The Key to Eliminating Coalmine Accidents is to Get Workers Involved in Monitoring Occupational Health and Safety: Some Thoughts after the 7 August Daxing Mine Disaster

On 7 August 2005, 123 miners were trapped in the flooded coal mine at Daxing, Huanghuai Town of Xingning City, Meizhou of Guangdong Province. By 11 August, only one miner's body had been discovered and the fate of 122 miners remained unknown. Throughout the past week, this small town, located in the northwest of Guangdong Province, received non-stop media attention from the mainland media. We saw again the whole pattern of the aftermath of coalmine accidents on TV: rescue teams were sent to the scene of the accident; the Prime Minister gave instructions; officials from the State Administration of Work Safety visited the mine; police detained the mine owner and neighouring coalmines suspended their production.

On 20 July 2005, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that in the first half of the year, China’s GDP has reached 6742.2 billion Yuan, a 9.5% increase compared with the same period in 2004. According to the website of State Administration of Coalmine Safety [http://www.chinasafety.gov.cn/ [2]], coal production climbed to 940 million tons in the first six months of the year, a 9.7% increase compared with the same period in 2004. The website also shows that from January to July this year, there have been six severe accidents killing in total 485 workers. [A severe accident is defined by a death toll of at least 30.] Compared with the same period last year, the number of serious accidents and death toll both have increased by 100% and 357.5 %. There were three serious coalmine accidents which claimed in total 106 miners' lives in 2004, according to the official statistics.

All these accidents and statistics reveal an undeniable truth: a greater number of workers' lives are being sacrificed for our GDP growth. We are not trying to say that the Chinese government intentionally put workers' lives into the formula to achieve a higher GDP, as we also notice that the central government has pushed forward some measures and policies attempting to improve coalmine work safety, including enacting and promulgating certain regulations on mine safety; restructuring the government bodies of regulating work safety; suspending and controlling the operation of small mines; setting up national and regional production safety indices, and punishing local officials when they failed to stop the occurrences of accidents.... It seems to the public that the government has done their best on mine safety and government officials have seemingly said enough on the issue. Yet, accidents still keep taking place one after the other and officialdom continues to sit on their hands. After the 148 miners were killed in the gas explosion at Daping Coalmine in Henan province on 20 October 2004, the central government and state council elevated the State Administration of Work Safety to a ministry-level government body in February this year, under the slogan of "enhancing work safety and mine supervision to prevent coalmine accidents." However, such an effort is proven to be in vain. In less than ten months' time, three extremely serious accidents, each caused more than 100 fatalities, took place: the Chenjiashan Coalmine explosion in Shaanxi Province [on 28 Nov 2004] and the Sunjiawan Coalmine explosion in Liaoning Province [on 14 Feb 2005] killed 166 and 214 miners respectively. And now, the Daxing Mine flood has taken place!

China Labour Bulletin has been actively involved in promoting the protection of labour rights and standards in mainland China and the on-going violations of basic occupational health and safety in the workplace in order to facilitate China's economic boom has become one of our main concerns. In the past few years, CLB has published a series of reports and opinion pieces about mining accidents and given a lot of recommendations on how to improve coalmine safety. Early this year, CLB's trade union education director, Cai Chongguo, wrote a commentary on the Chenjiashan Coalmine disaster and the government officials' response to the accident. [http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/15916 [3]]. He pointed out that the nation's budgeted coal production is set in an unrealistic level and the coal price has been set far too high, giving local governments and mining companies an excuse to use whatever means to exploit the mines and the workers. Increasing demand for coal and the rocketing price of coal has given rise to illegal mining in small shafts, leaving more and more miners' lives in grave danger. After all, it just becomes a vicious cycle. On 10 August 2005, CLB's director Han Dongfang, wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal, "The problem in China's mining industry is not a lack of work-safety laws and regulations but a near ubiquitous lack of serious enforcement. Terms like "legal" and "illegal" when applied to a mining operation usually mean little more than whether or not the mine's owner has paid off the right authorities." [http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/16054 [4]]

To end the tragedies, CLB insists that the coal miners should be allowed and officially encouraged to form their own health and safety committees, with members directly elected by the workforce and playing a monitoring role at the coalmine. Moreover, these worker-staffed bodies should have the right to order a suspension of work whenever they, not management, find that conditions underground have become hazardous. It is almost like a dream to believe that the government and mining companies would take up their responsibility to enforce mine safety, given the reality of the profitability of coalmining. In May 2005, CLB released the first report on Occupational Health and Safety in China (2003-2004), and taking the same line as the thought above, it provided certain concrete suggestions to improve occupational health and safety issues in China. (It is now only available in Chinese version and the English version of this report is being prepared. If you want to get the Chinese report, see: http://www.clb.org.hk/schi/node/61879 [5]) For the past 10 years, CLB has promoted the set up of workers' own health and safety committees and independent trade unions. We believe it is the best and only possible way to end avoidable, workplace disasters. The call for such kind of independent organization is apolitical, and in fact, should suit very well the ruling party's idea of a "harmonious society". We believe that only when the workers can organise themselves to protect their own rights,will stable labour relations prevail. The economy cannot grow for long if major occupational disasters continue to take place.

We at China Labour Bulletin are terribly saddened by the loss of so many miners' lives in this disaster at Daxing Coalmine and would like to offer our condolences to all the striken families.

China Labour Bulletin
16 August 2005