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In today's mines, fatigue, human error,
AIDS are the new dangers
Hard work in dark, noisy, hot and dusty conditions far underground has traditionally been seen as a risky existence. Today, however, the stereotype of young miners risking their lives and health in unsafe mine shafts is no longer accurate. In modern day mines, a dwindling, often aging workforce faces the new dangers of fatigue, stress and AIDS.
GENEVA - Mineral production is increasing as mining employment steadily declines. The once labour-intensive mining industry now employs well under one per cent of workers around the globe, but the demand for minerals is stronger than ever.
A new ILO report * prepared for the Tripartite Meeting on the Evolution of Employment, Working Time and Training in the Mining Industry, held in Geneva from 7 to 11 October, shows that the pressure on miners is increasing. It says that well over 3 million miners' jobs have been lost in the past five years alone, and that while employment in the sector has stabilized or even increased in some regions, the downward trend will continue.
Meanwhile, producers continue to satisfy a mineral-hungry market, by opening new and highly-efficient mines (mainly in developing countries), and by achieving extraordinary gains in productivity at existing sites through flexible and intensive shifts worked by teams of highly skilled workers.
In coal mining for example, the report shows that in recent years productivity in Canada, India, and the US increased by 100 per cent, and in Australia by more than 200 per cent. In Poland, where coal production fell by about 60 per cent over a five-year period, employment fell even more, by over 70 per cent. And in South Africa, the value of mine production increased by over 250 per cent between 1985 and 2000, whereas employment fell by a full 50 per cent.
The danger of fatigue
Such achievements can have a price. The report warns that current work patterns may have more debilitating effects on judgement and effectiveness than was previously thought. Work in mines is increasingly organized around continuous operations, with miners alternating long and numerous shifts with extended periods away from work. The health and safety consequences of these more flexible work patterns are not yet clear, according to the report. The link between longer work shifts and fatigue and human error has not been adequately examined. But fatigue can have as great an effect on work performance as drug or alcohol abuse.
"Employees who exceed alcohol limits are generally prohibited from working, whereas a worker who has been awake for 18 hours or more shows the same symptoms but faces no such barriers," the report says.
Fatigue and long hours can also have detrimental social consequences on miners' well-being and on that of their families.
"Studies dealing specifically with the effects of shift work on family show that, unless managed cautiously, shift work can cause heightened levels of stress and disruption for the partners and families of shift workers," the report cautions. Night shifts and sleep deficit are pinpointed as specific problems which can disrupt workers' family and social lives.
Global competition is putting particular pressure on older mines in traditional mining centres, such as Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, obliging them to rationalize or close down. The preoccupation with productivity and the struggle to survive has, in the opinion of certain miners' representatives (see box on the Ukraine), led to the neglect of safety in these regions.
AIDS as a mining issue
In certain sectors of the mining industry, mainly southern Africa, the problem is further compounded by the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS among the workforce. "In some countries the proportion of the mining workforce that is HIV-positive is considerably above that of the population as a whole (for example, 20-30 per cent of the mining workforce versus 12 per cent of the general populations in South Africa)," says the report. It identifies the practice of accommodating migrant workers in single-sex hostels, with long periods of separation from their families, as a key factor in the high incidence of HIV infection among the mining population.
The report praises the companies and trade unions in southern Africa which have been at the forefront in recognizing and tackling HIV/AIDS, and in addressing the need to focus on schemes for the prevention and care of their employees. But current infection rates mean that the ability of more and more miners to work will be compromised, increasing the pressure on their colleagues when they are forced to take sick leave or while a new worker is recruited and trained. Beyond the economic impact of HIV/AIDS, the social and emotional consequences on the miners and their families are immeasurable.
Mining is an industry in mutation. Given its occupational hazards, the report warns that current intensive working practices "may turn out to be a poisoned chalice for workers, their families, the mining industry and society at large some years in the future".
* The evolution of employment, working time and training in the mining industry, International Labour Organization, Geneva 2002, ISBN 92-2-113223-4.