4 July, 2011
In New Zealand over the weekend, ICEM joined host union, Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia in calling for recovery of the bodies of 29 miners killed inside Pike River Coal Ltd.’s colliery. The unions want the miners’ remains returned to families before the mine is sold and reopened.
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, ICEM Japanese Affiliates Federation (JAF) General Secretary Yoshio Sato, and Asia-Pacific Regional Contact Person Phee Jungsun joined EPMU leaders on 1 July in making the demand at Greymouth and then again the next day at the Pike River mine in New Zealand.
At a press briefing in Greymouth, the trade unionists said it was morally irresponsible for New Zealand’s government to allow the trustee of the mine, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to sell the mine and allow production to begin before bodies are recovered. The unionists also met with families of the deceased miners, their representative Bernie Monk, and Greymouth District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn, who is adamant that victims’ families get a full accounting of events of the November 2010 methane gas explosions.
The ICEM delegation on 2 July laid a wreath in memory of the 29 at the Pike River colliery, New Zealand’s largest underground mine laden with seams of premium metallurgical coal under the Paparoa Range of the South Island.
On 19 November 19, a horrid methane gas blast killed 29 miners, including 11 members of ICEM affiliate EPMU. It was the worst New Zealand mine disaster in 119 years, killing 24 Kiwi nationals, two Australians, two UK citizens, and one South African. A subsequent explosion occurred on 24 November, after which authorities declared the miners dead, and in the days that followed two further explosions occurred.
Warda lays wreath
“Mine workers have a special bond with one another and we will use our influence globally to assure that production at Pike River does not re-start until the bodies are recovered,” said Warda.
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little and Assistant National Secretary Ged O’Connell were part of the delegation. Little said New Zealand’s government must be mindful that the Pike River catastrophe had reverberations world-wide, highlighting the nation’s lax mine-safety regulations.
O’Connell said recovery of miners’ bodies remains a priority for the EPMU. The trustee or prospective owners, he said, “must have a recovery plan for those bodies to the satisfaction of the families before they consider mining coal, or making money out of that mine.”
Name badges of those miners still to be recovered from the mine
PricewaterhouseCoopers became receiver of the mine in January after Pike River Coal Ltd., an enterprise previously owned by New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd. with minority stakes held by Indian and Asia steel-making concerns, filed for bankruptcy due to the tragedy. The mine ramped up to full production only in 2010. It contains reserves of 17.6 million tones of hard coking coal.
PricewaterhouseCoopers had hoped to sell the mine’s assets by June, but a possible sale has now been pushed backed until later in the year. Meanwhile, a Royal Commission conducting an inquiry into the search and rescue attempts, and the safety and government regulatory policies surrounding the Pike River tragedy. The Commission held a preliminary hearing in Greymouth on 5 April (see ICEM report here), and will begin full proceedings on 11 July.
Prior to visiting the South Island and the Pike River mine site, the ICEM delegation laid a wreath in the city of Christchurch near the Canterbury Television site in memory of a Turkish student, 31-year-old Didem Yaman, who was killed there by an earthquake earlier this year. She is the niece of a member of ICEM-affiliated Petrol-Is in Turkey.