Outlines steps taken to improve health and safety performance

Reaffirms right of employees to withdraw from unsafe workplaces

The Minerals Council South Africa, acknowledging public concerns about reversals in improving safety performance since 2017, today outlined the range of measures being taken to address the industry’s most challenging safety risks.

Minerals Council vice president Neal Froneman, was speaking at the tripartite Occupational Health and Safety Summit near Johannesburg on a panel with representatives of government and organised labour.

He highlighted the organisation’s safety and health day campaign launched in August, in terms of which all mines of all members are committed to carrying out special activities on a designated day. The public campaignis designed as a recommitment to the industry’s goal of ensuring that all employees must go to work in the knowledge that they will return home, every day, unharmed.

Mr Froneman spoke of the work of the Mining Industry Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) Learning Hub since 2009 through which Minerals Council members learn and adopt best safety practices from each other. He also related information on the Minerals Council’s CEO Zero Harm Forum where safety and health issues are regularly addressed by the industry’s most senior leadership.

“All this work shows that there is no single solution to mine health and safety. We have to keep working on a broad range of issues and levels and more importantly all stakeholders have a responsibility to work together if the goal of zero harm is to be achieved,” he said.

Mr Froneman emphasised the Minerals Council’s support for the right of workers who fear they are working in unsafe conditions to withdraw from those localities until they are safe to work in.

Mr Froneman’s full address can be found at https://bit.ly/2CtVHYu