24 April, 2011
ICEM, as the pre-eminent global union for miners, continues its campaign for the ratification of ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, and the adoption of its associated Recommendation 183.
Although progress is slow, the Ukraine was finally persuaded to ratify Convention 176 in February of this year. The ICEM has meetings fixed or planned in several countries this year to push for ratification of this important ILO instrument.
The year 2010 saw the world witness the dramatic rescue of 33 trapped miners from the depths of a mid-sized copper mine in Chile. It also saw the gruesome deaths of 29 miners at the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand, caused perhaps by ventilation fans located inside mine shafts instead of outside. Twenty-nine miners also died in the US on 5 April 2010 at the Upper Big Branch mine in the state of West Virginia, a tragedy that saw mine owner Massey Energy and its CEO shift blame – unbelievably – to the stringent safeguards enshrined in the US Mine Safety and Health Act.
Click here for ICEM 176 Campaign
There were also mass mining deaths in Russia, Turkey, and the Ukraine in 2010. Mine deaths still occur on a weekly basis in China, and in South Africa, despite a somewhat decline from the highs of 2006-2008, mining deaths still occur regularly and public statements of satisfaction and accomplishment by the Chamber of Mines is delusional and fraught with contempt.
The tragedies from 2010, as well as the deadly coal mine blast in Pakistan just last month, prove there is much left to be done to make the world's mines safer. It can start with ratification of Convention 176. But it can only occur with full implementation and then practice of the convention’s principles.
Convention 176 demands that employers perform risk assessments, and control identified hazards at source, through good engineering design and through personal protective equipment. Mines must be properly engineered, designed, and constructed for safety, with provision of at least two separate means of exit and adequate communications systems. Sufficient ventilation with monitoring for contaminants and fire prevention, detection, and firefighting systems must be provided. Emergency response plans must be developed and maintained, and if serious dangers are detected, operations must be stopped and workers evacuated. Workers are to be provided with information and training on the hazards and how to work safely.
Accidents must be investigated and corrective actions taken. Workers have the right to report, and receive reports on, accidents and dangerous occurrences and hazards. Workers can request workplace inspections from employers and the regulatory authorities. Workers have the right to refuse unsafe work, and remove themselves from dangers. In addition, workers can select workplace health and safety representatives and they have the authority to participate in investigations and inspections, monitor health and safety matters, have recourse on advisers and experts, and consult with the employer and the government regulators.
Within Convention 176, governments are expected to create a legislative and regulatory framework that protects workers’ safety and health. This is to be accomplished by requiring employers and workers to comply with the specifics of ILO Convention 176. In addition, the responsible authorities are expected to maintain adequate regulatory mine supervision and inspection, and require the reporting of accidents and maintenance of statistics.
Mining is one of the world’s most dangerous occupations and regulatory safeguards are essential. The following list prepared using mostly ILO statistics from the UN agency’s LABORSTA database indicates the most dangerous countries for miners and workers in quarrying, as ranked by fatal injuries per 100,000 employees for a period from 1999-2008.
1. Turkey
2. Korea, Republic of
3. China
4. Pakistan
5. Cyprus
6. Kyrgyzstan
7. Togo
8. Hong Kong, China
9. Ireland
10. Taiwan, China
11. Costa Rica
12. Lithuania
13. Portugal
14. Ukraine
15. Philippines
16. Spain
17. Nicaragua
18. Chile
19. Argentina
20. Malta 21. Moldova, Republic of
22. India
23. Brazil
24. Bulgaria
25. United States
26. Tunisia
27. Estonia
28. Zimbabwe
29. Slovenia
30. Burkina Faso
31. Denmark
32. Romania
33. Czech Republic
34. Canada
35. Finland
36. Italy
37. Kazakhstan
38. Myanmar
39. Austria
40. Poland 41. France
42. Latvia
43. Slovakia
44. Croatia
45. Azerbaijan
46. Australia
47. Egypt
48. Japan
49. Sweden
50. United Kingdom
51. Sri Lanka
52. Hungary
53. Norway
54. Trinidad and Tobago
55. Bahrain
56. Belgium
57. Luxembourg
58. Macau, China
59. Mauritius
60. Singapore
The list, however, does not contain relevant statistics for all countries, thus the rankings of China, Ukraine, and Chile are estimated based on reports from private websites. There are no reliable estimates for Russia even though Russia is an extremely important mining country.
A few explanations are in order in assessing the list. First, even the ILO database which is the most authoritative on such matters, is extremely unreliable. The ILO can only cite what member countries send them. And then there are difficulties from under-coverage, such as most countries report only compensable deaths, to under-reporting, such as many deaths, even traumatic ones, are simply not recorded as occupational. Then there is outright fraud, since without question it is in the economic interests of employers to under-report. It is also in the political interests of many countries to under-report.
Furthermore, occupational disease claims more workers' lives than traumatic accidents – even in hazardous occupations like mining. Occupational cancer alone almost certainly kills more miners than accidents, and there are many other diseases (lung, skin, nervous system) that are fatal but are not cancer. These diseases are universally under-diagnosed and under-reported.
In the country ranking above, Turkey and Korea become the countries with the most dangerous mines, ahead of China. This may seem surprising, but Turkey, which is not a major mining country has both an extremely poor safety record and perhaps a better record of reporting than other countries on the list. As for China, the statistics are estimated from on-line sources of unknown origin and can only be assumed to be gross underestimates. The real number could be double, or even triple, the reported rate.
Finally, mining statistics often can be found in the form of deaths per million metric tonnes of ore/coal produced. This type of reporting tends to skew the statistics so that low-productivity mining nations such as China look relatively worse compared to highly mechanised mining nations such as the US, because more miners are required to produce the same number of tonnes of product. An example of this type of rating can be seen here.
The ICEM prefers to look at mining fatalities per 100,000 workers because what matters to a miner in considering whether a mine is safe or unsafe is whether he or she goes home intact at the end of the day. The number of tonnes mined in that day is secondary to that fact.
Overall, safety statistics revealed above should be considered to be of only the most marginal value.