Following an impromptu visit, Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Broomes yesterday found what were described as “atrocious” working conditions at the Linden mines of Chinese bauxite company, Bosai.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) said that accompanied by a team of Occupational Health and Safety Officials, the Minister reported that she was appalled at the conditions under which workers functioned.
She cited poorly constructed tunnels which had live electricity even though there was water on the floor. Basic face masks were being used instead of industrially approved safety masks with proper filters and respirators. The Minister also referred to a sparsely furnished lunchroom with no central or functioning air condition unit, and one adjacent to an exposed sewage pipe,
At the East Montgomery mines, GINA said that workers complained of being forced to cram themselves into one bus for transportation into the worksite. The workers said that the company had two big buses that transported the workers to the mine and the docks, but after one became inoperable, no moves were made to get a second.
The mine workers further complained of working under unsafe conditions, such as an open pit, which many felt was too steep and in some parts they said more dangerous than the one that saw 10 miners losing their lives recently at an interior location. Working in the pit in the night was also made more difficult by the fact that they had to do so with inadequate lighting.
“We need maxi lighting sets, they have we working with pole lights that deh at this end of the mine and another at that end of the mine.
If we gon work night, we need the pit to be bright as day…when you working in there in the night, as soon as you trunk off the machine light, you can’t see in front you,” one worker said, according to GINA.
It was also stated that many heavy-duty machine operators lack functioning air conditioning units. “These machines, often they get AC problems and them threaten operators, them want them to work in that oven for hours,” one worker told the Minister.
The workers at the mine labour under these conditions, 12 hours per day, for a basic salary of US$100 per week, GINA said. “This is the first time in five years we have seen anyone; we haven’t got no visit from no minister, no union,” one of the mine workers told the Minister.
