Workplace health and safety in the Australia coal mining industry: mistrust, management and regulation

Abstract

Over the last 10 to 15 years, Australian coal mining companies have implemented sophisticated management systems designed to substantially improve workplace heath and safety (WHS). This has led to a distinctive WHS ‘architecture’ across the industry, and has coincided with steadily declining fatality and injury rates. In conjunction with these developments, government regulators have progressively modified the external regulatory framework. In particular, new forms of regulation have shifted away from prescription towards ‘management-based’ initiatives. The expectation is that companies will go ‘beyond compliance’ to achieve WHS improvements greater than that required by law. The combination of internal company WHS architecture and external managementbased regulation has coincided with substantial improvements in WHS outcomes across the Australian coal mining industry. Since the mid 1990s, fatalities have fallen substantially, along with other recorded injuries. However, in the last few years it appears that these earlier gains have not been sustained. Further, WHS outcomes vary widely between individual mine sites of the same company. Against this backdrop, the thesis addresses two overriding research questions. First, what factors have hindered the continued and consistent improvement in WHS outcomes across mine sites? Second, and from a normative perspective, what policies and strategies may be employed to overcome such factors? In answering these questions, the thesis addresses several inter-related themes, namely: the implementation of corporate-wide WHS management systems; the role of culture, especially mistrust, in influencing the operation of such internal WHS management systems; the role of mistrust in undermining the operation of external regulation, including management-based regulation; the tendency of WHS codes of practice to be used as a form of creeping prescription; and the competencies, capacities and enforcement strategies of WHS regulatory agencies. The thesis draws on interview-based fieldwork, desktop research and literature reviews competed between 2007 and 2012. Face-to-face interviews were conducted at three Australian coal-mining companies, as well as with regulatory officials across Australia and officials from national and state mining industry associations and trade unions. In addition, phone-based interviews were conducted with WHS management from over 20 metalliferous and coal mining companies. The thesis also draws on a range of safety statistics, both from the public domain and internal company records. Finally, interviews and statistical data were supplemented by reviews of both the domestic and international literature. The thesis’ findings suggest that WHS management systems may be, to a considerable extent, subservient to the culture into which they are received. And high levels of organisational mistrust, in particular, are more prevalent in those mine sites that appear to have resisted most strongly the imposition of corporate wide WHS management systems and standards. Beyond internal culture, the tools, behaviour and attitudes of mining inspectorates also influence WHS behaviour and outcomes. As such, the thesis considers how mining inspectorates should interact with mining companies in seeking to enforce WHS compliance, what inspectoral competencies, characteristics and behaviours should they possess, and what enforcement guidelines should they operate under. In this respect, the findings of the thesis may resonate beyond the Australian coal mining industry.