shafts
The mining industry is about to introduce a
state-of-the-art health and safety sytem,
reports Eddie Koch
A revolutionary health and safety Bill for the
mining industry — along with last week’s
dramatic findings of the inquiry into the Vaal
Reefs disaster — will give thousands of
workers who experience some of the worst
safety standards in the world a state-of-the-
art system for managing underground accidents.
Judge RN Leon’s finding that mine management
was mainly to blame for the grisly death of
104 workers at the Vaal Reefs gold mine,
combined with provisions in the new draft law
that could make mine owners automatically
guilty of homicide unless they can prove they
took strict measures to prevent accidents,
will place the mining industry under
unprecedented pressure to clean up its safety
record.
Leon ruled that the driver of a locomotive
which ploughed into an underground lift at
Vaal Reefs was not primarily to blame. He
recommended instead that the company, a former
manager of the mine and two senior line-
management officials be charged with
negligence and culpable homicide.
The judgment contrasts dramatically with that
of the official inquiry into the accident at
Kinross in 1986, when 177 people died in the
worst tragedy in the history of gold mining in
South Africa. Management at Kinross was
exonerated and a welder was convicted of two
minor counts of breaching the Mines and Works
Act, and fined R100 — less than 60c a life.
“This is the first occasion in the history of
mine accidents that I know of in which a mine
manager has been held to account for the
causes of a disaster,” says the National Union
of Mineworker’s (NUM) health and safety co-
ordinator Fleur Plimmer. “Together with the
mine’s health and safety Bill, it will help to
end the culture of victim-blaming that has so
far characterised accident inquiries.”
Leon chaired the official inquiry into the
causes of the Vaal Reefs accident, and was
assisted by May Hermanus from the labour
movement and Arnold McKenzie from the office
of the Government Mining Engineer. His report
found prima facie evidence that two men at the
top of the line-management structure of the
mine, Hendrik Wood (shaft overseer) and
Marthinus van Rensburg (section engineer),
were guilty of culpable homicide, along with
Frank Khoza (section electrician), Victor Cako
and Mlindeli Quluba (locomotive drivers).
The report recommends that the Vaal Reefs
Mining and Exploration Company should be
charged with culpable homicide and that a
former manager at the mine, a Mr Muir, be
charged with negligence for failing to deal
with warning signals that had emanated from a
similar accident on the mine in 1982.
It adds: “He [the manager] adopted far too
supine an attitude, leaving the whole matter
to ‘the engineers’ … It seems to us that any
reasonable person in the position of a mine
manager ought to take all reasonably
practicable steps to … ensure, as far as is
reasonably practicable, that adequate steps
are being taken to prevent similar occurrences
in future.”
The driver of the locomotive that plunged down
a shaft into a cage bringing miners to the
surface was found not guilty of culpable
homicide, although Leon ruled that he should
face minor charges of negligence. The matter
has been referred to the attorney general’s
office, which is expected to bring criminal
charges against the mine and some of its most
senior officials.
The recent judicial and legislative
innovations — bound to affect the fate of
thousands of workers who are injured or killed
every year on the mines — reflect a
profound shift in the amount of power that
mine owners are able to wield over government
policy since the 1994 elections.
A number of mineworkers’ leaders have taken
high government positions since the elections:
President Nelson Mandela is honorary president
of the union; Marcel Golding, head of the
parliamentary portfolio committee that
brokered the new Bill, is the NUM’s former
assistant general secretary; and chief
constitutional negotiator Cyril Ramaphosa was
its general secretary.
This shift in the nature of the state is the
major reason why mine companies have agreed to
negotiate a law that will create a modern
system of health and safety management in the
industry. The Bill, due to be tabled in
Parliament early next month, includes many
clauses the union fought for unsuccessfully in
the decade before government power changed
hands.
One of its most controversial provisions
states that, in the case of a fatal accident,
an individual mine manager will be liable for
criminal prosecution unless he can prove
reasonable steps were taken to prevent the
causes of the incident.
“The Bill explicitly shifts the burden on to a
mine manager to prove he is innocent, because
of the enormous responsibility these officials
have for protecting the lives of thousands of
workers,” says Plimmer. “It is a matter of
principle for us. If this law applied at the
time of the Vaal Reefs accident, the mine
managers would have been obliged to prove they
did everything possible to prevent it.”
The country’s large mining corporations are
strongly opposed to the “reversal of onus”
clause and are considering a Constitutional
Court challenge if Parliament keeps it when
the legislation is passed, on grounds that it
contravenes the basic right to be presumed
innocent until proven guilty.
“If an offence is committed by a member of
staff, the manager and owner of the mine will
be presumed guilty of the same offence. In its
current form, the Bill gives more rights to a
common criminal, robber or rapist than it does
to a mine manager,” says John Stewart, head of
safety management at the Chamber of Mines.
Apart from this fundamental disagreement, the
draft law is a “consensual product” of intense
“tripartite” bargaining and negotiation
between unions, the major mining houses and
the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs.
It provides for:
l Elected health and safety representatives
who will participate in all safety management
systems on mines. Workers will also be able to
elect a full-time health and safety
representative who will carry out this task
with full pay.
l Joint health and safety committees made up
of elected workers and senior management
officials, with the power to implement policy
decisions.
l A revamped mines inspectorate which will, in
effect, create an expanded government agency
made up of people experienced in occupational
health and industrial hygiene.
l A mandatory system of risk assessment on
every mine, according to which management will
be obliged to identify potential hazards and
design systems to eliminate, control or
minimise the risk. (The risk assessment system
is linked to the controversial clause which
makes management criminally culpable for fatal
accidents unless it can prove procedures
outlined in the Bill were complied with.)
l The right of workers to a free flow of
information about risk assessment, accident
statistics, codes of practice, accident
inquiries and occupational disease statistics.
l The right of workers to refuse to work if
they have “reasonable justification” to
believe a serious danger is present.
l Hazard awareness training for workers before
they start employment, at regular intervals
and before any major changes to the production
process.
Industry and labour agree that they have come
up with a state-of-the art system to minimise
fatal accidents on the mines. Says Plimmer:
“From having a really weak system, we are now
on the verge of implementing some of the best
legislation in the world.”
Adds Stewart: “It is fully up-to-date
legislation, in line with a recent
International Labour Organisation convention
on mine safety that has yet to be ratified. In
that context, without having studied all other
mine safety legislation, we must surely rank
among the most progressive in the world.”