd to compare the safety performance of an open-cut Australian iron ore mine with “Chinese underground coalmining”.  Similarly describing safety education and training as “safety brainwashing” is unusual.  SafetyAtWorkBlog has contacted the Royal Bank of Scotland for clarification of Warren Edney’s comments.

The AFR has almost been leading the Australian media pack on reporting of safety management in 2009,  partly due to the OHS harmonisation regulatory program and its impact on business costs.  This may also be due to some of the concerns about increased union activity on worksites under the new industrial relations legislation.  The AFR should be congratulated for discussing the OHS context of BHP’s iron ore production figures and providing a front page prominence.

Kevin Jones

Latest guidance on working alone

Western Australia’s WorkSafe has just released its latest guidance on working alone and it is the most practical look at the hazard from any OHS regulator in Australia.Working_alone cover

Importantly, it differentiates between “alone” and “remote”.  In 1995, when the Victorian First Aid Code of Practice raised the issue of isolation, there was considerable confusion.  How can someone in the metropolitan area be isolated or remote?

  • Undertaking an assessment of first aid needs of a multi-storey building which has cleaners or nightshift working at 2am.
  • Working alone in a petrol station in an outer suburb.
  • (Sadly) showing a potential client a new property in a new real estate development on the fringes of the city.
  • Security guard walking the perimeter of an industrial site
  • Delivering pizzas at 3am
  • Home visits from medical specialists

The WA definition of “alone” is very useful and needs to be kept front-of-mind in OHS policy and procedure production.  It could be used in the review process of existing policies and prores to ensure their applicability.

“A person is alone at work when they are on their own, when they cannot be seen or heard by another person, and when they cannot expect a visit from another worker or member of the public for some time.”

The working alone guidance identifies four industry types that require special support for working alone:

  • Agriculture
  • Pastoral
  • Forestry
  • Mining

Although SafetyAtWorkBlog advocates low-tech control options as much as possible (usually because of increased reliability) thankfully this guidance discusses mobile phones, satellite communications, GPS locators and other communications devices.

Kevin Jones

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