Serving
15 November 2007
SUMMARY OF MINE SAFETY INITIATIVES
1. Introduction
Over
recent months, safety in the South African mining industry has received
widespread national and international media coverage. All stakeholders are
concerned that the industry’s safety performance is not improving according to
the tripartite agreement concluded in 2003. After years of continuous improvement
in safety, the performance of the mining industry seems to have reached a
plateau. A different course of action is thus necessary to take mine safety in
2. Safety
performance overview: September 2006 to August 2007
Comparing
the performance from September 2006 - August 2007 to September 2005 - August of
2006, the industry as a whole made no improvement in safety performance. The
gold sector performance improved by 9%, whilst the non-gold sector’s
performance worsened by 15%. In August 2007, there were 10 fatalities which is
the lowest number of fatalities that occurred during 2007.
3. The
audit called for by President Mbeki
The
Chamber has indicated its commitment to work constructively with the government
and labour on the audit called for by President Mbeki. The Chamber arranged an
extra-ordinary meeting on safety to develop some suggestions on the audit and
these were sent to the Chief Inspector of Mines for consideration. It was
suggested that in order to be effective, the scope of the audit should not be
too broadly defined, and that there was a need for transparent methodologies.
The Chamber also suggested that the audit be conducted by tripartite audit
teams, to be led by the Inspectorate. This will not only help to bolster the
resources available for the audit, but will also enhance the opportunities for
learning since employer and employee representatives will not audit their own
mines.
4. Enforcement
action by the Inspectorate of Mines
The Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate has
recently implemented new enforcement measures, some of which might have
unintended consequences, and in other cases are apparently not justified by the
facts of any particular situation. This has been discussed with the Chief
Inspector of Mines.
To address these concerns in a concrete
way, the Chamber has offered its full support to assist the Chief Inspector of
Mines with his planned urgent development of an enforcement guideline, which
will deal among others with concerns around the temporary closures of deep
level mines after fatalities. In addition, the Chief Inspector has also
requested assistance to develop tools on accident investigations and disaster
management. The Chamber would welcome the finalisation of these guidelines
within a very short time, in order to limit the potential harm to life and limb
that might arise from ill-considered application of the enforcement instruments,
and to ensure that mines stick to proper enforcement and disaster management
procedures.
5. The
call of the NUM for protest action on safety
The NUM
has demanded a one day work stoppage to highlight the importance of safety. The
Chamber favours action that will lead to an improvement in safety, not simply
work stoppages that make no difference to the attitudes and behaviours in
respect of safety, whether by management, supervisory staff or employees. Through
consultation with the NUM, the Chamber will attempt to prevent that the issue
of safety becomes an antagonistic ‘them-and-us’ issue, and that the parties
should rather aim at co-operating to make a real, permanent change to safety in
the industry.
6. The
reporting of fatalities
There
have been calls for the early reporting of all mine fatalities through the JSE
information system. Whilst the Chamber supports the notion of transparency
around mine fatalities, the effectiveness of the proposal is questionable
particularly since many mining companies are not listed on the JSE. In support
of transparency around mine fatalities, the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate
should consider issuing statements about each fatality, once they have the
systems in place to do so. This could be part of the disaster management (and
communication) tool mentioned above. The Chamber would in any case suggest that
the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate issue a monthly report on safety.
7. Chamber
of Mines initiatives
The Chamber
has previously agreed to focus on leadership, the adoption of best practices
and seismicity as the industry-level safety and health initiatives. None of
these are quick-fixes, but are aimed at significant, sustained improvements in
safety.
7.1 Leadership
As far
as leadership is concerned, the CEO’s of Chamber member companies have decided that
safety can only be improved if there is visible leadership from the highest
level of companies. The top leadership of Chamber members will thus in future meet
on a regular basis, to share ideas and experiences about best safety practices,
and to use this forum to plan new initiatives in this regard. The first meeting
will take place in February 2008.
7.2 Adoption of Best practice
There
are mines that have implemented best practices that have led to excellent
safety performance. There is a significant amount of information available on such
best practices, including research results. However, this information is not
always implemented or adopted by companies. The Executive Council has consequently
decided to second two full-time persons to each of the four adoption teams (therefore
a total of eight persons) dealing with the following issues:
–
Leadership;
–
Noise;
–
Dust; and
–
Falls of ground.
An orientation and planning workshop of the teams will take place on 21
November 2007 to start the initiative.
7.3 Seismicity and rockburst study
The
rockburst risk resulting from seismicity is a unique challenge for deep level
mines in
8. Continuous
stakeholder engagement
Health
and safety can only be improved through the joint action of all the parties.
Co-operation is thus a vital priority, and this can be achieved at various
levels, e.g. at top leadership level, in the Mine Health and Safety Council,
and at mine level.
The
Chamber will be proposing that the stakeholders hold a regular Principals’
meeting on health and safety, which is chaired by the Minister of Minerals and
Energy. This group of the top leadership of the stakeholders could meet on at
least a six-monthly basis to discuss strategic issues relating to health
safety. The Mine Health and Safety Council could prepare inputs for this
meeting.
The term
of office of the current Mine Health and Safety Council members comes to an end
in the near future. The Chamber is of the view that employers be represented on
the Council by persons who have the necessary technical expertise and
seniority, representing gold, platinum, coal, SAMDA and the Chamber and who
also have the appropriate mix of the country’s demographics.
The
Chamber is of the view that health and safety representatives on the mines are
not, in all instances, fully utilised or empowered to make a real difference
with regard to health and safety improvement. These representatives should be
properly trained and there should be regular interaction with these
representatives. The stakeholders should consider the most appropriate methods
of achieving these objectives.
However,
the most important factor to improve safety, is that the behaviour of each and
every person on the mine should change – there should be zero tolerance to
unsafe behaviour or behaviour that ignores safety rules, whether by management,
supervisory staff or employees.