Mine Safety Course - Assignment Example

Mine Safety of the Foundation Affiliate Department Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Motivation 3 Training week 4 Program of Work 5 Gantt chart 8 Cost of the course 8 Challenges 8 Benefits 9 Conclusion 9 References 10 Proposal for a Mine Safety Course Introduction Rock Breaker Safety Company congratulates you for forming a new mining company. Cambell (2008) observes that mining is a dangerous occupation and each year several mining companies are fined for violating safety regulations and in some instances serious and at times fatal accidents occur at their mining locations. Training is essential to guarantee the safety of your employees as well as the success of mining enterprise (Karmis 2001). Rock Breaker Safety Company is one of the best companies that provide mine safety training to employees. We have more than 12 of experience of training mining staffs and with a proven track record of assisting miners develop a successful mining operation. After your employees will have completed a week long intensive course and put their knowledge and skills to their daily operations, you will feel confident of passing all tests carried out by mining inspectors. Motivation Most people are turning out to join mining industry. The knowledge concerning the risks associated with this industry is still not enough. Am motivated to start this mine safety course so as to equip the miners with information and knowledge concerning the mining risks as well as how to mitigate these risks Goals and Objectives of the Mining Safety Course 1. Teach your mining staff their rights as stipulated in the law. 2. Teach them about mining regulations that they have to abide by given that numerous organizations regulate mining activities. 3. Teach your employees how they can protect themselves against numerous safety hazards associated with mining bearing in mind that mining is a risky occupation. 4. Participants will be instructed on the methods of checking for hazards and how to use safety equipment properly. 5. Participants will also be taught what to look for to avoid dangerous conditions and how to respond to emergency situations. 6. Time Frame for the Course Training week Rock Breaker Safety Company’s safety course takes five days. Participants will be taken through a forty hour course and classes typically begin at 8am, go for a one hour lunch break from noon to pm and stop at 5pm. The following consist in our week of classes; Day Activities Facilitator Monday Employees will be introduced to mining work and their rights. This class will provide learners with an overview of job types and issues associated with the mining industry. Also covered are the miners and mining companies’ rights and responsibilities. Tuesday Participants will be taught about safety and General Health Wellness. During this class, safety, and common health issues that miners encounter will be discussed and how they can protect themselves against injury and illness. Wednesday Equipment safety mining accidents occur as a result of improper use of equipment or equipment failure (MacDonald 2002). This class will equip your staff with knowledge and skills of inspecting all kind equipment to avoid accidents as well as ways of safely using various types of equipment. Thursday Staff will be introduced environmental issues that they should be aware of. These issues will not only help them ensure that they are safe while mining but also ensure that the mining site is a safe environment for the surrounding and other workers. Friday Reserved for simulations and testing. This is the final day of the one week 40 hours course on mining and safety. On this day, your employees will be given an opportunity to interact in numerous simulations of probable emergency conditions. The company will also conduct oral and written testing to ascertain that your employees have fully understood what they were taught during the week. Program of Work During the course we will discuss, communication requirements, emergency response plans requirements for rescue teams, the needed accident preparedness, equipment and technology, incident reporting requirements, grant and scholarship programs for miners. In addition to that, roles and responsibilities of numerous distinct government agencies that regulate mining operations will be discussed. Mining employees are entitled to certain rights. During the course, your mining staff will be taught their responsibilities and rights and ways of reporting complaints and incidents to proper authorities. Your staff will be trained on the right to file complaints with the state’s mine health and safety commissions. They will be taken through their rights to refuse to work in unhealthy and unsafe conditions, their rights to refuse to work at the mining site if they do not have the required safety and health training. Participants will be taught on their right to medical evaluation in case they are exposed to hazardous materials as well as their right to be transferred to different jobs if problems are indicated in the medical evaluation. All these are based on the fact that mining companies and miners have responsibilities and rights (Caldwell 2014). Class lessons will see your staff taken through ways of protecting themselves against muscle and back injuries. Karmis (2001) points out that most of the mining jobs are physically stressful especially on the back. Participants will, therefore, be taught the general fitness needed for miners, ways of ensuring they are safe from common injuries more so repetitive motion injuries. Apart from these, your staff will be educated on how to protect their lungs given that they are frequently exposed to hazardous gases like gases from silica and asbestos, as well as the normal dust. Miners will learn about various kinds of respirators and masks and the conditions in which each is needed and how to use them properly. Miners will be taught how to avoid heat stress. Many a times the mine sites are situated in hot environments, and it is important for miners to protect themselves against heat stroke and heat exhaustion (Cambell 2008).The course will cover in depth these environmental problems that miners face and how to recognize and cure them. Your staff will also be taken through ways of dealing with noise issues. Chapin (2004) claims that whether miners are operating in underground tunnels or surface mines, they are exposed to hearing damage resulting from high noise levels. MacDonald (2002) notes that, miners are required to be constantly on the outlook for possible hazards in their environments of operations. Your staff will, therefore, be taught how to identify structural weaknesses in walls and ceilings, and the presence of hazardous substances like asbestos and water leakages which are indications of possible electrical hazards or floods. The largest section of mining safety is learning the safe ways of operating and working close to heavy equipment. Several injuries are reported on a yearly basis resulting from improper equipment use of equipment failure (Dhillon2008). Though we are unable to teach your staff how to use all types of machineries, we will take them through ways of carrying out repetitive safety checks on equipment. Some of the equipment that your staff will get an opportunity to learn on are, dump trucks, front end loaders, tunnel drilling and boring machines, track hoes and backhoes, jackhammers, forklifts and various drills. Other equipment to be covered include jacks, measuring devices like radiation monitors, pressure gauges and oxygen meters, various types of scaffolding ladders, ventilation equipment, fire suppression equipment, and elevators. During the course, instructors will either add or subtract some equipment from the list depending on the needs of your company. A number of mining activities have huge impacts on the communities and the surrounding areas (Bloom & Denison 2012). Your staff will be taught how to recognize and prevent complications that emerge from a mining operation. According to Heiss&Oeggl (2008) problems arising from a mining operation apart from negatively affecting the site workers, they may also have long-term negative effects on the local ecosystem. It is important that your staff practice what they will have learned during the course. Because of this, on the last day of the course, we will emphasize on the following simulations; inspection of the equipment. The main highlight here will be that every machine operator must carry out an inspection of the machine before operating it. Your staff will be taught how to look for probable hazards like cracked or worn pressure hoses and clamps, loose fittings, leaky valves, cracked conduits and frayed electrical wires. The purpose of this is to help your staff recognize possible hazards prior to developing into emergency circumstances. So as to offer your staff with the necessary practice, my company will either bring a few machines to class or transport students to a suitable location. Your staff will not only be taught how to inspect heavy equipment but will also be taken through inspection of smaller items like measuring and testing equipment, water nozzles, and horses. Your staff will be provided with class notebooks for them to keep and also a course completion certificate. The notebook consists of almost all pages of critical reference information. Gantt chart Activities/ Days Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Introduction Safety and general health wellness Equipment inspection and use Environmental safety Simulation and testing Cost of the course Each participant is supposed to pay $100 per hour. This therefore means that for a participant to finish the course he/she must pay $4000. The learning fee can be paid in bits depending on the agreement between us and your company. To initiate the course, ten facilitators will be hired to teach the learners on the training week. Each facilitator will be paid $300 per hour. Every facilitator will cover 4 hours thus each one of them will be paid $1200. The total amount to be paid by the facilitators will be $12000. In addition, machines to be used for practical classes will cost up to $90000. The total cost will therefore be $102,000. Challenges We will not be capable to teach your staff how to operate all kinds of machines involved in mining activities. This is because we do not have all the machines used in mining activities. To cater for this shortcoming, we advise you to provide us with information about the types of machines that you use at your mining site so that we can include them in the course for your staff. Benefits At the end of the course, the learners will have higher knowledge of Work Health & Safety, making them as well as other mine workers secure from probable harm and injury on a mine site. Moreover, the training is intended to exceed the safety standards needed so as place the participants in the best position to enhance their career. Furthermore, the learners will be able to interact with miners will excellent experience that will make them understand life in the mines. Lastly, practical classes will help new starters to apply their knowledge and show their employers actual skills that could make a large difference and make them more employable. Conclusion Safety regulations in the mining industry ensure that the staffs, management, surrounding community and the environment are safeguarded during any mining activity. It is important for every employee to understand these safety regulations and to observe them in their day to day operations. Rock Breaker Safety Company provides a five day training course to mining employees. Staff with good understanding of the mine safety rules will guarantee a company and the environment a safe and health mining operation. Yours Sincerely Name: Mine Safety Training Administrator, Rock Breaker Safety Company. Contacts: References BLOOM, M.J. & DENISON, M. 2012 Environmental management for extractives, Professional Evidence And Applied Knowledge Services http://partnerplatform.org/?zl177g4a CALDWELL, J. 2014. Health and Safety Management CAMBELL, B. 2008. "Regulation & Legitimacy in the Mining Industry in Africa: Where does".Review of African Political Economy 35 (3): 367–389. doi:10.1080/03056240802410984. CHAPIN, M. 2004. "A Challenge to Conservationists: Can we protect natural habitats without abusing the people who live in them?". World Watch Magazine.6 17. DHILLON, BS. 2008. Maintaining Equipment Reliability, Maintainability, and Safety. HEISS, A.G. & OEGGL, K. 2008. Analysis of the fuel wood used in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age copper mining sites of the Schwaz and Brixlegg area (Tyrol, Austria). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17(2):211-221, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, [3] KARMIS. M. 2001. Mine Health and Safety Management.Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration MACDONALD A. 2002. Industry in Transition: A Profile of the North American Mining Sector. Read More