Workers and residents in Cobar, New South Wales, have spoken to the World Socialist Web Site last week about the explosion at the Endeavor lead-zinc-silver mine, which killed mining shift supervisor Ambrose Patrick McMullen, 59, and charge-up operator Holly Clarke, 24, and left Mackenzie Stirling, 24, with serious injuries.
Polymetals Resources Ltd, the owner of the mine, rushed to reopen just eight days after the tragedy. Although official investigations have only just begun and little is known about what caused the worker’s deaths, the company is now proceeding with the resumption of full operations.
The reopening is proceeding with the approval of the state safety regulator and tacit endorsement of the mining unions, which have been completely silent on the restarting of operations to date.
Those who spoke to the WSWS described an industry driven by speed-ups, understaffing and cost-cutting, in which workers are pushed to breaking point and serious safety warnings go unheeded. The reopening was described as reckless and motivated entirely by profit, not the protection of workers’ lives.
All interviews were conducted under strict anonymity, as those speaking are concerned about the repercussions for their jobs and futures in the town.
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A miner told the WSWS, “Something like this shouldn’t happen, not at all.” He had worked with Clarke, describing her as “hard-working, would never quit,” and said McMullen was “safety-focused and cared a great deal for his boys and his family.”
He continued, “We’ve already had experiences with explosions going off, mines collapsing, issues with machinery, all that sort of stuff before. It’s the same incidents that keep happening, but we aren’t finding a way to stop it. That should not be happening.
“The people all the way up, that own the companies, don’t care that much. They’re just money-hungry and not willing to take the correct procedures, fix the equipment, and find a different way to do it.”
When asked about conditions in the mining industry and the drive to get ore out of the ground as fast as possible, he described a system built entirely around speed and pressure. “[They] are rushing it, and when you rush—if they’re pushing you—you make mistakes. Especially the jumbo [drill] operators, and charge-ups are really under pressure too. Shift bosses and the people above ground are always on them, telling them, ‘Get it done, get it done,’ and if you don’t get it done, you’re in trouble. When you’re rushed by ‘important people,’ you’re going to mess up.”
Asked about the rapid restart of operations, he replied, “They should take time and actually fix what’s gone on—find out what’s happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you already know that’s not going to happen. Money hungry.”
He stressed that these problems were nationwide, “It’s all over Australia. All mines have issues with equipment and sometimes they just don’t want to fix it. When the machine’s faulty it doesn’t do the job properly and that can cause more injuries.”
The miner described the punishing conditions underground, shifts of “about 12 hours,” with charge-up crews often forced to stay back to finish the face. “I’ve had experiences where I’ve had to work straight through crib [meal breaks]. That’s illegal, you’re meant to have an hour break. But you just do it because that’s what you’re being told. You don’t really have a say.”
Labour-hire contractors, he said, are kept in a constant state of insecurity, “Throughout the six months they can let you go at any point. If you get to the end of the six months and the mine’s like, ‘I don’t want this guy,’ that’s it. But if you’re already with the company, they can’t do that, it’s unfair dismissal.”
He also denounced the unions, “A lot of the unions screw people over as well, they don’t do their job properly. Even if the company is doing the wrong thing, the union will just say, ‘Nah, it’s fine, go on.’”
When asked about the WSWS call for workers to form a rank-and-file safety committee, independent of management and the unions, to conduct their own investigation, he responded firmly, “I agree. The workers know what goes on, they know what actually happens underground—especially those who’ve worked underground for 40-plus years.”
He concluded, “I don’t know much about socialism, but it sounds much better than capitalism.”
A miner, who has worked at different mines in the area, reported that injuries are common. He himself had been injured at work and spoke about the difficulty of getting workers’ compensation. He said that he isn’t in a union and doesn’t know of them, he didn’t think a lot of his coworkers were in one.
He said, “If you want to know the result of an investigation you have to take them [the company] to court,” and that they don’t want workers to know the results of their investigations.
He also spoke about living conditions in Cobar, that his rental costs were more than $400 per week for a place that is falling down and that the cost of living is going up for basic necessities.
A woman whose husband works in the mines agreed there should have been a full investigation before workers went back and they should be fairly compensated while this is underway because it’s not their fault that this happened.
She said that “Holly was a lovely girl,” and Ambrose was known for his experience and safety-consciousness. She said that it would be “terrifying” for workers going back to the same job without an investigation completed.
Another woman whose husband is a retired miner referred to the death of Mark Brilley who was killed at Peak Gold Mine after being exposed to extreme heat and diesel exhaust in 2017. “He should never have been allowed to go in there,” under such conditions, she said, adding that she has heard many other stories of workers being told to work under unsafe conditions.
A mine worker with more than 40 years’ experience, who had worked with McMullen, described him as “an expert on blasting,” who was “safety-conscious” and knew “exactly what he was doing.”
He spoke about the profound changes that have taken place since he began in the industry, noting that shifts moved from 8 hours to 12 in the 1980s. “That was the best time of mining because you learnt more,” he said, adding, “it’s more theory-based training now than practical training. You get a bit of paper saying you’ve read and understood, but that doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing.”
He explained that the change had occurred “because of the shortage of people in the industry. They had to move people through to build the crews up and get them into the workforce. That was probably the quickest way they could do it … without having that one-on-one training, mentor sort of thing.”
In an earlier period, he said, “You cut the ground the way the ground had to be cut, so you had less ground support to do. When you fired it, you drilled it through a certain pattern so it came off smoothly and the blast didn’t break out into the walls. You didn’t have to reinforce them as much. It’s called smooth wall finish mining.”
“That’s not how they operate today. Those things have been lost over the years. Everybody wants to get in there faster, go a bit quicker and drop holes out, and that way the walls get knocked around a bit more. The ground conditions get knocked around, and then you’ve got to do more rehab.” He described it as not giving the ground time to settle.
Speaking about safety in mining, he said, “all the procedures are written in blood, someone’s blood. If something works, nobody changes it until it doesn’t work.”