MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY ACT Lecture

BACKGROUND:

The background to the Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA) is the Leon Commission of Inquiry into Safety and Health in the Mining Industry (1994). The Commission found that over 69,000 mineworkers had died in the first 93 years of this century, and more than a million were seriously injured. Other accident statistics indicated that:

• 1,54 mineworkers were killed and 25,8 seriously injured for every 1000 workers exposed to underground risk work;
• the vast majority of injuries and deaths occurred at or in underground mines (99%);
• gold mines are the most dangerous, accounting for 85,6% of all reported injuries and 72,7% of all reported fatalities;
• 61,7% of gold mining fatalities were due to underground rockbursts or rockfalls;
• the second most dangerous subsector was the coal industry which was responsible for 15,4% of all mining fatalities;
• when compared to 19 other countries South Africa had the sixth highest fatality rate.

In its investigations the Leon Commission sketched the following occupational health experience of miners:

• Tuberculosis rates of 58 per thousand after 15 years of exposure.
• Shaft sinkers and stopers working 8000 shifts have more than 30% probability of developing silicosis.
• 25% of the workforce would present with asbestos related disease including lung cancer after 20 years of exposure in an asbestos mine.
• 50-60% of coal miners would develop coal miners pneumoconiosis after 40 years of exposure.
• 40-80% of workers involved in drilling operations would have hearing problems after 10 years of exposure.

		Prior to the MHSA, the main emphasis and focus of occupational health activity on the mines has thus been on regulating the compensation for occupational diseases rather than the prevention thereof. The Minerals Act focused predominantly on the safety issues in the mining industry with no emphasis on promoting the occupational health status of workers. These deficiencies provided the impetus for the Commission recommending the following:

• drafting of a new Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA, 1996) to provide the comprehensive legal framework for creating a health and safe working environment;
• restructuring of the enforcement agency;
• promulgating of regulations on rockfalls and rockbursts;
• promulgating of regulations and protective measures to protect the health of workers including occupational hygiene and medical surveillance programmes with specific reference to tuberculosis;
• restructuring of research institutions and health information systems;
• ensuring appropriate training and certification of all workers in the industry;

It is worth noting that the MHSA is better than its counter part, the OHSA, in that it entrenches the right of workers to refuse to do dangerous work, thereby paving the way for improved health and safety conditions in the industry.