Pit & Quarry, March 2010

Safety S ince the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 has been implemented the Mine Safety Health Administration MSHA has been criticized for being inept clumsy out of touch insensitive unfair viscous blundering misguided wasteful mindless intransigent and ineffective Has all of this criticism really been fair Before jumping to those conclusions look at some facts What happened Early on it was obvious that enforcement was glaringly inconsistent The agency regularly hosted meetings in Arlington Va the district offices and heard innumerable comments at the sub district offices on the subject The MSHA representatives from the succession of assistant secretaries of labor for mine safety and health to the administrators of metal and nonmetal mine safety and health to the district managers and field office supervisors were always courteous and attentive at the meetings But nothing ever changed The inspection force is still out of control Groundless opinion The agencys recent press release says a key factor contributing to the record low number of deaths includes enforcement of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 which succeeded the 1969 Mine Act and continued implementation of the Mine Improvement and Emergency Response MINER Act enacted by Congress in 2006 What a curious groundless opinion to publish There is no body of peer reviewed research that supports the claim that MSHA enforcement has made any contribution to the reduction in the number of fatalities or lesser injuries The great fallacy is that MSHA is relying heavily on individual injury rates to assess safety performance The rates are improving What is the connection MSHA in accepting publishing and using personal injury rates as an indicator of progress is mistakenly confident that enforcement addresses the loss control process Personal injury rates the thing being measured would indicate that loss control safety functions from personal responsibility The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 and MSHA categorically deny this simple IF THE AGENCY HAD A STOMACH FOR SELF CRITICISM AND MACHINERY FOR CONSTRUCTIVE CHANGE IT COULD MOVE INTO A BENEFICIAL MODE OF OPERATION connection in theory and in practice Considering the millions of dollars MSHA has spent it would be reasonable to expect that a positive payoff of the agencys enforcement could be demonstrated However there has been no validated demonstration of effectiveness The agency has had several reorganizations The unfortunate result is that the reorganizations only precipitated the need for more reorganization Mode of operation If the agency had a stomach for selfcriticism and machinery for constructive change it could move into a beneficial mode of operation MSHA has repeatedly ignored suggestions Take note There is no body of peer reviewed research that supports the claim that MSHA enforcement has made any contribution to the reduction in the number of fatalities or lesser injuries from individual companies so that the source of criticism has been cut off The agency has suckered the industry associations into partnerships removing that source of criticism How does an organization criticize its partner Congressional oversight is nonexistent Congress like MSHA is incapable of criticizing itself or its creatures The recent press release seems to indicate pride in the fact that it has assessed 173000 civil penalties There were 1407 million in assessed penalties That is hardly an accomplishment worthy of pride If all of the fatality investigations citations and penalties result in mining companies being deprived of the use of this much money it is a subject of shame not accomplishment With all of this failure after 33 years of the application of a remedy something is badly awry The remedy has burdened the industry with an intrusive police force that is inept out of touch and unfair The long suffering industry is in need of empathy and MSHA in need of enlightenment y Pity poor MSHA BY CARL METZGAR Carl R Metzgar CSP has more than 30 years of safety and health experience in the aggregates industry He provides consulting services with a specialization in program evaluation training compliance and loss control and can be reached at 336 766 8264 cmetz46840@ aol com 24 PIT QUARRY March 2010 www pitandquarry com