All mine operations should be shut down for 24 hours to help “reset” discussion on work safety, an industry body has urged.
The Construction Forestry Maritime Mining Energy Union’s (CFMMEU’s) Queensland branch is encouraging the nation’s resource industry to stop work for a day and do a “major reset” on workplace health and safety.
“It means stopping every operation for a period of 24 hours, sitting down with your workers and engaging them around what’s going on with your mine site,” CFMMEU mining and energy president Steve Smyth told the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
Smyth, who made the remarks ahead of a meeting between industry representatives and the Queensland Government, said he was shocked by the six mining and quarry worker deaths recorded in the past year. Four of the deaths occurred at coal mines.
“I don’t know how many fatalities or major accidents we need to have before industry and the regulators take real action,” he said. “It’s trending in a really, really concerning way.”
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State Mines Minister Anthony Lynham described the latest death and injury toll as unacceptable and is meeting with the Queensland Resources Council (QRC), Australian Workers’ Union, CFMMEU and Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy to find ways to prevent workplace deaths and accidents.
“I will be making it absolutely clear that this situation is unacceptable and requires action,” Lynham said in a public statement. “I will make further announcements on what action will be taken by this government after I have considered all the relevant information and outcomes from the meeting.”
QRC promised to do everything it could to improve mine safety across the Sunshine State.
“Every day, every miner who goes to work does a safety induction before they start,” QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said at a press conference. “We need to see if that process is sufficient and to establish what more needs to be done.”
So the mining industry experts are going to meet over safety wha a dead loss that is the cfmeu and the other industry leaders are the problem as well as the managers and supervisors on the mine site
Their all to busy fighting for power and money safety is treated as as a poor second Unless you work out there you will never see how well hidden the problems are.
The worst things are the intimidation bulling and standover the powers to be are and unless you cow tow to the supervisors and their mates you get screwed until they get rid of you you can be the safest person on sight but if you don’t be as deceitful as them you get screwed
SAFETY is BULLSHIT on mine sights smoke and mirrors
Christopher Campbell – absolutely correct, the amount of dodgy shit id see going on, not to mention our own incidents with either machines near flips, pipe bursts and broken legs, and it all gets hushed under the carpet.