Seven mine workers have been killed in Queensland mines in the last 18 months , the last one, two weeks ago at Carborough Downs, Coppabella .
Previous to that, a young guy of 27 was crushed between the stairs and the excavator that he was operating, in July.
Brad Duxbury is the most recent mining casualty, he worked for Fitzroy Australia Resources which is a subsidiary of AMCI (American Metals & Coal International ).
AMCI are moving into central Qld in a big way . They already have assets in South Africa , South America, North America and Europe. They took over the Carborough North mine in 2016 from Vale Mining and the push has been to get it up and running and bring in the profits.
Fitzroy boasts about “achieving so much at Carborough in such a short time” and their desire to “ drive performance and “team levels”. There is talk of a Carborough South mine in the future. They also have the go ahead from the Queensland government for another mine that will employ up to 350 mine workers .
Most according to Fitzroy Resources will be new entrants to the mining industry trained by a labour hire mob called SES Labour solutions.
Fitzroy say that partnering up with SES will ” further enhance their culture of being a people business”. What this really means is workers will be working for labour hire .
Most of the workers will have never worked in in a mine before . The company wants to by-pass experienced mine workers in order to maintain even more control and drive home typical U.S. style line (we are one big family) . Lets all work together -you don’t need unions.
This is a recipe for more deaths and injuries while these multinational companies go hell for leather to rob Australia of its resources while leaving behind a trail of death and injuries for Australian workers.
These deaths are becoming far too frequent and highlight the need for better organisation among mine workers. They need to fight back against employers exploiting the largely non-union workforce and cutting costs on safety.
Most mines in central Queensland use body-hire companies and contractors on a fly- in- fly- out basis. The foreign mining companies have full run of the show with very little or no representation on worksites.
Workers need to get better organised if they are to slow up the death count. When safety is left in the left in the hands of the bosses, death and injury are the result. Safety and conditions in the mining industry have been going backwards since the 1980’s.
Look at the rort with Black Lung disease, where workers were told it no longer exists in the industry. Now in 2019, there are 102 confirmed cases plus another 250 suspected and that’s just in Queensland.
It really highlights that when workers are left in the hands of employers with very little union organisation or input into safety issues, then things go terribly wrong. The drive for profit will always override safety because real safety digs into their greedy profit margin.
The only way to slow the death count is to have real worker control on the shop floor.
