28 February, 2011
On 19 November 2010, a massive methane gas blast inside Pike River Coal Ltd.’s New Zealand colliery killed 29 miners, including 11 members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and 13 contract workers. In the 15 weeks since, the government of Prime Minister John Keys has let down the victims’ families on the recovery of bodies, and now has barred the EPMU from federal funds for legal representation in the follow up investigation.
On 14 February, the Key government announced legal cost assistance for the EPMU to the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s investigation was denied.
Attorney General Chris Finlayson called the union an “advocacy organisation” and said there should be no extra help extended to the EPMU in “doing its job for its members.” The government will pay the legal costs for families of victims and for all contractors in the commission’s inquiry, which is expected to begin late this year with a report out no later than March 2012.
“The EPMU has a material stake in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River coal mine disaster,” said National Secretary Andrew Little, adding that any one of the 65 EPMU members in the 120-member staff of Pike River Coal Ltd. could have been a victim.
“The government has overlooked the union’s legitimate interest in all of this,” said Little.
A month before this mid-February decision, the Key government lowered the boom on families of the 29 miners by sealing the South Island mine, announcing a recovery plan had failed, and stating there was no credible way to retrieve the 29 bodies.
Families’ spokesman Bernie Monk
“It’s a bloody sad day for New Zealand,” said families’ spokesman Bernie Monk on 14 January. Monk’s 23-year-old son Michael died inside the mine. “They have not come to the families at all. How the hell are we going to get the truth if they don’t go in?”
Key said in a press report that he made no promises to family members that remains of victims would be recovered.
On 27 January, a chief coroner’s inquest said all 29 likely died within minutes of the first blast on 19 November. On 24 November, a second major blast rocked the horizontal mine shafts and then two more explosions occurred in the days following.
A major issue in all investigations is sure to be location of large ventilation fans inside the mine, an unusual location in coal mining where methane gas is prevalent. Initial reports state that an electrical outage shut two large ventilation fans inside the mine. The coroner’s inquest said an electrician, Russell Smith, ventured into the mine to check on the outage and simultaneously, at 15h44 on 19 November, a 50-second explosion occurred. Some 600 metres in the mine, Smith came upon 24-year-old Daniel Rockhouse, an equipment operator who had been thrown from his machine.
NZ Congress of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly with Ian Murray and Tim Whyte, CFMEU Australia, at Pike River Memorial Service
The two managed to escape 108 metres up a ladder inside a ventilation shaft, exiting the mine at 17h26. The coroner’s inquest grants death certificates to the families. But their bodies remain locked inside the Pike River mine.
In a twist of fate last week, the trustee for the Pike River Disaster Relief Trust, Greymouth Mayor Tony Kokshoorn, urged donors to shift their contributions to Kiwi earthquake relief efforts. The mine trust has received over 20,000 contributions totaling NZ$7 million.
Some donations, Kokshoorn said, were earmarked for specific purposes, while NZ$6.5 million is targeted to provide financial help to families of the 29. He said the fund would begin transferring funds into individual family trusts, with a priority to place funds in trust deeds of dependents of the victims.