MSHA to conduct on-site discussions to help prevent fatalities

By |  May 29, 2014

MSHA says it will conduct on-site safety discussions with miners and mine operators across the country in an effort to halt fatal mining accidents.

Twenty miners — including six supervisors – died in metal and nonmetal mining accidents since October 2013. MSHA recently held two mine stakeholder safety summits in less than a month to address the issue.

Enforcement personnel from MSHA’s coal and metal and nonmetal programs, as well as field staff from its Educational Policy and Development division, will visit mines to conduct safety “walk and talks.” These discussions will be designed to increase awareness of recent fatalities and encourage miners and mine operators to use their safety training and watch for unsafe conditions. Topics will include task training, mine examinations, causes of mining fatalities and best practices to prevent mine accidents.

MSHA says inspectors will continue to look for the types of conditions that led to recent mining deaths and exercise their enforcement authority.

“MSHA is using all of its tools – education and outreach, training and enforcement – to prevent these accidents,” says Joseph A. Main, MSHA’s assistant secretary of labor. “But it will also take the efforts of those outside the agency – operators, miners and trainers – to turn this troubling trend around.”

A summit held May 5 informed the mining industry about the causes of these accidents and shared best practices needed to prevent them. On May 22, a conference call with MSHA officials and more than 250 representatives from the metal and nonmetal mining industry continued the discussion about mine fatalities and the role that safety trainers can play in accident prevention.

This article is tagged with , , , , and posted in featured, News

About the Author:


Comments are closed