Duncan Meerding, Hobart
On April 25, the Beaconsfield goldmine in northern Tasmania had a significant rock fall due to seismic activity measuring 2.1 on the Richter scale. The rock fall led to the death of miner Larry Knight, 45, and the of trapping two other mine workers — Todd Russell, 35, and Brant Webb, 37 — 925 metres underground.
In a May 1 interview on ABC Radio National's AM program Don Schofield, chief inspector of Industry Workplace Standards Tasmania, revealed that he had received two complaints within the last 12 months from workers at the mine in relation to its safety practices.
In October 2005, seismic activity measuring 2.1 on the Richter scale had led to a similar rock fall in the mine, but production at the mine was not stopped.
The mine, owned by All State Exploration, is regarded as one of Australia's richest in yield. The average yield for Australian goldmines is three grams of gold to every tonne of gold-bearing ore, while the Beaconsfield mine yielded 17 grams per tonne of ore.
The May 2 Australian reported that Todd Russell had planned to move to an above-ground security job due to concerns he had about safety at the mine. This information was provided to the paper by a worker who until 12 months ago had been employed at the Beaconsfield mine for four years.
The Howard government's Work Choices laws remove unions' rights to provide occupational health and safety training to workers. In fact, under the Work Choices laws, a worker can be fined $6000 for asking for union-provided OH&S training and unions can be fined $33,000 for demanding employers allow its provision.
"It is a fact that in the last two years alone, NSW unions have trained 20,000 workers in occupational health and safety with access to the training specifically provided under the trade union training leave clauses that are in awards and agreements", ACTU secretary Greg Combet stated on May 2.
Work Choices also limits workers' ability to strike if they believe a workplace to be unsafe.
Australian Workers Union national vice-president Paul Howes explained to Green Left Weekly that the Work Choices laws will stop unions from being able to take industrial action around safety concerns. Howes explained that unions had limited access to seismic charts and other information relating to safety on mine sites and this meant that workers had a harder time through the courts in proving a mine site was unsafe.
He explained that in the past nine years there had been 144 deaths in the mining industry in Australia. No amount of gold is worth a worker's life, he said.
The Beaconsfield disaster is not a freak event, but a result of the sacrificing of workers' safety to corporate profits. Removing workers' right to strike if they believe a work site is unsafe will only increase workplace deaths and injuries.
From Green Left Weekly, May 10, 2006.
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