Mine summit must tackle safety shortcomings
It sounded like good news: the number of mining fatalities in 2016 was the lowest on record. In reality it was simply less-bad news, because while it was a significant improvement on the 1994 total of 484, the year’s death toll of 73 was still appalling. Worryingly, the fatality rate has since started rising, and the six deaths in last Sunday’s underground fire at a Limpopo mine further accentuate the chiselling of notches on mining’s wall of shame. In most industries, unions confine themselves to defending workers’ rights and campaigning for better pay and conditions, but mining unions often find themselves fighting for their members’ lives or weeping into their graves. It is not surprising, then, that the likes of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and the National Union of Mineworkers have lost patience with what they say is mining’s insistence on putting profits before lives.
In the aftermath of Sunday’s tragedy at the Palabora copper mine in Phalaborwa, they have called for changes in safety laws. They want mining companies to be fined after any accident, and investigations to determine if managers should be held personally liable and prosecuted. The unions also want miners’ rights to refuse to work in dangerous conditions to be strengthened. In contrast, mining companies have objected to the Department of Mineral Resources’ insistence on underground operations being halted after accidents.
Mining minister Gwede Mantashe said this week he was bringing the mining summit forward from November to September in response to the trend of rising deaths, and legislative amendments would be on the agenda. The last time changes were made to the 1996 Mine Health and Safety Act was in 2006, when regulations were updated.
The question the summit needs to tackle is a crisp one: Do black lives matter? In light of the only possible answer, mining companies will have nothing to fear from strengthened punitive measures or workers’ rights, because they will do everything in their power to eliminate risk to life and limb in the world’s deepest mines. Surely it’s clear to them that the best way to protect profits is to prevent accidents in the first place?