Analyzing the psychology of mine safety: Vale spokesperson delivers controversial presentation on reality of zero harm policies.

• Author: McKinley, Karen
• Position: NEWS

His presentation started with a disclaimer that his views may not represent those of Vale Canada Ltd., even joking he may not work for them after what he had to say about zero harm policies in the mining industry.

Alistair Ross, director of mining for Vale's Ontario Operations, delivered a comprehensive presentation at the first general membership meeting of 2017 of the Canadian Institute of Mining on Sept. 21 to a packed house at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury.

It focused on how the policies that are meant to eliminate injuries and deaths in mining workplaces actually end up becoming harmful policies by adding too much structure and setting impossible goals.

His message sent gasps around the room. As long as humans are not factored into mine planning, injuries and fatalities will happen. Humans work in in the mining industry, humans are a collection of mistakes, and humans need to be taught what it means to be human before we can start to solve problems, he said.

"Look at who we appoint to the managerial positions, the best engineers," Ross said. "I wasn't taught by humans, only engineers; I lived my life like an engineer. The whole point of being the best engineer I could be was if I had no humans in my plant. When you train up engineers like we do in Canada, it's actually tough to make a transition."

The only way to tackle the problem of workplace injuries and fatalities is to stop identifying themselves as labels and remember they are humans.

Whenever a proposition goes wrong, he said, people need to remember they are humans who make mistakes.

This problem goes all the way back to basic education, he said. The curriculum never teaches people what it means to be human.

"We are teaching managerial leaders, and who are you leading?" he said. "You are not leading machines; you don't lead systems. It's people. And the people we are putting in charge of people know nothing about people."

Behavioural economics are not being considered when setting policies. Humans are complex social creatures, he said. Once society teaches people what it means to be human it starts the process of achieving zero fatalities. Right now, putting the goal of zero injuries on foremen going down into the mine is impossible. They should be rewarded and praised for their good jobs rather than piling on mind-numbing statistics.

Ross said he's dealt with 1,700 incidents this year alone.

He pointed out the nine common killers in mines: blasting, open holes, rock bursts, mobile...