nice recognitionCelebrating safety
Posted By RON GRECH, THE DAILY PRESS
Posted 5 hours ago
For the first time ever, there was a five-way tie for one of the region's top mining safety awards.
The five companies -- Xstrata Copper Kidd Mine, Lake Shore Gold, Rio Tinto Luzenac, St. Andrew Goldfields and Kirkland Lake Gold -- were presented with the Angus D. Campbell Award in Timmins last night.
The Campbell award is presented to the company with the lowest time injury frequency.
This takes into account any lost shifts due to injury. All five companies had zero lost shifts throughout 2008.
Officials with the Porcupine Northeastern Ontario Mines Safety Group, which hosted the event, said the rare achievement reflects the rising standard of safety being implemented industry-wide.
Rio Tinto was a dual winner, earning the Robert E. Dye Trophy, the other top award of the night.
The Dye trophy was presented to the member firm with the lowest medical aid injury frequency. This takes into account any injury requiring professional medical treatment, regardless of whether a shift is missed. This could involve treatment from a doctor, eye specialist, dentist or chiropractor.
Rio Tinto Luzenac, which operates a talc mine about 70 kilometres west of Timmins as well as a processing plant within the city, had zero incidents in this category.
"We have a fantastic group of employees who are totally
dedicated to safety and the safety of others," said Mike Francoeur, Rio Tinto's Canadian
operations manager, when asked how the Timmins mine has been able to achieve a consistently impressive safety record.
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"There is a lot of pride connected to safety -- not necessarily this award. People just want to be safe, do everything in their power to be safe," he said.
A key to achieving this safety record, Francoeur said, has been "Empowering the employees to look after their own safety. Getting them to look and then be their brother's keeper. They're empowered. If they don't think it's safe to do a job, they don't do it. They do a risk assessment before they do any task and if they feel it's not safe, the job stops there."
Last night marked the third time since 2002 that Kirkland Lake Gold has won the Angus Campbell Award.
Ray Belecque, general mine manager at Kirkland Lake Gold, said it will be a challenge trying to maintain that award-winning safety standard.
"We had a great record last year, and we've just increased our mine," said Belecque. "For this award here, we were running 225 employees, and now we're up to 400.
"This month we enlarged our mine and hired 140 more employees in the last two months."
"So we're in a bracket of a higher number of people which is a real hard achievement to keep this frequency going," said Belecque.
In addition to the two major corporate awards, there were were 75 individual awards presented to mine employees from throughout the region.
The individual awards ranged from certificates of achievement for completing 5,000 to 15,000 safe work shifts to awards of excellence for completing 60,000 to 75,000 safe work shifts.
Randy O'Connor, an underground maintenance supervisor at the Goldcorp Hoyle Pond and his crew of 12, were among those who received an award of excellence for compiling a total of 85,639 safe shifts.
"It's a huge accomplishment for about 85,000 shifts. That's about 15 years," he said. "This is an accomplishment but it's not a victory because a victory means the game is over and in safety, the game is never over. It continues each and every day.
"This award goes out to myself and the crew. It's not just myself. It's the guys at the end of the day that perform the work that go home safety each and every day. If they go home with every finger and toe they come to work with, it's mission accomplished for that day but tomorrow it's a whole new day."
O'Connor said, there are inherent risks in mining which make these awards a significant achievement.
"We're working around heavy loads, working under heavy loads, familiarizing with new equipment, all kinds of training for this new equipment and just basically working underground. It's a harsh environment to begin with and you always have got to be on your game."
O'Connor said safety is on their minds every day.
"We have our monthly safety meetings, for myself and the crew. And each morning we have a toolbox safety huddle which lasts about five to 10 minutes. We talk about safety every morning, all the stats and I hand out all the work jobs to each guy and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.
"It's not a one-on-one, it's myself on the crew. At the end of the meeting, the crew has a chance to voice concerns if there's anything unsafe and we act on it."
In those morning meetings, they will address "hazards of the day and a general safety talk for that day. And each guy has got a specific job for that day and there is a safety message that goes along with that job they're doing for that day."
The Porcupine Northeastern Ontario Mines Safety Group awards are presented annually. There are 10 mines and mining contracting firms from the region that are members of the safety group.