Miners urged to account for all employee fatalities before paying executive bonuses

THE mining industry is being urged to account for deaths of employees in environments where companies do not have direct management control, such as offloading minerals at ports, in order to provide a comprehensive overview of safety data.

Miners need to take responsibility for deaths in transport, Peter van der Werf, an environment, social and governance specialist at Dutch fund manager Robeco, told The Wall Street Journal. Failing to do so made it hard to properly judge the safety of the industry, said Van der Werf.

“It is an essential and high-risk element of their operation, especially because they are transporting with heavy-duty trucks in emerging markets where one of the highest causes of deaths is road accidents,” he said, referring to recent studies on the topic.

The publication cited the case of a South32 employee who died after becoming trapped under the wheels of his truck while delivering coal. South32 said in its annual report that it had zero casualties for the financial year which had an influence over the bonus awarded to the group’s CEO, Graham Kerr. South32 said it was reviewing its policy.

Many other miners, including giants Anglo American and Glencore, don’t always count transportation deaths in their end-of-year tallies, keeping death tolls lower and sometimes allowing executives to get bigger bonuses for so-called zero-fatality years.

This goes against a standard set down by industry body, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM).

The ICMM states, though, that deaths resulting from work activities at the “direction of the employer, regardless of location” are occupational injuries and deaths. The trade body categorises driving for a company as a “controlled activity” and cites examples such as someone driving ore from a mine to a seaport.