TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The Sudbury chapter of the United Steelworkers (USW) union, representing about 2 600 mineworkers, believes workers and their families were betrayed by the plea bargain that the Ontario government entered into with miner Vale Canada.

The Toronto-based company, which owns and operates the Stobie underground mine, near Sudbury, was fined a record C$1.05-million for the death of two men at the operation on June 8, 2011.

"Damning evidence was uncovered that show the deaths of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram, like so many other injuries and fatalities in Ontario mines, were preventable.

"Yet our government has refused to pursue the possibility of a criminal prosecution and rejected a public inquiry into mining safety. We're left with a plea-bargain deal in which our government drops most of the health and safety charges in exchange for a fine against one of the largest corporations in the world,” USW Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Vale Canada pleaded guilty to three charges, namely failing to prevent the movement of material through an ore pass while hazardous conditions existed; failing to maintain the drain holes at the 2 400 ft level of the mine, leading to the accumulation of water, creating wet muck which then hung up; and failing to ensure that water, slimes and other wet material was not dumped into the ore pass at the 2 600 ft level.

Vale was fined $350 000 for each count, which amounted to the highest ever total fine levied by a court in Ontario for contraventions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. However, the fines fell short of the maximum possible penalty of $500 000 for such violations.

Numerous other charges against Vale and one of its supervisers were dropped as part of the deal.

The USW said it had conducted an eight-month investigation into the deaths and released a 207-page report that revealed “disturbing evidence” of safety violations. The union said Vale refused to cooperate in its investigation.

The USW report called for numerous safety improvements in Ontario mines, as well as a public inquiry into mining safety and a government investigation to determine if criminal charges were in order.

“The Sudbury tragedy underscores the urgency of a national campaign launched by the USW to urge provincial attorneys general to make a renewed commitment to enforcing the Westray Act,” the union's Canadian director, Ken Neumann, said.

"The Westray Act was enacted in 2004 to ensure that corporations and their executives and directors would be held criminally accountable for putting workers' lives in danger. Since this legislation was passed there have been more than 8 000 workplace deaths in Canada, and not a single corporate executive, director or manager has been jailed.”

Vale said it continued to put in place measures to make its plants and mines as safe as possible, adding that it would learn everything it could about the incident through the coroner’s inquest, when it takes place.