Source: Etu Union
By Mark Anderson, Process Operator at OceaniaGold Waihi, and Convenor of the E tū Engineering, Infrastructure, and Extractives Industry Council
It’s 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning. I’m at work, constantly hopping in and out of my front-end loader to pull five-foot-long, waterlogged timber beams out of the ore that the underground crew has brought up overnight. These beams come from the old timber framing used to build the Waihi mine over 100 years ago.
Pieces of timber like this are absolute showstoppers for us – if they end up on the conveyor belt heading into the mill, they could jam the system or get stuck in the feed chute, shutting us down for hours and leaving a massive mess to clean up. I don’t want to be that guy, so here I am, sweaty and covered in mud at 3 a.m., hauling them out by hand. But I don’t mind. I’ve got a huge smile on my face because I love the job I do.
I work as a process operator at the gold mine in Waihi. There have been big developments recently, not just at the site but across the town, the country, and in the news. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on that.
At the end of January, Hon. Shane Jones brought MBIE and the media pack that follows him to Waihi for his big “Critical Minerals” announcement. Naturally, the protestors followed too, eager to let him know exactly what they thought of his plans.
I was part of the delegation that hosted the Minister, not just because I work at the mill but because I’m also a union delegate and the Convenor of the Engineering, Infrastructure and Extractives Industry Council for E tū, representing nearly 8,000 members in these industries. One thing I’ve noticed in all the discussions about fast-tracking mining, the use of public land, and economic impacts is that the voices of workers have been completely missing.
For workers, the first part of this conversation is obvious: it’s great news for the industry. The Government wants to invest in and expand mining, which means more security for those of us in the sector. That kind of stability is rare.
When I started my job at Waihi in 2007, they told me the “life of the mine” was about 18 months. I didn’t tell my partner that right away – we had just bought a house and had our second child, and we had enough pressure as it was. Mines open and close depending on commodity prices and market shifts. That’s just the way it is. But for the first time, there’s a sense of long-term security for workers and contractors, and that’s a huge win. Most mines in New Zealand are in regional areas, so this also means a boost for those communities and the families who rely on these jobs.
That said, every silver lining has a dark cloud. In my role as delegate and Convenor, my job is to look at the bigger picture and consider how all this affects workers. Is the Government rushing into this? Have they really thought it through? Are we actually prepared to scale up the industry safely?
Safety is always the first thing on a worker’s mind in this industry. It’s the first thing we talk about at the start of every shift, and it’s the foundation of most of our training. While Shane Jones is out there making big mining expansion announcements, over in the health and safety sector, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, has quietly been working on a review of the Health and Safety at Work Act – what most people know as the Pike River legislation.
Last year, she held a roadshow to gather input on the review. Workers and unions did everything they could to attend those meetings, but getting a seat at the table was very difficult. Meanwhile, business and industry representatives seemed to have no trouble getting in.
Late last year, I was lucky enough to attend a CTU-organised event at Parliament where Brooke van Velden was present. She was asked directly why she hadn’t been engaging with workers about the review, and she responded saying she had. Never mind the experience of the workers and their unions in the audience before her, who have found it impossible to have real engagement with her on this issue and many others.
After the event, I approached her and invited her to visit Waihi, to come and see firsthand the work we do and the risks we manage to keep people safe. I invited her because I believe we do a very good job with safety, in comparison to other places around the country. A few days later, her office emailed me back with a polite but clear refusal. She had no immediate plans to visit Waihi or the surrounding area. The invite remains open.
So here we are, with one part of the Government rushing full steam ahead to expand mining while another is quietly working to weaken health and safety laws.
Expanding mining means an influx of new, inexperienced workers into a high-risk industry. It takes time to train people properly so they can work safely in these hazardous environments. In Waihi, new workers wear green hard hats so they’re easily identifiable – so we can look out for them. But if we get too many “Green Hats” at once, especially in newly established mines, we might have a serious safety issue. Without enough experienced workers to mentor them, the risks multiply.
The Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety hasn’t yet detailed her plans for the Act, but my biggest fear is that, in classic libertarian fashion, the goal will be to deregulate, deregulate, deregulate – then tell companies to sort it out by increasing their insurance premiums.
Maybe that sounds cynical. I hope I’m wrong. But this Government hasn’t exactly shown much concern for workers’ rights so far, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
Then there are the other questions. Where are these workers going to come from? Where will they live in the remote areas where these mines are located? No one seems to be asking those questions, and I fear they’ll just be left for “the market” to sort out.
Back in Waihi, when protestors delayed Shane Jones’ speech, I noticed him sitting alone and decided to take my chance to talk to him. I asked him about worker safety, about where we’d get the people we need, about whether the Government had a plan. For a man who’s usually never short of words, all I got was a raised eyebrow and a nod.
I don’t think this Government has the answers. This year we will acknowledge the 15th anniversary of the Pike River tragedy. The only way we can honour the lives of those workers is to ensure we never let health and safety standards fall behind again. Without workers at the forefront of this project, and without a Government committed to the highest standards, I find myself fearing the worst.
