Sinclair, Darren
Description
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...[Show more] 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.
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