Corps de l’article

Introduction

A little studied element of the history of OHS regulation (even that devoted to mining) is the role played by arrangements to represent miners’ interests. Yet, regulatory requirements allowing workers the right to inspect the safety of the coalmines where they were employed began in 1872, a century before such rights were legislated for in other sectors of employment. With few exceptions (see, for example, Atherley et al., 1975), the precedent went largely overlooked by those writing on the overhaul of OHS laws in the 1970s. Nowadays, provisions for worker representation and consultation on OHS matters are widely seen as key elements of process-based regulatory measures in most advanced economies and at a global level (in ILO Convention 155). Further, there is substantial evidence indicating that when operational, they contribute significantly to improved OHS practice and outcomes (Walters and Wadsworth, 2019). Contemporary research into coalmining has reached similar conclusions (Walters et al., 2016a and 2016b). Three recent accounts have pointed to the detailed history of these measures in mining in the UK, Australia and New Zealand (Walters and Quinlan, 2019a and 2019b; Quinlan and Walters, forthcoming/2020). This paper builds on these previous accounts. It re-emphasises some of their key findings and extends comparative analysis to include developments during the same period in some continental European countries and in North America. This was a period that followed the enormous expansion of coal mining in industrializing countries that was associated with both a revolution in mining technology and a massive increase in output. It was also a period in which the social and political organization of miners increased considerably in the communities in which they lived and worked. This was reflected in the increased membership, organization and significance of trade unions representing their interests (see, for example, Bloor, 2002; Mills, 2010; Beynon and Austrin, 1994; Gollan, 1963; Piggin and Lee, 1992). A central argument of this paper is that union organization made possible the emergence of forms of representation on safety and health in coal mining that were unprecedented elsewhere—including in other forms of mining.

The overview presented in this paper identifies considerable parallels in the regulatory frameworks for representing coalminers’ interests that emerged in a number of countries. Beyond the obvious effects of British colonial influence, these parallels suggest similarity in coalminers’ reactions to exploitative conditions in different countries. They also suggest international communication and collaboration among coalminers’ unions. Through an examination of historical evidence from a variety of sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, records of different national legislatures, reports of national and international union meetings, commentary of contemporary observers, and previously published accounts, the paper explores reasons for the observed similarities. It shows how a dominant model for the representation of coalminers’ interests in safety gradually emerged as a response to conditions in the industry. This model can inform current understanding of what makes representative participation in OHS arrangements effective, whether in mining or in other sectors. The paper therefore argues that there are links between these historical developments, the hostile nature of labour relations in mining and the preconditions for effective OHS representation in the sector that remain relevant.

The following account first traces the introduction and development of provisions for workmen inspectors in a number of different national jurisdictions. It discusses features of the miners’ struggles to achieve and develop these rights, highlighting some key issues, including the nature of support and obstacles to these activities. In so doing, it also provides insights into similarities in the everyday role and functioning of these representatives of labour in coalmining. Furthermore, it identifies and examines the role of other underlying factors of labour relations in coalmining that helped to determine similarities and shaped parallel efforts by unions to improve support in different countries. Finally, the paper seeks to indicate the relevance of these issues to current challenges for worker representation on safety and health at work.

Key features of the development of the statutory rights of miners to represent their interests in safety in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America

In this section, we briefly review the evidence of miners’ campaigns for effective forms of representation of their OHS in coalmines, and the operation of measures that resulted, identifying both their successes and the key challenges to their effectiveness. Although the measures originated in the UK in 1872, we start our review with the situation in Australia, because it is here that we have been most successful in finding contemporary accounts of the origins, development and actions of workmen’s inspectors.

Australia and New Zealand

Provisions empowering coalminers to represent their OHS interests in the mines where they worked were enacted in New South Wales within four years of British legislation. They are described in detail elsewhere (Walters and Quinlan, 2019b). Here we briefly outline some key developments to draw attention to the role of miners’ unions in pressing for such reform and the issues that they sought to address.

In New South Wales (NSW), coalmining began in the late 18th century and was well-established by the 1840s. From the early 1870s, Hunter Valley coalminers campaigned for provisions similar to those in the UK through their meetings, conferences with coal-owners, deputations to government ministers, petitions to parliament and ‘locking-in’ political candidates (Newcastle Chronicle, 20 February, 1872; Empire, 7 July, 1873). Commenting on the miners’ petition in relation to an 1873 Coal Mines Bill, the NSW Coal Fields Examiner (precursor to a Chief Mines Inspector) indicated that he had no objection to miners appointing at their own expense, one inspector for each of the Northern and Western Districts (Empire, 1 April, 1873). In essence, this would have amounted to district workmen-inspectors being able to inspect multiple mines. The miners further proposed that government inspectors have powers to suspend mine operations, not found in UK laws. Ultimately the 1873 Bill lapsed but the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1876 included (s30) measures almost identical to the UK provisions, enabling miners in a mine to appoint two of their number to conduct at their own costs at least monthly inspections. While this was no more than a colonial extension of British legislation, the evidence of the New South Wales miners’ campaigns to achieve these measures is clear. From the outset, union spokespersons argued for the right to appoint their own workmen’s inspectors (called ‘check-inspectors’ in Australia). They accepted this would mean resourcing their activities and that doing so would ensure check-inspectors represented miners’ interests (Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 July, 1873 and Newcastle Herald, 16 December, 1873).

There is evidence that check-inspectors were actively operating in some coalmines immediately after the legislation was passed (Newcastle Herald, 10 July, 28 August, 23 September, 10 October, 7 November and 16 December 1876). However, as in the UK, some mine managers obstructed check-inspectors undertaking their tasks, commonly claiming they were not properly appointed under the legislation. This occurred at the Greta Colliery—with the union pursuing the matter with the Minister for Mines (Newcastle Herald, 12 November 1886). The issue was more severe where union organization was weaker, like the South-coast coalfields, highlighted in the aftermath of the Bulli colliery disaster that killed 81 on 23 March, 1887. In his study of the disaster, Dingsdag (1993: 12) argued “the possibility of being dismissed under No. 6 of the [mine’s] Special Rules and the added inconvenience of miners having to contribute to the wage of the check-inspectors from their own income forestalled the implementation of the check-inspector scheme.” In the immediate aftermath of the Bulli disaster, the union alleged miners had been terrorized by management and that “if they had their own check-inspector, as the law entitles them to, this disaster would never have happened; but because whoever moved for it would be a marked man they have not ventured to do so.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March, 1887).

Even where check-inspectors were present, they could face access issues. In June 1889, check-inspectors were refused access to the shaft after 18 miners were trapped by a collapse at the AA Company’s Borehole Colliery. As with a number of other incidents, miners had expressed fears of a collapse prior to the event. The refusal to admit check-inspectors as part of rescue efforts caused considerable anger—seven miners escaped but 11 others perished (Beauchamp, 2014: 193-204). A subsequent coronial inquest established that check-inspectors had conducted regular and detailed inspections, whereas a government inspector had last visited the mine over six weeks prior to the incident (South Australian Register, 30 July, 1889). In response to Bulli and Borehole, a new Coal Mines Regulation Bill was introduced in 1889 that included mandating check-inspectors access to the mine’s safety records (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October, 1889). Ex-coalminer union representatives, now parliamentarians, James Fletcher and James Curley actively promoted the law and supported union proposals to address victimization fears by having the right to appoint experienced miners from outside a particular mine (Gollan, 1972). The Bill eventually stalled. As in the UK, coalminers’ leaders elected to parliament continued to push for regulatory reforms and check-inspectors’ activities were repeatedly used in parliamentary debates by the emergent Labour Party. The fruits of these activities were seen in the 1902 Coal Mines Regulation Act. Rule 39 of the Act slightly reworded the criteria for appointment to either “two of their number” (as previously) or “any two persons not being mining engineers who are practical working miners”. This partially addressed miners’ concerns about intimidation of those employed in the mines they inspected. But like UK reforms during the same period, ex-miners, or those currently employed by the union, were still precluded. Rule 41 of the Act required mine-owners to facilitate miners’ meetings to make appointments of the check-inspectors while specifically prohibiting interference from them in the appointment process.

Australian coalminers’ unions pressed for the appointment of district check-inspectors, who would be both knowledgeable of local conditions and more accountable to the mining community (Newcastle Herald, 23 July, 1897). Even before 1900, Illawarra and Hunter Valley miners’ unions were appointing salaried district check-inspectors covering groups of mines in a particular region to complement those operating at mine level (The Worker, 31 March, 1900 and The Bulletin, 27 September, 1902). But the legislative requirement for check-inspectors to be practical working miners made their re-election difficult (People, 30 August, 1902). This issue was highlighted following Australia’s worst coalmine explosion at the Mount Kembla Colliery in the Illawarra Coalfields on 31 July, 1902 killing 96 men and boys. Submissions to the subsequent Royal Commission urged removal of the term ‘working’ and the prohibition of mining engineers serving as check-inspectors from legislation (Piggin and Lee, 1992). A range of witnesses gave evidence on the effective functioning of check-inspectors in other mines, including instances where their concerns were endorsed by government inspectors (Piggin and Lee, 1992: 469). But fears of victimization continued to influence the willingness of miners to take on the role and the ‘working miner’ provision was also used on occasion to block entry by district check-inspectors (Royal Commission of Inquiry Respecting the Mount Kembla Colliery Disaster, 1903: 164-525).

Despite these concerns, the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1902 retained the ‘working miner’ requirement. But in 1904, General Rule 39 of section 47 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act was amended to remove the term ‘working’ proceeding miner, which meant check-inspectors no longer had to be currently employed as a coalminer. This alteration effectively enabled the appointment of local/district check-inspectors who were officials paid by the union. From this time, check-inspectors became increasingly integral to coalmining operations as well as incident investigations, commissions of inquiry and policy/legislative debates in New South Wales. District check-inspectors played an important strategic and operational role as a recognized expert/experienced ‘voice’ in mine safety and health practices and policy debates (Walters and Quinlan, 2019b).

Largely parallel developments occurred in other Australian colonies (which became states after federation in 1901), addressing similar challenges before check-inspectors were able to play an effective role. In Western Australia, where coalmining was centred on Collie, south-west of Perth, the Miners’ Association pushed for check-inspectors from the late 1800s led by the Collie Miners Association. The resulting Mines Regulation Act 1895 contained familiar provisions allowing miners to appoint, at their own cost, two of their number to inspect the mine, who had rights to undertake monthly inspections accompanied by the manager (if he thought fit), with the results to be put in a book kept at the mine. As in NSW, following extensive parliamentary debate, the 1902 Western Australia Coal Mines Regulation Act removed the ‘working miner’ requirement (Rule 50) and prohibited management interference in their appointment (Rule 52).

In Queensland, where gold mining was, at first, far more prominent than coalmining, mine safety legislation initially covered both coal and metalliferous mines (Stoodley, 1968). Following the original Mining Act passed in Queensland in 1881, in 1898, Thomas Glassey, who organized the inaugural meeting of the Ipswich Coalminers’ Union (west of Brisbane) and was now a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), pressed for the insertion of NSW-style provisions into a Mining Bill then being debated (Queensland Times, 1 December, 1898). As a member of the Royal Commission into the 1900 Torbanlea Colliery disaster, Glassey pressed for two miners to be able to accompany government inspectors. The Ipswich union continued to raise the issue in subsequent years (Report of Royal Commission…Torbanlea Colliery, 1900). Finally, the 1910 Mines Regulation Act empowered coalminers to elect persons to carry out inspections, view the mine’s record book, inspect the scene of accidents; be notified of any inquiry into fatal mine accidents; and lodge objections to any special rules (that might make an exception to safety requirements). An amending Act in 1916 improved their capacity to access material and further changes in 1920 empowered check-inspectors to take weekly mine-temperature readings. As in NSW, the union drove these regulatory changes.

Senior union officials, like David Gledson and his successor Charles Kilpatrick, served as district check-inspectors, visiting mines across the state. In 1921, an explosion at the Mount Mulligan Coalmine in North Queensland killed 75 miners prompting a Royal Commission which took union submissions. The Commission’s Report (Royal Commission…Mount Mulligan, 1922) acknowledged coalmining involved hazards distinct from metalliferous mining, leading to the introduction of the separate and more stringent Coal Mines Act in 1925. Section 70 of the Act gave miners’ inspectors the power to suspend operations (Commonwealth of Australia, 1927). But appointment was still restricted to practical working miners at the mine and it wasn’t until 1938 that a new section (70A) providing for district check-inspectors. As in NSW, this system operates to the present day (Walters et al., 2016a and 2016b).

Like Queensland, Tasmanian mine safety laws covered both coal and metal-liferous mining though with separate provisions dealing with coalmining hazards (as in the Mining Act 1905). Section 23 of the 1911 Mining Act Amendment Act empowered coalminers to elect two of their number (practical miners with five years’ experience) to undertake inspections monthly or more frequently if conditions were considered unsafe after giving ‘reasonable notice’, compile a report included in the mines records, and forward the report to the inspector in cases of apprehended danger. The section specified that any miner could read the report and prohibited interference with the appointment or activities of workmen inspectors. Importantly, the Mines and Work Regulation Act 1915 enabled miners to elect persons outside the mine (for an examination of a parallel struggle in metalliferous mining see Quinlan and Walters, forthcoming/2020).

The 1909 Coal Mines Regulation Act in Victoria borrowed from both NSW legislation and earlier colonial laws regulating metalliferous mines, with similar rights for miners to appoint two of their number to inspect the mine at their own cost after giving 24 hours’ notice to the mine management. The union campaigned for the removal of the 24 hours’ notice requirement, arguing that it allowed the mine managers to remove or hide serious issues when inspections took place (Queensland Times, 23 February, 1920). From 1913, the union campaigned for regulatory recognition of district check-inspectors (like NSW) pointing to serious repeated failings in mine ventilation (Age, 18 December, 1913, 5 March, 1918, 8 September, 1921, 11 July, 1923 and 8 December, 1925). But it wasn’t until 1941, after the 1937 Wonthaggi mine disaster (13 dead), that the legislation was amended to establish a district check-inspector position and remove the 24 hours’ notice requirement.

In New Zealand, miners were given powers to appoint workmen inspectors by the 1886 Coal Mines Act (50 Vic No.31) following the 1879 Kaitangata disaster (34 killed by a methane explosion). The provisions were similar to earlier British and NSW legislation. Following the same trajectory as elsewhere, the 1901 Coal Mines Amendment Act empowered registered unions to appoint two miners as check-inspectors who didn’t need to be employees of the mine they inspected. This effectively established district workmen’s inspectors. A further amendment in 1907 required the manager to notify both the inspector and the workmen inspector of any serious accident. As in Australia, check-inspectors’ were often opposed by mine owners. The coalmining industry in New Zealand was smaller and its unions more vulnerable to coal-owner attacks. Efforts by coal-owners to prevent an independent check-inspector system or inhibit their activities included creating company-led ‘break-strike unions’, with check-inspectors appointed with the approval of managers prior to a disaster at Ralphs mine in 1914 where 43 miners died. At the subsequent Royal Commission, these practices were criticized by a Government mine inspector as well as representatives of autonomous unions (Royal Commission…Huntly Mine, 1914: 10-53). The Royal Commission recommendations largely side-stepped this criticism. However, as in Australia, a more effective functioning system of check-inspectors was slowly built. They were removed notwithstanding union opposition when OHS laws were overhauled in the 1990s but reintroduced following the Pike River Mine disaster in 2010.

In our brief account of these developments in Australia and New Zealand, it is important to reiterate the qualification made in the Introduction. Although other types of mining such as hard rock and gold mining also underwent substantial growth during this period, the developments just described were largely confined to coalmining. The forms of mining and work practices involved in metalliferous mining (such as forms of subcontracting known as ‘tributing’, inherited from Cornish tin mining) and the social and labour organization around them was different and less amenable to the cohesive campaigns centring on the collective interests of labour in their safety and health that we have described here (Bowden and Penrose, 2006; Stoodly, 1968; Quinlan and Walters, forthcoming/2020).

The United Kingdom

As it is well-documented, coalmining in the UK developed on a large and unprecedented scale during the 19th century. Hundreds of thousands of miners were employed in the industry by the time coal production peaked at 287 million tonnes in 1913. Accounts show this growth was in part a response to demand and in part to the development of technologies, which allowed extraction from increasingly deeper levels, with consequent increased risks to the miners involved. These consequences were demonstrated by both the frequent occurrence of multiple fatality disasters, which fuelled calls for regulatory intervention, and the everyday toll of death and disease, which was a constant presence in mining communities. This explained the prominence of safety issues among the concerns of early mining unions, local bodies that played important roles in coalmining communities including the broader network of social organizations found within them. As in Australia, UK coal miners’ early struggles to achieve rights of representation on OHS were championed by their unions, and by union-sponsored members of the Legislature. These actions were reinforced by the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), to which the largely independent local and regional miners’ organizations increasingly affiliated (Walters and Quinlan, 2019a).

This mobilization resulted in the provisions of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1872, which empowered two miners in each mine to conduct safety inspections. Its provisions included the limitations in colonial laws already identified. Notably, ‘workmen’s inspectors’ were to be employed in the mines they inspected; legal requirements for employer cooperation were largely absent; mining engineers were prohibited from being a workmen’s inspector, and details on their scope of activities were sparse. Together with hostility from coal owners and managers, these limitations inhibited both their presence and influence. The problems were acknowledged by contemporary writers on regulatory inspection of mines (Boyd, 1879).

Subsequent union campaigns secured regulatory reforms that gradually, as in Australia, enabled the development of a substantial autonomous union structure representing miners’ OHS. In 1911, Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act gave workers’ representatives (with a minimum of five years’ experience) additional powers to examine safety documents and investigate incidents. It also removed the restriction on appointees being employed in the mines they inspected. This allowed the appointment of experienced union officials and the beginnings of district level union structures for representing miners’ OHS interests. Writing on Durham miners, Brown (1987: 145) argued the measures:

[…] strengthened the Mines Inspectorate’s task of imposing safety legislation on recalcitrant mine owners…. By allowing the men to inspect the pit, grievances about safety conditions could be uncovered and dealt with quickly at the pit in the first instance without outside interference.

Williams (1960)—who provided a UK-wide account of workmen inspectors during the first half of the 20th century—found weak regulatory support and mine-owners/managers’ hostility restricted the spread and effectiveness of their activities. Despite these setbacks, unions continued to campaign for regulatory reforms to strengthen their position. These were slowly granted and successive Royal Commissions into mining safety, such as those in 1908 and 1938, reported favourably on the activities of worker inspectors. As miners’ unions became stronger and better coordinated, so did the presence and activity of these representatives. Bloor (2002) argued the measures played a significant role in supporting miners’ awareness of OHS issues and local miners’ collective actions to resist exploitation.

During the early decades of the 20th century, voluntary Joint District Safety Boards were also set up under collective agreements between miners’ unions and coal-owners. Safety Board Inspectors were appointed for each district. They were typically mining engineers, with at least 10 years’ experience in coalmining. They were chosen by the union but their appointment was approved by the District Safety Board. They were to be accompanied on their visits to mines by a local workmen’s inspector from the mine. However, coverage under these arrangements was patchy, with Williams estimating at most only 50% of British coal mines were covered in this way. Williams (1960: 154) viewed employer-hostility as the primary limitation but also notes that the arrangements were too costly for unions in some districts.

The 1938 Royal Commission recommended the two systems be merged, but it was not until post-war nationalization of coalmining that the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 secured this. Section 123 provided that a panel of persons with at least 5 years’ experience be appointed by the miners’ union for each mine or quarry and obliged employers to allow two panel members to inspect mines at least monthly. They could be accompanied by ‘advisers’ and inspect documents, take samples of air, dust or water and be informed of plans for future work. In a further extension of previous provisions, they were entitled to investigate accidents. The union was primarily responsible for paying Inspectors, although a small amount was provided by the National Coal Board. The question of payment was complicated by representative ‘ownership’. The union’s long-standing and regularly reiterated view was that payment of workmen’s inspectors by anyone other than the union risked compromising the independence of their representation of workers’ interests. For example, in 1958, Secretary Arthur Horner told the NUM’s Annual Conference that the union refused to accept money from the NCB for workmen’s inspectors. Horner noted that appointment of full-time inspectors had been made possible by the 1911 Act’s stipulation that they did not have to be current working miners. He distinguished them from the Safety Board Inspectors who, from 1941, were appointed by the union but whose payment was shared equally with the employer.

The entrenchment of inspection activities within local miners’ lodges and the appointment of experienced union officials into these positions enabled coalmining unions to develop their own cadres of ‘knowledge activists’ (Hall et al., 2016) distinct from the parallel OHS efforts of mine owners and their managers. Nationalization of the industry after World-War II, along with the amalgamation of previously separate mining unions into a single national organization helped consolidate and promote a union structure for representing miner’s OHS interests at mine, district and national levels that was well-resourced, experienced, appropriately qualified and allowed continuing autonomy in a hostile labour relations climate. This system continued to operate until the Thatcher-government accelerated the decline of large-scale coalmining in the UK.

Canada

Although coal mining was not conducted on the same scale as the UK, it was a significant feature of the industrial development of English-speaking parts of Canada, where a number of miners’ unions also pushed for rights to conduct inspections. Mine safety legislation began in the early 1870s, drawing heavily on UK laws, and remained a provincial responsibility. As elsewhere, the history of mine safety legislation demonstrates the significant role played by organized resistance to the exploitation of workers’ safety and health by mine owners. Miners’ unions undertook a significant industrial and political mobilization around OHS issues, with a strong focus on securing regulatory protections and entitlements. Although contemporary evidence of local action is limited, it indicates demands for workers’ representation occurred at a number of levels, from mine to province. For example, Nova Scotian miners opposed a shift from Grand Juries to Coronial Inquests because they were less able to ensure juries included miners who understood the technical language, mining methods and what management practice was reasonable and what was not (McLeod, 1983).

In British Columbia, workmen inspector provisions were introduced only a year after NSW. The Mines Regulation Act 1877 empowered “employees to appoint two of their number to inspect the mine at least once a month. A signed report of such inspection was to be recorded in a book kept at the mine for the purpose” (Stewart, 1926: 416). In Nova Scotia, the province’s first coalminers union, the Provincial Workmen’s Association (1879) pursued a strategy strongly reliant on regulation, securing a provision similar to British Columbia in 1881 (McLeod, 1983). Under Clause 9, miners were also empowered to appoint a committee to examine the site of any accident causing death or personal injury (Stewart, 1926). The campaign gained traction from two disasters at the Ford Pit in Pictou County in October (six killed by an inundation from old workings) and November 1880 (44 killed in an explosion), which demonstrated the inadequacy of existing legislation.

The miner-dominated Provincial Workmen’s Association of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick drove changes in regulation and later managed to overturn a mine-owner sponsored regulation that excluded practical miners from being made deputy inspectors (Stewart, 1926: 75). These provincial laws seem to have extended to both coal and metalliferous miners though, as in several Australian states, the laws were split in some provinces. Clause 10 of the Nova Scotian Coal Mines Regulation Act 1918 enabled those at a mine to appoint inspectors from beyond their own ranks as long as they were two practical working miners with at least five years’ experience (Stewart, 1926: 417). In British Columbia too, at the behest of union campaigning, legislation was amended to require management to refer reports apprehending dangerous conditions to a government inspector, and in some circumstances enabling workmen to inspect more frequently than once a month (Stewart, 1926: 420). The North West Territories Coal Mines Regulation Ordinance 1893 (No 5) empowered miners to appoint two of their number to conduct inspections, at their own expense, and to enter their report into a record book. Similar provisions were to be found in the Yukon Territories Miners Protection Ordinance 1901 (No 38) and the Alberta Coal Mines Act 1906. In the latter, this power was expanded to non-mine site workers in 1913 along the same lines as the 1918 Nova Scotian Act already referred to (Stewart, 1926: 427-429). In 1915, the British Columbian Federation of Labour pressed for miners of a locality being able to elect mine inspectors and, in 1917, for strict enforcement of laws and removal of incompetent government inspectors (Stewart, 1926: 421-422).

The British Empire/colonial context

In sum, these histories share elements in common. They all demonstrate the role played by coalminers’ awareness of exploitation of their safety and health and their mobilizing of resistance to this through union activity. In line with the Webb’s analysis of miners’ union strategy at this time (Webb and Webb, 1897), they show a consistent focus on ‘legal enactment’. That is, achieving regulatory interventions to support the representation of miners with rights to elect/appoint their own representatives to make inspections of their workplaces, independent of those of the mine ownership and its management. They also show the opposition/hostility encountered by representatives from coal-owners and managers, along with fears of victimization. A general awareness among miners of the inadequacy of the original regulatory measures is consistent across all these histories, as are the remedies it required. Whether in the UK, Australia, New Zealand or Canada, coalminers’ organizations sought reforms that would allow them to appoint as their representatives, experienced persons, not in the employ of the coalmines they inspected, who could often be union officials, and to grant them powers to operate at regional levels as well as in specific mines. It is equally obvious that the trajectory and form of the legislative responses to these demands differed only in minor detail across these jurisdictions. Importantly, the histories show these similarities were not solely or simply the result of the rolling out of a British legislative model across its colonial/former-colonial jurisdictions. Rather, they were the result of unions and their parliamentary representatives independently winning the same gradual concessions that were available in this legislative model in each of these jurisdictions.

The inadequacy of the legislative response and the absence of state support for its operation help explain why the spread of workmen’s inspection was never universal in coalmines. Instead, it was limited to locations where organized miners had adequate resources at their disposal to support it and where representatives in union lodges and district organizations were sufficiently adroit to avoid falling victim to hostile mine-owners’ retaliation. Notwithstanding regulatory shortcomings in terms of coverage and protections in every jurisdiction, there are reports of the substantial presence of miners’ representatives who were engaged with their tasks as workmen’s inspectors both at mine and district levels. There is evidence (especially from the UK and Australia) that the close-knit communities of coalminers and their families in these countries played an important role in the development of a collective consciousness on safety and health issues. It also helped the politicization of this consciousness into collective demands for voice on these matters (see, for example, Walters and Quinlan, 2019a and 2019b; Bloor, 2002; Williams, 1981). This evidence emerges in contemporary newspaper accounts, mines records, in the testimony of sympathetic government mines inspectors and the like. It tells a rich and detailed story of miners’ struggles to counter the exploitation of their safety and health that has been largely ignored in the histories of both labour relations and safety regulation in mining to date. It helps explain why the miners’ organization around safety and health matters was able to grow substantially in parallel with their success in developing an increasingly powerful union structure and organization, which in Australia at least remains the case today (Walters et al., 2016a and 2016b).

Another perspective on these developments is provided by examining them in the context of initiatives that took place in other countries not subject to British influence. In the following section, we outline ways in which coalminers sought to address mining-related OHS concerns in continental European countries such as France and Belgium during the same period, before considering the effects of the internationalisation of these forms of miner-resistance activity.

Beyond the influence of British colonialism: the case of continental European countries and the United States

While there were some differences of approach towards representing coalminers’ OHS interests in continental Europe and other countries briefly considered in this section, their similarities are more striking, both with regard to underlying conditions that determined the provisions and their implementation as well as in specific problems that miners’ organizations sought to remedy. Not surprisingly, similarities are also evident between the arrangements in these countries and those described in the previous section.

France

In France, coal deposits were owned by the state, while mining companies received concessions to mine them. A form of regulatory inspection was introduced for coalmines in 1810 with the creation of the Corps des Ingénieurs des Mines (Mining Engineer Corps) whose mining engineers supervised the activities of the mining companies granted concessions, including their adherence to safety requirements.

Reid (1981) argues safety had become a major point of mobilization for French coalminers by the 1860s and was something of a proxy measure of their distrust of both mining company management and state oversight of safety in mining concessions. This led union leaders and their political allies to press for statutory rights for miners themselves to be to be involved in regulating mine safety. Using the example of one French coalfield, the Aubin basin, Reid (1981: 103) describes how safety concerns were prominent in miners’ industrial militancy. He writes:

The belief of miners throughout the nation that neither their employers nor the state mine corps were satisfactory guardians of their safety found expression in the demand that they themselves participate in the supervision of mine safety through the work of mine-safety delegates.

délégués mineurs à la sécurité

These delegates, as proposed by the Loire coalminers’ union leader Michel Rondet, were to be full-time positions appointed by the union to protect workers’ interests. The approach was endorsed by unions and a national campaign for legislation commenced from 1885 onwards. Along with miners’ organizations, it was championed by socialist parliamentary deputies. It was fiercely resisted by right-wing deputies (who saw it as an intrusion on management) and the inspectorate, but received some support from republican moderates who regarded it as a means by which miners could pursue their grievances without resorting to strikes, as well as an opportunity to confront the notoriously anti-republican mining companies (Reid, 1981: 104-105).

Demands for representation and the dismissal of unsympathetic/incompetent state engineers responsible for overseeing mine safety were significant issues in strikes like the 1886 Decazeville strike. The legislative push was further propelled by a series of mine disasters in the Loire basin. However, the provisions introduced in 1890 did not go as far as the unions wished. They provided for the election in each district of an experienced miner as a safety delegate and for a substitute who would fill in when necessary. The prefect decided these mining districts after consultation with the state mining engineers. Unions had no role in the selection or control of the safety delegates who were paid by the prefecture, with funds originating from the mining companies. The law also specified their number of days of service, which were often so minimal as to make the post financially non-viable unless delegates were able to supplement their income by continuing to work as a miner or in some other way. These limitations were regarded by miners’ leaders as seriously restricting the capacity of delegates to function effectively. French union officials who spoke at Congresses of the Miners’ International Federation (MIF), while agreeing that in theory the French system might be a model for workmen’s inspectors’ regimes in other countries, frequently pointed to such weaknesses. They indicated that continuing to be employed as a miner undermined the independence of delegates and their willingness to speak out on safety for fear of losing their livelihoods. Thus, delegate M. Lamont alleged mining companies sometimes succeeded in getting their own nominees appointed as delegates. Further, they complained that the minimal days allocated to delegates for inspection were insufficient to undertake the task adequately (Report of the Congress of the MIF, 1906). Finally, French representatives expressed concerns about delegates’ rights and their resourcing to undertake more technical identification and evaluation of hazards in order to recommend appropriate remedial actions. These issues are particularly noticeable in their contributions to MIF Congress debates during the early decades of the 20th Century (for example: Reports of the Congress of the MIF, 1912 and 1930).

According to the French provisions, the delegates could enter comments, including on breaches of the law, in a register open to inspection by miners, managers and engineer/inspectors. In an effort to limit friction, they were instructed not to directly criticize work organization. French union officials speaking at the IMF Congresses claimed another tactic of the mining companies to limit delegates’ impact was to ensure registers were kept in the company offices, access to which was limited, or intimidating to ordinary miners.

Reid argues the “government saw the mine-safety delegate in essence as an artisan whose experience in the mines gave him an intuitive sense of possible dangers in the pits and whose position as a worker would allow for a fairer and more complete investigation of accidents” (Reid, 1981: 112). However, he points out that mining companies saw the measure as a breach of managerial prerogative and an infringement of the rights of capital and tried to inhibit delegates’ activities by spreading rumours their actions would reduce wages (Reid, 1981: 113-114). In their efforts to limit the impact of the delegates, French mining companies employed tactics similar to those of coal-owners and managers in other countries. There was also friction between unions and the State’s mining engineering inspectorate with regard to matters like the latter’s advice to the prefect on the number of districts necessary (and, therefore, the number of delegates); the number of days work required in each of them; on defending the delegates’ rights; and on allegations that delegates tried to foment dissent.

Reid presents evidence indicating that, following further reforms in 1905, delegates pursued their tasks actively, despite obstruction from mine-owners and only limited support from state mine engineers. He reports, for example, that in 1906, the Aubin basin’s 10 delegates alone issued 700 reports. He suggests the highly conflictual labour relations in the industry, the hostility of the mining companies and the indifference of state mines engineers meant safety delegates became more embedded in union organization and this mobilization around safety in turn strengthened the position of the unions (Reid, 1981: 115-116). As elsewhere, senior union officials often served as safety delegates, arguing that hazards were not ‘accidents’ but systemic to the way production was carried out—typified by a long-serving Decazeville delegate/union official who, in 1909, argued piecework payment of miners was incompatible with safety regulations (Reid, 1981: 117).

Delegates’ powers to deal with imminent dangers were limited and, here too, the union performed a critical role in facilitating withdrawals by workers from hazardous situations. That the French delegates’ regime was both extensive and comparatively successful is evident from repeated references to the system as a model in resolutions calling for workmen’s inspectors adopted at the bi-annual Congresses of the IMF between 1906 and 1929. Union discussions of ways to improve the system for workmen’s inspectors in the UK during this period also referred to the French system (Annual Congress of the Miners Federation, 1910). Awareness of the system was wider than solely in union circles. For example, a report on labour law and its administration in Europe prepared by the US Department of Labor (1914: 142-200) noted that in France there were 175 mine inspectors and 500 workmen mine inspectors covering mines employing 330,976 workers and of which establishments employing 259,159 workers had been inspected.

Belgium

Provisions for the appointment of workmen’s inspectors in Belgium originated in an Act of 1897 (Moniteur belge, 26 and 27 April, 1897). Two years earlier, Alfred Defuisseaux, a member of the Chamber of Representatives, had tabled a Bill to establish posts of worker inspectors for the supervision of underground mines. The Government’s refusal to endorse the Bill led to a wave of disputes, strikes and social unrest in the coalmining areas of Belgium. According to Petre, public outcry following an explosion in a coalmine in Hainaut forced the Government to reconsider its position and produce its own Bill in 1896 which established worker mine inspection delegates (Petre, 1968). Following a debate in which it and the previous Bill were both discussed, the Government Bill was finally adopted by Royal Assent in April 1897. Under this Act, and different to the contemporaneous arrangements in the UK, Australia, Canada and France, the workers’ delegates were required to comply with the instructions of the Inspectors of Mines and notify them of any infringement of work regulations. They were authorized to make visits to mines to examine underground workings from the point of view of the health and safety of the workers. They were required to report infringements of labour laws and regulations and to note their observations in a special register kept at the office of the mine.

Initial union proposals that delegates be directly elected by their workmates were not incorporated in the Act. Instead, delegates were appointed by the Government on the basis of proposals made by the coal sections of the Councils of Industry and Labour—joint bodies on which employers and workers sat in equal numbers. Belgian union delegates to MIF Congresses repeatedly denounced this system. They claimed it entirely favoured mining companies because, while nominations from these councils included equal numbers supported by unions and employers, in the final selection made by the Ministry, only the employers’ nominees were appointed as workmen’s inspectors (Congress Reports of the MIF, 1908-1922).

Gottschalk (1925: 343) indicates the legislation was reviewed in 1925 and arrangements were changed in a revision to the Act in 1927, which gave mine workers’ unions sole rights to recommend candidates for appointment as worker inspectors by the Government Minister. It also extended their jurisdiction to include monitoring hours worked by miners and compliance with the Eight Hour Law. As in France around the same time, it allowed workmen’s inspectors to order the immediate cessation of work if they noticed serious danger—as reported by Belgian speakers at the 1928 Congress of the International Miners Federation held in Nimes (Protection of Miners in Report of the Congress MIF, 1928). The provisions of this and subsequent Acts to modify the original measure on workers’ mine inspection delegates were eventually consolidated by a Royal Order of 31 December, 1958.

Arrangements in other countries

In Germany, following the explosion at the Rad Bod Mine in 1908 (350 miners killed), regulatory requirements for the election of safety delegates in the mines in which they were employed were introduced in 1910. The delegates had the now familiar rights to inspect mines twice a month and report the results of their inspection in a book for this purpose. However, as German union speakers at successive MIF Congresses made clear, confining delegates to mines where they were employed meant they were subject to the same intimidation and job insecurity reported in other countries when similar requirements were in place.

The records of the International Congresses of the Miners’ International Federation (MIF), which took place every two years, show that delegates regularly discussed the representation of miners’ interests in safety. Questions of workmen’s inspectors appeared prominently on the agendas of successive meetings between its establishment in 1890 at a meeting in Brussels and the early 1930s, by which time the orientation of its resolutions had changed to one that increasingly called for interventions on mining from the International Labour Organization (established in 1919). Originally dominated by British affiliates—but with miners’ organizations from Austria, Belgium, France and Germany represented—MIF affiliation gradually extended to other European countries and the United Mine Workers of America.

The MIF records clearly show that, in the early part of the 20th century, affiliates were united in favouring a form of mines inspection in which miners themselves were involved as inspectors. They sought protections for these miner inspectors as well as resources to support them and to extend such measures to all the countries represented by affiliates to the MIF. In 1913, a German/Austrian resolution at the 1913 MIF Congress called for practical miners elected by unions and paid for by the state to be appointed as inspectors. During the ensuing discussion, a German miners’ union delegate told the meeting that the German workmen’s inspection regime was “entirely unsatisfactory” as the inspectors must be employed in the mines they inspected, give notice of inspections, inspect “only occasionally” and he claimed those active in the role were commonly dismissed. The delegate went on to give detailed examples of intimidation of safety delegates as well as evidence of collusion between the Mines Inspectors and the mines management (Report of the Congress MIF, 1913 and Westralian Worker, 12 September, 1913). As late as 1924, at the MIF Congress in Prague, German delegates reported that, while changes in the methods of selection had achieved some limited protection against victimization, “employers still use all means of restricting the rights” (of workmen’s inspectors).

Debates at the early Congresses were dominated by discussions of British, French and Belgian arrangements to achieve these ends—which, as we have seen above, reflected some national differences in practice. As affiliations to the MIF grew, the debates gradually broadened to include contributions from elsewhere, but the ‘preferred model’ remained essentially the same. Delegates from Austria, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Luxembourg, as well as from the United States, spoke at these meetings, generally about the limitations of arrangements in their own countries. For example, American delegates at the Congresses expressed frustration that the US federal system meant that individual states made their own mining rules and only very rarely among the 27 coalmining states were there miners’ rights to appoint workmen’s inspectors. They further complained that links between the mining companies and government authorities made the development of such rights virtually impossible in the majority of states. All these delegates expressed strong support for the principle of inspection of mines by miners elected to do so and urged the Miners’ Congress to support resolutions calling on governments to adopt measures such as those reported in France.

Conclusions: International similarities and challenges for the representation of organized miners on safety and health in coalmines

A number of features stand out in this international review of arrangements for miners to represent their safety and health interests. The period from 1870 to 1930 witnessed the parallel development of similar regulatory measures across a range of countries in which coalmining was economically significant. There may have been several reasons for this apparent isomorphism. The direct and indirect effects of Britain on colonial legislation are obvious, as are inter-union linkages, but these effects are not a complete explanation. For there is strong evidence, especially in the contemporary newspaper accounts we have searched in Australia, concerning organized miners’ local agitation for these measures and their improvement.

Parallels evident in the reactions of the legislature, in the testimony of miners’ leaders, as well as in the accounts of other contemporary observers in all the countries we have studied suggest that the Australian experience is not unique. We, therefore, conclude that similar conditions in coalmining in different countries led to parallel forms of agitation, victimization and discontent. Combined evidence from continental European countries and the testimony of miners’ leaders at international congresses of the MIF emphasises that hostile labour relations and exploitation of miners’ safety and health were powerful mobilizing factors across a range of different national contexts. We have not explored international influences on the strategies of mining companies and concessions in different countries, but the wider literature on the history of coalmining would suggest that such international influence would have been a factor driving parallel strategies promoting production at the expense of miners’ safety and health among these organizations, regardless of national boundaries.

Since the measures were similar across a range of countries, it is not surprising that their limitations would also be much the same. That is, in all the countries included in the study limiting the appointment/election of workmen’s inspectors to miners employed in the same mine as they were to inspect was, for good reason, regarded as offering them inadequate protection from victimization by their employers. Failure to resource the arrangements also meant that their effective uptake would be limited. Equally, to overcome these limitations miners’ organizations sought to broaden the appointment requirements to allow miners freedom from victimization, but also to enable them to appoint experienced union officials into the role. This, in turn, helped to facilitate district level engagement and opportunities to create a structure for representation on safety and health, linking mines to district, regional and eventually national levels. This process occurred, especially in the UK and in Australia, in parallel with trends in the wider development of union organization and enabled increasing capacity to support miners’ OHS interests with both organizing and technical resources.

The international history of miners’ struggles to represent their OHS interests clearly demonstrates their desire to find means to protect themselves and their colleagues from the physical harm they suffered as a consequence of the overzealous pursuit of production by mine-owners and managers. While of course this does not mean that all miners were safety conscious or all of their employers were intent on exploiting their bodies for profit, it does suggest a widely held perception among organized miners at all levels that the source of the harm they experienced was to be found in this prioritization of production over safety issues. And it shows that such a politicization of their understandings was not localised to specific mines in which particularly harsh conditions prevailed, but a part of organized miners’ general understanding of the relations between capital and labour in coalmining. Relations in coalmining in the period we have studied were polarized and conflictual. They were strongly influenced by the prevalence of injury and ill-health in mines that was part of the miners’ daily work experience and by the ever-present threat of multiple fatality disasters, regardless of who may have been ultimately responsible for them. Analysis of the discourse on ‘voice’ and its practical outcomes therefore shows that the experience of work, safety and health in the mines of this era also helped to drive miners’ understandings of the nature of work relations and provided a strong influence on their mobilization and their collective organization to resist what they perceived to be the exploitation of their bodies in the pursuit of production and profit controlled by their employers.

These are important understandings that continue to have salience today. There is little evidence in this history of the long-standing presence of trust or co-operation over matters of safety and health that modern commentators like Gunningham and Sinclair (2012) have deemed necessary preconditions for effective OHS management in mines. Equally, it is important to appreciate that the discourse behind the development of workmen’s inspectors in mining in a host of industrializing countries was different from that which demanded more and better supervision of mines by the state, or certified safety competencies for mine managers and officials, although these demands often overlapped and were sometimes confused. Discussion of the need for more or better state inspection occurred in parallel with that of workmen’s inspectors, and it was often suggested that in the burgeoning industry of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the appointment of a cadre of ‘sub-inspectors’ from the ranks of skilled workers would enhance the inspection resources of hard-pressed state-inspectorates. Indeed, in some countries such appointments were made to a limited extent. But we need to be clear that these were not ‘workmen’s inspectors’ in the sense of the meaning attributed to them by miners and their organizations.

While the ownership of workmen’s inspectors by miners themselves may have been a pragmatic reaction to the limits of early reforms, it remained a strong theme in their subsequent discourse and debate around the support needed to make them more effective. As Reid (1981: 119) concludes when writing about these developments in France in the early part of the 20th century:

The miners’ demand for mine-safety delegates was born of the struggle for greater control of work in the pits […]The most effective delegates partially overcame the restrictions placed on them by the law, the state mine corps, and the companies, by working within the unions. In so doing they helped instil in miners a consciousness of their membership in a working class […].

That is, in essence, the role of safety delegates in France, like that of check-inspectors and workmen’s inspectors elsewhere, was class-based, autonomous from mine management and the state, and a significant part of unionized, organized resistance to the exploitation of workers safety and health in the hostile labour relations that characterized the industry. Without this, it seems highly unlikely that the ‘knowledge activism’ that to this day continues to be displayed by these check-inspectors, in countries like Australia for example, would have been possible or so demonstrably effective in securing improvements in miners’ safety and health (Walters et al., 2016a and 2016b).In modern parlance, therefore, workmen’s inspectors became the representatives of miners’ interests in matters of safety and health. As such, they were precursors of health and safety representatives that, as we noted in the introduction, were to become more widespread across all sectors over one hundred years later. However, the understandings that made them so were those informed by conflict and resistance in the organization of production and not by notions of co-operation and shared interest which many modern writers on workers’ participation in occupational safety and health assume as its basis.