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Mining Labour Issues and History – Sudbury and Global

NEWS RELEASE: Ministry Issues 41 Orders at Site of Vale Mine Fatalities

Ongoing Safety Issues Reinforce Need for Mining Inquiry

SUDBURY, ON, Nov. 5, 2012 /CNW/ – A community-based committee created after two workers were killed at Vale’s Stobie Mine is shocked that a Labour Ministry inspection of the same mine has resulted in 41 health and safety orders against the company.

“It is deeply troubling for us that orders have been issued to Vale related to concerns with standing water – the very hazard that contributed to the deaths of Jason Chenier and my brother, Jordan Fram,” said Briana Fram of the MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support) committee.

“How can it be that, only 17 months after Jason and Jordan were killed, Vale is being ordered by the Ministry of Labour to rectify problems with standing water in this same mine?” Fram asked.

The community-based MINES committee was formed last month to ask the provincial government to call an inquiry into Ontario mines. Such an inquiry has not been held in three decades.

The Ministry of Labour inspection of Stobie Mine occurred October 17, 2012. At least 10 of the orders issued to Vale, under terms of the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act, are directly linked to water issues.

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Vale safety violations upset family of killed miner – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 6, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The sister of a miner killed June 8, 2011, at Vale’s Stobie Mine and the president of the union representing that worker say they were shocked the Ministry of Labour issued 41 health and safety orders against the company after an inspection at the mine last month.

Briana Fram asked how it could be that Vale is facing 41 infractions at the mine where, 17 months ago her brother, Jordan Fram, 26, was killed on the job.Fram and Jason Chenier, 35, died when they were overcome by 350 tons of muck while working at the 3,000-foot level at Stobie Mine.

Vale is facing nine charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and one of its super visors is facing six charges under the act after a Labour ministry investigation into the men’s deaths. Those charges are proceeding through court.

Briana Fram sits on an advocacy committee called MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support), struck to lobby for a provincewide inquiry into mining safety and practices to avoid tragedies such as the deaths of the two men.

MINES issued a statement Monday saying its members were troubled about the orders against Vale at Stobie, especially ones related to standing water. Excess water was identified as a large part of the reason the two men were killed.

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Gravelle calls for Westray application [in Vale deaths] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 31, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The Westray provision of the Criminal Code of Canada isn’t a useful law unless it’s applied, says the federal New Democrats’ mining critic, Nickel Belt MP Claude Gravelle.

If companies know charges are not going to be laid under the bill, “what have they got to lose?” asked Gravelle.

The Westray bill was created as a result of the 1992 Westray coal-mining disaster in Nova Scotia in which 26 miners were killed after methane gas ignited, causing an explosion.

Despite serious safety concerns raised by employees, union officials and government inspectors, the company didn’t make the changes necessary to avoid the tragedy.

That eventually led to the passage of the bill, under which company executives can be criminally charged if employees are injured or killed because of their failure to take action. United Steelworkers Local 6500 called earlier this year for charges to be laid under the Westray provision against Vale Ltd. executives in the June 8, 2011 deaths of two men at Stobie Mine.

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[Thompson, Manitoba] USW Local 6166 points to contracting out as a ‘contributing factor to our low productivity’ – by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – October 19, 2012)

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000. editor@thompsoncitizen.net

Vale’s Manitoba Operations is “one of the highest cost producers” in Canada and the United Kingdom, USW Local 6166 acknowledged Oct. 19, a day after the company said it was considering mothballing Birchtree Mine again next August. In a news release issued by the local, President Murray Nychyporuk pointed to contracting out as a “contributing factor to our low productivity” at Manitoba Operations.

While it’s not easy to say definitively how many contractors are working in Birchtree Mine because a number of contractors often work in multiple locations throughout Manitoba Operations and flow between worksites, Ryan Land, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Manitoba Operations, said late Friday afternoon there are about 40 contractors working at Birchtree Mine and a “little more than half are miners.”

Issues of cost and productivity are not new to the nickel miner. Productivity at Manitoba Operations from all mines for the number of pounds of nickel and copper produced in an eight-hour shift dropped from 320 pounds in 2001 and 315 pounds in 2000 to 198 pounds in October 2008, the company said on Nov. 28, 2008.

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Mining has seen a lot of changes over 30 years – by Jodi Blasutti Miner (Sudbury Star – October 15, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The past 30 years have shown a dramatic increase in technology in mining. Prior to the 1980s, the majority of excavation work was done with hand held equipment using pressurized air and water.

The biggest advances in taking workers away from the face, the singular most hazardous place, was utilizing mechanized equipment and more recently remote mechanized equipment.

When electric hydraulics were introduced everything became bigger, stronger and faster. The consequences of this was more advanced rock mechanics and ground wee support required to safely allow the rapid advance of stopes and headings.

Even with ongoing changes to safety practice and procedures, the modern environment has created life threatening hazards not seeing in historical mining. In this new age of mining, the rapid advancement of equipment and procedures has superseded the advancement of safety.

The current high cost of wages and equipment puts pressure on engineering design to maximize capable tons produced and concurrently maximize profit.

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Historic milestone for [Sudbury] union – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 15, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

A milestone anniversary in Greater Sudbury’s labour history is being marked today: United Steelworkers Local 6500 turns 50 years old.

It’s also a day of infamy in the history of the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union to whom the more than 13,000 Inco Limited production and maintenance workers belonged before the “raid” by the United States-based union occurred.

While the Steelworkers were successful in winning the right to represent the Inco workers in a vote in June, 1962 — the result was 7,182 votes to 6,951 in favour of being represented by the Steelworkers, the margin of victory was just 231 and only 15 votes over the required 50% — the ballot box victory was not made official for several months.

That was because Mine Mill protested that 71 of the ballots were not stamped with the official mark of board officials and that the 72-hour no propaganda rule had been deliberately violated by the Steelworkers. On Oct. 15, 1962, the board ruled the Steelworkers should be certified. At the time, Local 6500, as the new bargaining group became known, was the largest union local in Canada.

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Goldcorp fined $350,000 [for fatal mining accident] – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – October 12, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Goldcorp Canada has been fined $350,000 in connection with a fatal accident that occurred underground at the Hoyle Pond gold mine in March 2011.

The company pleaded guilty in a Timmins court Thursday to a Ministry of Labour charge of failing to provide sufficient information, instruction and supervision to protect the safety of its workers.

The charge stems from an incident in which David Yuskow Sr., a 57-year-old electrician who worked at the mine, was crushed by a scoop tram at the 1,390-foot level.

Wes Wilson, special prosecutor for the Ministry of Labour, said the mine had a procedure for alerting scoop tram operators about “pedestrians” working nearby but, at the time, it was not enforced in the area where the accident occurred.

“The procedure required the placement of signs and amber lights to alert equipment operators to the presence and proximity of workers,” Wilson explained. “Signs and lights were readily available to the workers at the time of the incident.”

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Mining inquiry gains momentum – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – October 2, 2012)

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

150 pack Steelworkers Hall for forum

Wendy Fram said she was overwhelmed by the turnout at a forum examining the need for a mining inquiry at the Steelworkers Hall Oct. 1. About 150 people, many of them friends of her late son, Jordan Fram, packed the hall, and stood at the back when the chairs ran out. Jordan, along with his co-worker Jason Chenier, died in a mining accident at Vale’s Stobie Mine last year.

“I find that there’s already support to help us deal with this inquiry,” Wendy said. “Hopefully this is going to work for us. I’m going to try to stay as positive as I can and work hard and get this going.”

During the event, Wendy was elected chair of a new group called Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support (MINES), which will push for a mining inquiry. Her daughter, Briana Fram, was elected the group’s secretary. Miner Jodi Blasutti along with Cheryl Dufoe, whose son, Lyle Dufoe, died in a mining accident in Timmins in 2007, will act as co-vice-chairs.

Those at the event were invited to sign up as members of the group. “It’s my first time ever being a chair of a committee,” Fram said. “I’ll do my best. I have my daughter for support, which is a great support. My husband works at Vale, so he has a lot of great input as well.”

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ESSAY:Staring down my ghosts in Northern Ontario [Sudbury mining] – by Sandra Chmara (Globe and Mail – October 3, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite

Little is left of the old nickel town of Victoria Mines: a few metres of crushed slag that once formed a road; sunken foundations, bits of wood. Now a ghost town in Ontario’s Sudbury Basin, it is where my family’s Canadian story began, around the turn of the last century.

Since my father’s death, my heart has been balled into a fist. I thought that coming to look at this place might ease the grip. As we exit the car, we spread out and take measure. Granite tumours bulge: unwelcoming, treacherous for my elderly mother and aunt and uncle. My husband and I keep our little boy close.

Occupying this ground demands an almost sepulchral reverence. It is a haunted space, even if its ghosts exist only in my awareness that life once burgeoned here and then was gone.

Scattered in the scrub are morsels of ore and the occasional verdigris shock of copper-cobalt. Evidence of the living – broken jars, a wooden cross, shards of metal – lie hidden within a hissing ocean of weeds and grass.

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Momentum builds for [Ontario] mining inquiry – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 2, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

There was a sense Monday night, in a crowded room at the Steelworkers’ Hall, that a movement was being born. Its seeds were planted in February when United Steelworkers Local 6500 released its 200-page report on the June 8, 2011, deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, at Vale’s Stobie Mine.

After concluding the accident that killed the men was preventable, the union called on the province to launch a public inquiry into an industry in which hundreds of workers have been killed in the 31 years since the last inquiry was held.

That call was advanced by a postcard campaign by USW Local 6500 and community activist Gerry Lougheed Jr., that has garnered hundreds of signatures of people calling upon Labour Minister Linda Jeffery to launch the inquiry.

Monday night, the campaign took a huge leap forward when almost 200 people packed a room set up with 80 chairs for the first public appearance of a committee called MINES — Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support. Until now, it has been comprised of members of the Fram and Chenier families, union members and Lougheed, working behind the scenes.

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Forum seeks to find ‘resolution’ – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – September 27, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Jodi Blassuti is on a mission. And she’s not going to stop until she’s achieved it. Blassuti, a miner for the past six years, has devoted countless hours and energy to pushing for a mining inquiry in Ontario.

“I was reading a lot in the paper and I was watching Cheryl and Ephraim Dufoe who had lost their son five years ago … that hit home with me really hard, and I know that he’s not the first one to do that. I was watching them and it’s five years later and they’re still fighting for changes and trying to get answers.”

On July 23, 2007, Lyle Dufoe, 25, died after falling 150 feet. He was found at the bottom of a stope next to the scoop and tram he operated in Timmins. Meeting with the Dufoes lit a fire in Blassuti.

“The three of us met after that and we talked for a long time, and they told me everything that they’d been through and how they’re basically getting nowhere, and there’s not a lot of support.

“We’re not going to stop until change is made, and that’s a promise I made to the Dufoes … I feel very passionate about this. It’s something that I’ve lost sleep over.”

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Lack of criminal charges angers [Sudbury] Steelworkers convention – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The international president of United Steelworkers is joining a chorus of outrage over a police decision not to lay criminal charges in the 2011 deaths of two men at Vale Ltd.’s Stobie Mine.
 
Leo Gerard, in Sudbury to attend the USW District 6 triennial convention, said the investigation his union conducted into the deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, was one of the finest it has done.
 
It took eight months and resulted in a 200-page report with 165 recommendations, chief among them that criminal charges be laid against Vale under the Westray Bill of the Criminal Code of Canada.
 
“When you see what happened at Stobie, and you see what happened here in town with the police deciding not to lay any charges … I’ve been around a long time. I know that stuff,” Gerard said. Both his union’s and the Ministry of Labour’s investigations “said there was deliberate ignoring (of ) certain safety infractions,” said Gerard.

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[Sudbury Vale] Steelworkers prez disturbed by police decision – by Heidi Ulrichsen – (Sudbury Northern Life – September 14, 2012)

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

Police won’t lay charges in miners’ deaths

Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said he’s “angry” Greater Sudbury Police have decided not to lay any charges against Vale in the deaths of two miners at Vale’s Stobie Mine June 8, 2011.

Charges could have been laid under the Westray Bill, which makes organizations criminally liable when they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent injuries and deaths on their property.

Insp. Todd Zimmerman of the Greater Sudbury Police said police “conducted a thorough investigation, and we did not reach a threshold of criminality.” There was “no criminal negligence found on the behalf of anyone,” he said.

Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier were killed when a run of muck unexpectedly came out of the ore pass close to where they were working at the 3,000-foot level of the mine, burying them and killing them instantly.

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[Sudbury Vale] Union angry no charges in miners’ deaths – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 15, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The president of United Steelworkers Local 6500 is calling for a meeting with officials from Sudbury’s Crown attorney office to discuss why they and Greater Sudbury Police investigators determined no criminal charges should be laid in the deaths of two men at Vale’s Stobie Mine.
 
Rick Bertrand said his union’s executive and other members are angry charges won’t be laid under the Criminal Code of Canada in the June 8, 2011, deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26.
 
Vale is facing nine charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and one of its supervisors, Keith Birnie, is facing six charges under the act. The union said its eight-month investigation into the men’s deaths showed more serious charges were warranted.
 
“We found disturbing facts … about what went on at Stobie Mine,” Bertrand said Friday of his union’s investigation. USW Local 6500’s investigation determined water was pooled as deep as four or five feet in the corridors of the century-old mine, known for its water problems.

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[Sudbury] Families of mine victims want inquiry – by Sebastien Perth (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2012)

 The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

While hundreds came out for the inaugural Family Fun Fest at Bell Park to celebrate Labour Day, three families were there to honour their loved ones’ memories. Family members of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram where at the park gathering signatures to convince the government of Ontario to hold an inquiry into the mining industry.
 
Family members say it’s time to have another look into the industry since it has been more than 30 years since the last inquiry, with many deaths due to mining accidents.
 
Ethan Dufoe, father of Lyle Dufoe, who died in a Timmins mining accident in 2007, says there’s been too many deaths since the last review of the Mining Act.
 
“The act hasn’t been reviewed in 30 years, when they had Ham Commission review it (1974). There’s been 92 deaths in Ontario since then. One of them my son,” Dufoe said.

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