Welcome to the official blog to NOSA's annual conference: NOSHCON 2010. The aim of this blog is to inform you, about the ins and outs of NOSHCON as we start the countdown to Africa's largest occupational risk management conference. We'll correspond with our valued speakers, discuss relevant health and safety matters and keep you updated on NOSHCON.

Thursday, May 27, 2010


Congratulations to Alton Arendse, SHEQ Manager from ARMSCOR, who recently won a lovely NOSHCON hamper at the World Day for Health and Safety at Work day. 

In this picture we have one of NOSHCON's proud speakers, Jan van Burick, presenting Alton with the NOSHCON hamper. 

For more information on the confirmed delegates, our speakers and yes, even our stunning conference venue, do visit http://www.noshcon.co.za/ today.

Russia: Fires in Raspadskaya mine put out, it is flooded to oust methane

Extract from ITAR-TASS News Agency

MEZHDURECHENS - Fires in the Raspadskaya coalmine in the Kemerovo region that were detected by mine rescuers now have been totally extinguished, commander of the Novokuznetsk squad of the militarised mine rescue unit Alexander Apalkov told journalists on Sunday.

He specified that he had in mind the underground fires found before the methane accumulation place beyond which the rescuers were ordered not to go and come to the surface due to the possibility of another explosion. It is due to the high concentration of methane gas that the rescue operations had to be suspended. “We, naturally, cannot tell if there are fires beyond the methane accumulation place. At first we will remove methane and then will again check the mine tunnels,” Apalkov explained.

Water pumping was started into the mine from 10:00, local time (07:00 MSK) and simultaneously the special reagent khladon (freon) is supplied. According to the commander of the mine rescuers’ squad, this is done “for neutralisation of the methane cloud when it will be coming to the surface past possible seats of fire, in order to avoid another explosion.” These operations will continue for about a week, after which rescuers will again descend to the mine.

There was an accident in the Raspadskaya coalmine on the night to May 9 – two methane explosions that killed 66 people, 24 mine workers are still missing.

Meanwhile, governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev said that the owners of the Raspadskaya coalmine must bear responsibility for the accident. “I put the blame for the tragedy fully on the owner,” he told reporters on Saturday. “It is outrageous that there is no reaction from the owners, the administration of the Raspadskaya coal mining company. They are silent, though they must not be afraid to meet with people,” he stressed.

A written undertaking not to leave has been taken from the mine management for the period of the investigation into the criminal case opened in connection with the deaths caused by the explosions in the mine on the night to May 9, an investigation source told Itar-Tass. The criminal case is opened on charges of “violation of the safety regulations in mining work that caused deaths of more than two people through carelessness.”

The two explosions killed 66 miners and rescuers. The fate of 24 people is unknown so far. The search operation is suspended due to the complicated situation in the mine, in which methane concentration is high and there are fire outbreaks.

Governor Tuleyev met on Saturday with a group representing the Raspadskaya miners’ interests. He agreed with the workers on their demands and ordered to settle their social problems. The workers told him about the wage situation and other issues related to social welfare. Tuleyev told reporters that he had known “much interesting about activities” of the company management. All the facts are being checked, he added. The governor said he had agreed on the miners’ all demands and ordered his deputies to settle the issues in a short period to time.

Tuleyev said earlier that the regional commission for the work with the relatives of the miners that were killed in methane explosions in the Raspadskaya mine was established. Deputy governor Andrei Malakhov was appointed the commission’s chairman. “The regional commission will specifically engage in the settlement of material, housing and other issues of each family of the killed,” Tuleyev explained.

According to the governor, the relatives of the killed miners will get 1 million roubles from the owner of the enterprise in accordance with an agreement with the regional administration, as well as 12 salaries plus 3 miner's salaries for the past 3 months. Besides, the children of the killed miners will be annually holidaying in the best sanatoriums of the country free of charge. The owners will bear expenses for the education of children and improvement of housing conditions of the miners’ families. “Students will get a separate stipend until the age of 23,” he stressed. The people injured in the accident will be paid 30,000 to 200,000 roubles each depending on the severity of the injury, Tuleyev said.
 
Editor: Mark Freeman (mark.freeman@industry.nsw.gov.au)

Mr Freeman is one of our esteemed NOSHCON speakers. For more information on Mr Freeman and our other speakers, please visit our website at: http://www.noshcon.co.za/
 
 


Monday, May 24, 2010

Mr Dave Feickert - interviewed by Global Times


Bring miners into safety process to avoid tragedy
· Source: Global Times
· [21:57 April 11 2010]

Dave Feickert
The Wangjialing coal mine accident drew new attention to China's accident-prone mines. Despite a substantial reduction in accidents from 2008, over 2,000 miners died last year. How can China avoid such disasters? Global Times (GT) reporter Li Yanjie talked with Dave Feickert (Feickert), an advisor from New Zealand to China's Bureau of Coal Mining Safety, on this issue.


GT: It's been reported that there were traces of flooding, and the accident could have been avoided. How do you evaluate China's coal mine safety measures?
Feickert: The rescue of the miners has been an amazing feat of courage and engineering, but we need to remember those who have lost their lives. If you are constructing a coal mine, you need to have a very good system monitoring the conditions around it, especially when you know there are old mines, because if you leave a coal mine abandoned, it will fill with water.
So what happens in Western countries is to drill holes vertically in the ground and monitor water levels in the area around the new mine project. Underground, miners can monitor the water seeping in and check its chemical contents. This gives you information about the water flow, but from media reports, it seems that this wasn't being done at the Wangjialing mine.
The second thing is that you need to find all the plans of the mines around your project. You need to do a risk assessment which includes the information about the whole area around the new project.
Every new project in China must have a risk assessment certificate from the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS). But in developed countries, the responsible mining company conducts a risk assessment every day. This second part does not always happen in China.
At Wangjialing, workers reported there were traces of flooding, but the managers said keep working. The managers were pushing the project too fast, which is bad for safety and economics too.
When water comes into mines, managers should evaluate how serious it is, and the work should be stopped promptly, because it takes some time to get miners out of deep coal mines.
There were 261 people working in Wangjialing coal mine at the time, and 108 of them got out before the trouble, leaving 153 behind.


GT: China has laws and regulations on workplace safety, but coal mine accidents keep happening. Why?
Feickert: Risk assessments in China are often too technical. In developed countries, the risk assessment process continues day by day. All employees take part. Workers will look for water and other dangerous factors.
There need to be changes in safety organization in China's companies, irrespective of ownership. Currently, managers are primarily responsible for production and safety.
Managers have the duty of supervising both production and safety, but if they are forced to choose, they usually choose production. I believe this is what happened in some accidents, probably including the one at the Wangjialing coal mine. They were reportedly trying to get the mine into production as soon as possible.
The authorities should form a safety triumvirate at mine or factory level, which stays in daily contact with the manager at the top supported by a government SAWS inspector and a worker safety representative.
The manager is supported by the owner (government or private company), the inspector is supported by SAWS, and is independent, and the worker safety inspector is supported by the union. This triumvirate then carries out risk assessment every day.
In the event of danger, such as in Wangjialing's case, the indications of possible neighboring water in an abandoned mine, the worker safety representatives and frontline managers on site immediately inform both the responsible manager and the government inspector. The three parties meet to discuss how to solve the problem. If it is judged to be serious, miners should be taken out of the mine immediately and action is taken.
If the manager objects to withdrawal of the workers, the government inspector must have the necessary power to act. In the developed countries, this is what happens, whoever the owner is.
In China, the government inspector does not have this general power, except where a company is not in compliance with all its safety licenses. If it is in compliance and in most large mines they are then the inspector's instruction can be contested by the manager. By the time the inspector has been to court to get his instruction upheld, it may well be too late to save the workers.
Workers at the coal mine need more power to make decisions. Chinese law says workers have the right to stop work when it's unsafe. But how many miners in Wangjialing coal mine know they have this right? How many workers feel they are strong enough to tell the manager who is really the big boss, "We're coming out


GT: How do you evaluate China's merging of coal mines last year?
Feickert: I think the government did the right thing in closing many small coal mines. The mine owners were given the opportunity to improve mine safety, but they didn't. So the government is either closing them or merging them together with the large State-owned coal mines.
A lot of small mines are illegal, but this doesn't mean that large mines will never encounter accidents, as in the explosion at the US Massey mine last week that killed 25 people. Since small mines are often unregistered, this might be one reason why the company in charge of Wangjialing wasn't aware of the nearby mine that caused the flooding.


GT: Does the relatively low level of education among Chinese miners make them hard to train?
Feickert: Yes, many Chinese miners come from countryside and are illiterate. But in Western countries, many miners are even less educated.
Take the US. A lot of new miners come from Central or South America, and they can't speak or read in English. Some of them are even illiterate in their native languages.
In the US, every new miner needs to be trained. They are sent for training. Training, more training, then retraining. In New Zealand, all miners are trained in gas detection and first aid.
Miners are the most motivated, since it's their lives on the line. They can be trained even if they cannot read. You can show them videos, for example, telling them how to do things.
Worker safety representatives should be workers with at least three and preferably five years' experience and have received training in risk assessment. This can be done quite easily, and the training of trainers for these people is envisaged in the 8 million euro ($11.90 million) EU-China high risk industry safety and health co-operation program


GT: Mining accidents used to be common in developed countries. Is this high-risk phrase just a necessary stage of development? When can the goal of zero accidents be achieved?
Feickert: It's true that many countries have experienced this, but China can learn from developed countries' experience and avoid coal mine accidents as much as possible.
Some mines in my country, New Zealand, didn't have any accidents last year - not just no fatal accidents, but injuries at all. China can definitely reach zero accidents, but when is uncertain. I believe the State Council needs to discuss how to introduce modern risk assessment into the high risk industries. We are happy to help.


GT: You once said Chinese coal mining safety experts are too often inclined to try to find an engineering solution to all problems. Why?
Feickert: When I first came to China in 2004 and discussed why accidents happened, my Chinese colleagues sometimes said it is because there is not an engineering solution to the problem.
But take an automatic system, monitoring methane and gas, which uses computers. To keep computer monitoring going, you have to train people to do the maintenance work and read the information. The human factor is very important. You can't just think in engineering terms.
Everybody, from chief engineers to miners at the bottom, must be involved. There are always engineering solutions to problems but safety organization must include everyone. The managers and engineers are leaders but the miners are their eyes and ears.


We are proud to have Mr Feickert as one of the NOSHCON speakers: "Safety and Health in China's Coal Mines - the Improvements made, the Challenges ahead and how Foreign Experts can help." (9 September 2010 at 09:00)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

At Heart, I'm still an Ergonomist

Over the last 18 years of my career, I have done just about every type of industrial ergonomics work you can imagine. I've worked in mines, turkey processing, bubble gum factories, and for all of the big three. I've analyzed workstations, made suggestions, hammered out the details of implementing better designs, worked with the beneficiary of those good designs, and weathered all types of budget restrictions.

After gathering all that field experience I graduated to a broader view - looking at the systems that need to be in place to ensure that ergonomics can be properly implemented at all levels of the organization. For a while all I did was ergonomic training for every type of industrial player: human resources, HS&E, quality, engineering, maintenance, product designers, and the list goes on.

But then something started sneaking up on me. That something was programming. I have always loved programming and thanks to my Human Factors Engineering background, was able to put together applications that people could actually use. I tricked out Excel, dove into Access, started learning the ropes of data driven web design, and before I knew it I was responsible for just about every shred of data that flowed in to and out of our Health, Safety, and Environment department at Cooper Standard Automotive.

In those dark long nights when debugging code, obsessing about pixel-by-pixel placement of buttons, and teasing out the best method to present the information to a global audience, I had an Epiphany. Actually, the epiphany came at a conference. During the conference, a professional ergonomist whom I respect deeply said two words that I had never considered together before: macro ergonomics.

It was like someone tapped the middle of my forehead and whispered, "no, you are not a programmer - you are an ergonomist." You see, the real goal of ergonomics is constantly choreographing a delicate waltz between humans, systems, requirements, and technology. Lean too heavily on any one of those items and the macro-ergonomics tip over. Build an outstanding incident reporting system, but no one can figure out how to log on - tip. Implement a picture-perfect material delivery system, then expect the worker to press a clip into place requiring 30kg of force -tip. Train an army of engineers on the optimal work height for all workstations but give them no means to justify their improvements - tip.

I have the pleasure of speaking at NOSHCON this year for the first time. I've never been and am really looking forward to it. When I come, I hope to have one of those "Aha!" moments again. And if you should happen to hear my talk, perhaps I can trigger the same for you.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Almost 50!

Not many conferences run for more than 10 years, let alone 50! With next year's 50th NOSHCON, this event will surely make history. I have attended many conferences and events, good ones and then, the not so good ones. What is the 'secret recipe' of a good conference? One can never pinpoint it down to one single success factor - it is a combination of many things - and that is the winning recipe for NOSHCON. It is a combination of quality presentations, relevant content, networking opportunities, socialising and enjoying self development on a 'different level' - away from the office. I have recently attended the NOSCAR banquet, hosted by NOSA and organised by the same team who is responsible for NOSHCON - and if this is the benchmark - I can not wait for NOSHCON 2010. I bet it will be the best ever! I have been fortunate to have been involved in 14 NOSHCONs and every year the claim is made: "this will be the best ever!" And for 49 years they have succeeded in improving and keeping the conference programme innovative and relevant. Fifty years of successful conferencing for NOSHCON - well done NOSA! Half a century of bringing the SHEQ industry together each year - truly amazing!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT FROM A 2009 NOSHCON SPEAKER

In one scene from the movie “Precious,” we see the main character, Clarisse Precious Jones, getting ready for school in the morning. We see this obese African American teen put on a red headband—but looking in the mirror, we see the red headband on a pretty, thin blonde teen. She picks up and puts on jewelry—and we see the blonde teen wearing the jewelry. Although Precious is in reality an overweight child of color, she sees a thin, blue-eyed blonde in the mirror, because she is looking at herself through unrealistic filters—what I call distorting goggles.

I often see a similar phenomenon when looking at management systems—the person in charge of the system has rose-colored glasses on, looking at everything that’s right about the system, and overlooking the not-so-nice. What's worse, is that they often don't see reality at all, but instead see what they want the system to be. Like Precious, these quality managers view their management system through distorting goggles.
Why do people see distorted reality? When looking at a system for the first time, I am usually able to walk in with no preconceptions of what I’ll see. Will the system be robust, innovative, weak, or bureaucratic? I don’t know. There are no distorting goggles in place, coloring the way I look at this system. The next time I look at the system, I may have some preconceptions—“The objectives/targets implementation system is very strong” or “Calibration seems to be a problem for them.” It’s a bit harder to set these preconceptions aside, to remove the distorting goggles and be totally objective. If a trained quality professional, exposed to the system for short period of time has this problem, it’s no wonder that people who work within the system day in and day out develop preconceptions about their own system. It’s our responsibility to recognize that this is a common problem and work to ensure that it doesn’t affect our system.
Although we say that information on a system won’t affect our viewing or assessing of it, human nature shows that we may let it affect our actions as well as our thoughts. A study was done in an elementary school class: The researchers told the teacher ahead of time who the high-performing students were and watched how the teachers interacted with them. Although the teachers professed to have no bias toward any of the students, they were noted as showing these identified "smart" students more attention, scolding them less than others, and so forth. These students indeed scored well on their tests. The irony, of course, was that the students identified as high-performing were actually mid-to low-performing students. However, the teacher treating them as though they were scholastic stars pulled the students’ scores up significantly, and in many cases, the students’ view of themselves. The teachers had put on distorting goggles and acted according to what this distortion showed them.
The same holds true of auditors who have preconceptions about an area or facility that they are auditing. If an auditor reads an audit report and notices that employees aren't aware of the policy, or that documentation is not being followed, they may subconsciously develop a bias about what they may or may not find when conducting the audit.
What are some ways to get around this—how can we remove the distorting goggles? One way is to have someone else look at your system and give you a scorecard (both positives and negatives). A fresh set of eyes—an independent auditor—is helpful in seeing how your system is performing more objectively than you may be able to do yourself. A word of caution: Even external auditors, if not rotated occasionally, may become susceptible to wearing distorting goggles over time.
Let me give you an example: When I was the management representative at IBM, we were registering the facility of 9,000 employees, and the schedule called for the external auditors to stay in one area for a long time. The development auditors stayed in development; the manufacturing auditors stayed in manufacturing; and the office auditors stayed in the office.
At the end of two weeks (remember, 9,000 people, so we had four auditors for a month), one of the auditors came to me to let me know that they were going to be rotating audit paths every week for the remaining two weeks. I asked him, “Is this so you can get experience in all areas of the facility?” He told me, “No, it’s because an auditee got stuck today trying to access your documentation system and I told him how to do it: ‘Press F1, then scroll down and select the document, then….’ I realized I knew the system too well and was anticipating what I’d see. I’d like to go somewhere where I’m not the process expert.”
He had interviewed an average of four to six people a day, and because our documentation system was online, he’d watched approximately 50 people access the system before this latest auditee got stuck. Although it is helpful to have an auditor that is familiar with the system so you don’t have any learning curve to climb, you also have to balance this against the fact that an auditor can anticipate what they’re going to see and possibly miss something that they shouldn’t.
Another way to get around this is to pretend that you don’t know anything about the system, and act as though you’re a first-day hire. In the TV show "Undercover Boss," that’s exactly what the top executive does: He comes into the lowest levels of the organization and works in a variety of jobs. It invariably opens his eyes to the good, the bad, and the ugly. You can take a similar approach by asking “Why do we do it this way?” “How would I find instructions on how to do this job?” “What measurements do we need to take? How often? Why?”
Asking these questions and understanding why we are doing what we are doing will allow us to identify areas for improvement, areas of excellence, and areas where we can be a little more objective. Just maybe, it will help us remove distorting goggles.

About The Author
Mary F. McDonald is CEO and CTO of the McDonald Consulting Group Inc. (www.mcdcg.com) and blogs about process improvement at www.improvemybusinessnow.com. She’s been helping companies streamline their businesses and implement management systems since 1995. She’s the author of five books, a member of the U.S. TAG for both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars. She may be contacted at marymcd@mcdcg.com.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

HIV/Aids in the Workplace

Tsebo takes wellness to heart

Alan Brand, Group Wellness Manager (HIV/AIDS) of Tsebo Outsourcing Group, has been instrumental in the development and implementation of the Group’s AIDS Management Programme. Through the programme, Brand and his team of Peer educators strive to increase and maintain awareness of HIV/AIDS among Tsebo staff. Living openly with his HIV status, Brand has helped to change the mindsets of many, and has pioneered the business to business approach in addressing the nutritional needs of people living with HIV and AIDS. Here, he discusses the issue that affect our industry . . .

I am undoubtedly a very optimistic guy. Yet despite my optimism about essentially everything in existence, I'm beginning to think the term "chronic, manageable condition," when applied to HIV/AIDS, may be overly optimistic - or at least misleading - particularly for many of us who are HIV positive and struggling to co-exist with a virus that wants nothing more than to plant us six feet under!

If you're involved in the management of HIV/AIDS in the workplace you will be aware that, although treatment has provided the tools to greatly improve the health and prognosis of many, it would be far from the truth to say that all is under control.

While I admit that many of us who are HIV positive no longer feel we have one foot in the grave, I wonder: Do we really have a "chronic, manageable condition?" Personally, I tend to think of halitosis, haemorrhoids or even "the heartbreak of psoriasis" as examples of chronic manageable conditions. But HIV/AIDS? I'm not so sure.

In South Africa we have the largest number of people accessing treatment for HIV than any country in the world - we also have the highest number of people infected with HIV in the world. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected by HIV. In 2008, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 67% of HIV infections worldwide, 68% of new HIV infections among adults and 91% of new HIV infections among children. The region also accounted for 72% of the world’s AIDS-related deaths in 2008.

Much has been written about the virtues of life-sustaining drugs – called Antiretrovirals or ARVs – with the authors proclaiming that HIV/AIDS is now a "chronic (ongoing), manageable condition", like hypertension or diabetes. ARV advertising campaigns fuel this notion with glossy photos suggesting that taking pills would transform a frail HIV positive individual. This might be true - but it is not a holistic picture, because without careful monitoring, care and support, ARV therapy can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and many other additional complications.

Workplace programmes that simply provide ARV treatment without ensuring a holistic employee wellness management approach will result in a greater chance that patient will become non-compliant. Ensuring that base line cholesterol, blood glucose levels are conducted, as well as regular monitoring and evaluation of kidney and liver function, are all key to holistically managing the wellness of the HIV patient.

In 2002/3, the Department of Health (DoH) conducted a national research project that investigated the impact of HIV/AIDS on the hospitality sector. This research project consisted of two parts:

• A Knowledge, Attitudes & Practices (KAP) Survey, conducted among 4 500 employees; and
• An assessment of the impact of HIV/AIDS on 450 businesses

Results clearly pointed to the hospitality sector's critical need for practical tools and guidance on developing and actioning an HIV/AIDS strategy. For management to better understand the dire need for wellness programmes in the HIV arena, they need to know the effects of HIV/AIDS on any business, which include:

Increased costs:
• Insurance
• Training
• Recruitment
• Administration
• Medical care

Reduced productivity:
• Illness
• Family care/concerns
• Funeral leave
• Labour turnover
• Absenteeism
• Low morale

Concerns for the hospitality industry in particular include the fact that it is labour intensive; training costs are high; it has largely a mobile workforce; many employees are young and single; and there are a high number of unskilled workers. Customers' perceptions too, need to be managed – including ignorance about the transmission of HIV/AIDS and perceived risks.

The Tsebo Outsourcing Group Employee Wellness and Assistance Programmes recognise that personal and family problems can negatively influence work performance as well as affect employees, colleagues and supervisors. The most effective response to these problems is early intervention, especially when it comes to complying with medicine regimens. In designing the programme, we included the following:

• HIV/AIDS Awareness
• Peer Educator Programme – Counselling and Care Giving
• TB Awareness
• Managing Employee Wellness – Absenteeism
• Incapacity Management
• Chronic Disease Management
• Food Borne Diseases – Food handlers
• Nutritional Initiative
• Treatment literacy – Adherence
• Occupational Exposure
• Universal Precautions - First Aid

The Employee Wellness and Assistance Programme is committed to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of employees and adherence to legislation, labour law and policy is strictly observed.

Way back in April 2004, Fedics - one of three primary operating divisions in the Tsebo Outsourcing Group - became the first South African company specifically to create and offer nutritionally enhanced menus designed to boost the immune systems of people living with HIV/AIDS. All client recipes and menus have been engineered to proactively address nutritional intake, with particular attention to immunity-boosting foods. It was then - and still is - a ground-breaking approach to assisting with treatment. Menus have a red ribbon next to items that are considered nutritionally supportive of HIV treatment, allowing people to order them without having to make their status known to those around them.

While many organisations have some form of in-house HIV management program, few consider the benefit of directly addressing the nutritional intake of employees infected with HIV. It's about focusing on living with HIV, not dying of AIDS and while good nutrition won't cure HIV/AIDS, it most certainly can help maintain and improve health.


Fedics is renowned for its initiatives that support its staff and clients in both health and productivity, enabling clients to pass on good health to their consumers. We are proud of the Group's Wellness programme and will continue to innovate and meet the needs of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

Alan Brand (Group Wellness Manager (HIV/AIDS)): Tsebo Outsourcing Group Fedics, Drake and Scull

Mr Brand is one of our NOSHCON speakers! Please view the final programme at: http://www.noshcon.co.za/programme.html

Monday, May 10, 2010

Death toll in Russian mine blasts hit 30

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/12-dead-83-trapped-after-blasts-hit-Russian-mine-480019.php

NOSCAR'S

Friday night the 7th May saw the 30th time that the NOSCAR’s have been hosted by NOSA. Over 80 companies were recognised for achieving what is the highest level of excellence in managing their occupational health, safety and environmental risk.

It was fantastic to have many first time winners with notable newcomers represented by companies from Namibia and Zimbabwe. We also honoured our longest achieving company who received their 28th NOSCAR. This is a truly unbelievable achievement considering the extremely high level of compliance necessary to achieve a NOSCAR.

The evening was not only about the awards but also the entertainment. The theme for this year’s banquet was “Soccer Mania” and had a truly South African flavour, featuring local artists. If this event was anything to go by, the FIFA World Cup scheduled to begin in the next month or so, is going to be a huge success.

NOSCAR is fast becoming a social event on everyone’s calendar and the night was danced away by the award winners and NOSA staff. The next major banquet for the NOSCAR achievers is scheduled for September at NOSHCON. NOSHCON is the premier conference in occupational risk management and also Africa’s largest conference on Occupational Risk Management. With 29 international and local speakers addressing the delegates, one can be sure to leave NOSHCON enriched with both the latest information as well as relationships to assist them in the management of their systems and careers.

I hope that many of you will be able to join us at Champagne Sports Resort in the mighty Drakensberg for NOSHCON 2010.

Kind regards,
Justin Hobday

Managing Director of NOSA

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

USA: West Virginia Proposes New Mine-Safety Rules

Extract from the Wall Street Journal, USA

The West Virginia Board of Coal Mine Safety and Health will issue new proposed regulations intended to make the state's mines safer following the explosion this month at a Massey Energy Co. mine that killed 29 miners.

The board will propose three rules aimed The West Virginia Board of Coal Mine Safety and Health will issue new proposed regulations intended to make the state's mines safer following the explosion this month at a Massey Energy Co. mine that killed 29 miners.

The board will propose three rules aimed at improving maps, evacuations and drills related to mine fires, two rules adding requirements for mine rescue teams and a rule mandating that each mine office has a barometer to monitor air pressure changes that can affect methane concentrations inside mines. Another rule would require that methane monitors on machines be tested and calibrated every 15 days.

Methane, an explosive gas that occurs naturally in coal seams, was believed to have played a role in this month's fatal explosion.

Joel Watts, health and safety administrator for the board, said the rules will be officially proposed Thursday morning when he delivers a draft to West Virginia's secretary of state. That action will begin a 30-day public comment period, before the board will respond to those comments.

Mr. Watts declined to say if the new rules are a direct result of the April 5 accident at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine in Mont coal, W.Va., or any preliminary findings by investigators. "I cannot say one way or the other because the investigation is still ongoing," he said.

Federal mine-safety officials have said that the massive explosion at the mine was likely caused by an accumulation of methane gas and could have been made more severe by coal dust. At one point during the rescue efforts, mine rescue teams had to be withdrawn from the mine when methane levels increased as a weather front approached and barometric pressure dropped.
 
The six-member board is made up of three industry representatives and three union representatives, all appointed by the West Virginia governor. The board is charged with making sure the state's coal mining health and safety regulations are effective. The board can write new rules, or alter or eliminate others.

Meanwhile, federal mine-safety regulators said Wednesday they began an "inspection blitz" over the weekend focusing on 57 underground coal mines with a history of problems involving ventilation and methane accumulation, among other things.

More than 275 Mine Safety and Health Administration coal-mine enforcement personnel were sent to the mines, more than half of which were located in West Virginia and Kentucky, the agency said. The agency said results of the inspections would be made public as they become available.

MSHA began the review after the explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine.

"The purpose of these inspections is to provide assurance that no imminent dangers, explosions, hazards or other serious health or safety conditions and practices are present at these mines," Joe Main, the head of MSHA, said in a statement. "Just last week, we pledged to the president that we will do whatever it takes to make sure another tragedy like the one that claimed 29 miners' lives at Upper Big Branch never happens again."

Of the 57 mines subject to the inspections, nine are owned by Massey. Five are owned by Consol Energy Inc. Another five are owned by Patriot Coal Corp., while three are owned by Peabody Energy Corp. and two by Alpha Natural Resources LLC. Most of the remaining mines are owned by privately held companies.
 
Editor: Mark Freeman (mark.freeman@industry.nsw.gov.au)
 

America's dark history of coal

Miners have clashed, sometimes violently, with owners. Will it be deja vu in West Virginia?

Watching the events unfold around Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch coal mine the last few weeks created an uneasy sense of deja vu. And it had less to do with 29 miners' bodies below ground than with power plays and corporate hubris above it.

The deadly West Virginia mine explosion came four days after the 100th anniversary of the start of a lengthy Colorado coal strike that eventually led to open guerrilla warfare between miners and the Colorado National Guard. The nadir of that showdown was what came to be called the Ludlow Massacre when, at the end of a daylong gun battle on April 20, 1914, National Guardsmen torched a strikers' tent colony where 11 children and four mothers were hiding in a large pit beneath the wooden floor of one of the tents. All but two of the mothers perished.

Few people these days have heard of the Ludlow Massacre. Fewer still know about the circumstances in which it occurred. In the face of abject regulatory failure, at least 75 people were killed over a seven-month period during the strike, as several thousand coal miners openly rebelled against a corrupt local political and economic system.

West Virginia has its own history of violent mining confrontations, including the 1921 march on Blair Mountain when 13,000 armed miners faced off against mine guards, local militia and government troops. Sixteen men, most of them miners, were killed before the U.S. government sent in one of its newest weapons — planes — to intimidate the miners into retreating. It worked.

But there had been no defusing the conflict in Colorado, where the mine owners — led by the Rockefellers' Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. — were so powerful that they effectively created their own laws, stole elections at will and installed mine superintendents to rule small fiefdoms enforced by hired thugs.

As if short-circuiting democracy wasn't bad enough, the coal operators ignored government safety regulations, considering them an intrusion on their right to make a profit. In the eyes of the Rockefellers' man in Colorado, Lamont Montgomery Bowers, the miners had a simple choice: Work under the operators' terms or find another job, safety be damned.

Don Blankenship, who runs Massey Energy, would have fit right in among those Colorado coal barons. Media reports have detailed Blankenship's efforts to dominate state politics, including trying to stack the state Supreme Court as it was considering cases involving Massey.

Other media reports have detailed widespread safety violations at Massey mines. In one internal memo, Blankenship warned mine managers that they were to ignore any directive "to do anything other than run coal. … This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills."

Bowers would have been proud.

The Colorado strike began in the northern mines on April 1, 1910. After it faltered, the United Mine Workers expanded the strike in September 1913 to southern Colorado, covering the eastern foothills of the Rockies. Most of the miners' demands were already required under Colorado law, including that they be paid for "dead work" they had been doing for free — namely, shoring up mine roofs with timbers so they wouldn't collapse and kill them.

"The companies created a condition which they considered satisfactory to themselves, and ought to be to the workmen, and jammed the workmen into it, and thought they were philanthropists," Ethelbert B. Stewart, a top investigator for the new Department of Labor, wrote at the time. "That men have rebelled grows out of the fact that they are men."

The expanded strike was a nasty, brutal affair, and after a series of attacks and murders on both sides, Gov. Elias M. Ammons sent in the National Guard as peacekeepers. At the same time, state budget problems began delaying paychecks, which led many of the Guardsmen to walk away. The hated private mine guards took their places, and the peacekeepers morphed into the miners' enemy.
Then came the deaths at Ludlow on April 20, 1914. Over the next 10 days, amid a national union "call to arms," thousands of marauding miners and their supporters went on a rampage of retribution. At least 30 people were killed as the makeshift guerrilla army seized control of 275 miles of the Colorado Front Range.

Unable to stem the insurrection, Ammons sought help from President Woodrow Wilson, who sent in the Army to supplant the National Guard. The miners, with their immediate enemy gone, laid down their arms on May 1, and the fighting was over, with the miners winning the war but losing. It would take another 13 years and the Wobblies to gain union recognition there.

Yet much of the political and economic oppression in the region ended. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, a little revolution wasn't a bad thing for the miners of Colorado. Let's hope it doesn't take the same kind of action to redress the very deep grievances in West Virginia.

Scott Martelle is the author of "Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West."

http://www.scottmartelle.com/

USA: Serious problems found at Massey mines since blast

Extract from Associated Press, USA

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal inspectors have found more than 60 serious safety violations at Massey Energy operations since the explosion that killed 29 miners, adding to fallout from the disaster that includes a wrongful death lawsuit by one of the men's widows.
 
Inspectors visited more than 30 underground Massey coal mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia after the April 5 blast, according to records from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The agency has tentatively blamed preventable accumulations of explosive methane gas and coal dust for the worst U.S. coal mining disaster since 1970.

The miner's widow accuses the company of a history of safety violations that amount to negligence in the first wrongful death lawsuit over the explosion, which she filed Thursday.

Investigators were reviewing records from the site of the blast and waiting for dangerous gases to be ventilated before going underground at the Upper Big Branch mine. It will probably be another week until investigators can safely go in, MSHA Administrator Kevin Stricklin said.

To tally violations at other Massey sites, The Associated Press checked inspection records for all of the company's approximately 70 underground coal mines in the U.S. from April 5 through Thursday. Mines operated by other companies also were inspected during the same period.

Stricklin said the MSHA hasn't been disproportionately targeting Massey since the blast, nor has it increased the pace of inspections. He did say inspectors have responded to hazard complaints at two Massey mines.

"We're just going about our regular business," Stricklin said. "I didn't give any instructions to go and look at Massey mines."

Still, Stricklin sharply criticized the company for violations found in the last 10 days.

The violations include conveyor belt problems at Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine in West Virginia, where a belt fire killed two men in 2006.
 
"I'm very disappointed," Stricklin said. "You would think that personnel associated with Massey would be really more careful."

The company's Solid Energy No. 1 mine in Kentucky was cited for allowing coal dust to pile up on three occasions since the explosion.

"That's very troubling," Stricklin said. "Pitiful."

Mines are required to keep methane well below explosive levels with sophisticated ventilation systems and control coal dust by keeping it from piling up and covering it with noncombustible material.

Stricklin has told district managers to look more closely at all mine ventilation systems and the buildup of methane, and to move rock dusting surveys to the front end of the quarterly inspection.

Stricklin said he was embarrassed the industry wasn't able to prevent the Upper Big Branch tragedy.

"An explosion of this magnitude basically sends us back 40 years. All explosions are preventable," he said.

Massey is facing its first wrongful death lawsuit over the blast, filed by Marlene Griffith in Raleigh County Circuit Court. The lawsuit also targets Performance Coal, the Massey subsidiary that operated the underground mine.

The lawsuit claims Massey's handling of working conditions at the mine, plus its history of safety violations, amounted to aggravated conduct that rises above the level of ordinary negligence.

Griffith and her husband, William Griffith, were planning to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary April 30, the lawsuit said.

Mark Moreland, a Charleston lawyer representing Griffith, said that William Griffith was concerned about safety in the mine and had avoided serious injury during a rock fall there a week before his death.

"He told his wife on more than one occasion that if anything happened to him in that mine, that she needed to get a lawyer," Moreland said Friday.

Massey did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday on the lawsuits or the violations.

The West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training started its own safety sweep of the state's nearly 200 underground mines Friday. Administrator Terry Farley declined to say whether the agency is targeting Massey.

MSHA issued the recent citations while conducting spot checks and routine inspections at the Massey operations.

Agency records show the problems were not universal; several Massey mines weren't cited at all after the inspections.

Among those that came up clean is Massey's Tiller No. 1 mine in Virginia. Federal inspectors had warned Massey to improve safety at the mine last fall or face heightened enforcement for a pattern of serious violations.

President Barack Obama has ordered a sweeping review of coal mines with poor safety records and called for stronger mining laws.

Mines in West Virginia were asked to stop producing coal Friday and concentrate on safety in memory of the Upper Big Branch victims.
 
Editor: Mark Freeman (mark.freeman@industry.nsw.gov.au)