Kiwiblog

Simon Bridges has announced:

The Government’s focus on significantly lifting New Zealand’s workplace health and safety record is behind the establishment of a new, stand-alone agency, says Labour Minister Simon Bridges.

The creation of a stand-alone Crown agent was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy.

“The new agency will have a dedicated focus on health and safety and underlines the Government’s strong commitment to addressing New Zealand’s workplace fatality and serious injury rates,” says Mr Bridges.

“We have a firm target of a 25 per cent reduction of these rates by 2020.

This was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission, and you expect the Government to implement all the recommendations unless there is a very good reason not to. The Pike River tragedy is a good example of what happens when there is an inadequate focus on health and safety.

Of course no workplace can be made free from risk, and nor should it be. Health and safety is always a balancing act. Otherwise we would engineer cars to not drive faster than 30 km/hr.

Deidre Mussen at Stuff reports:

John Key wrote to Solid Energy before Christmas saying a new expert panel was being set up to advise the Government on the feasibility of body recovery at the underground West Coast mine.

The men died after an explosion at the mine in November 2010.

Key had reiterated to Pike families at a meeting in Greymouth last month the Government was unlikely to fund body recovery because his experts said it was too dangerous and expensive.

However, he admitted the families were frustrated by his stance because their experts were more optimistic about it.

As a result, a panel of mining experts from diverse backgrounds, including from Solid Energy, Mines Rescue Trust, Pike families and the Government’s High Hazards Unit, would be brought together to try to get a consensus on whether it was possible plus its risks and costs.

Key wrote that he was “very keen for the families to have closure one way or another as soon as reasonably possible”.

He also confirmed the Government would pay for all out-of-pocket costs to explore the mine’s 2.3 kilometre tunnel, where some bodies might remain, if a viable plan was developed that the Government’s High Hazards Unit backed.

It included paying for the families’ international mining experts to return to New Zealand to meet other experts to develop a tunnel exploration plan.

Pike families were “ecstatic” with the prime minister’s offer.

“Certainly it’s a turnaround in that he is finally listening to us instead of sticking to his expert’s advice,” said Bernie Monk, who lost his son Michael, 23, in the fatal explosion.

I think the issue has been different experts have said different things. Paying to get them all together in one room, and seeing if they can agree on what can be safely done is a good thing.

Also useful to clarify that costs will be met by the Government in any tunnel exploration, even if not a full reclamation.

This got covered by others last week, but worth a mention here. Steven Cowan at Against the Current blogs:

This statement represents a complete change of heart by the EPMU officialdom for it was never critical of  Pike River Coal (PRC) during the time that  the mine was open.   The EPMU represented approximately half of the 140 miners on the site. 

After the first explosion the EPMU strongly  defended the management of PRC. 

EPMU National secretary Andrew Little (now a Labour MP)  told the New Zealand Herald on November 22  2010 that   there was ‘nothing unusual about Pike River or this mine that we’ve been particularly concerned about‘.

He then appeared on TVNZ’s  Close Up  to again defend PRC management.

He told Close Up that underground mining was inherently unsafe and the risk of gas explosions, particularly on the West Coast, was high.

While the industry was aware of the risks and took the necessary precautions, unfortunately these kinds of incidents still happened, he argued.

And further:

On November 26, 2010 the Dominion Post  ran an article that   denounced  ‘wild’  rumours that the mine was not safe. It declared  that  “Any suggestion of obvious or known safety lapses does not find traction with unionised staff or union leader Andrew Little.’

Andrew Little’s conciliatory views toward  PRC management were echoed by Labour MP Damien O’Connor. He suggested that no one was responsible for the accident and that the  disaster was ‘just one of these things that the West Coast unfortunately has had to get used to over the years’. …

But despite the overwhelming evidence that there was  something seriously and dangerously wrong at the Pike Rive rnine, the officials of the  EPMU did nothing. 

The mine opened in November 2008  and on not  one occasion did the EPMU  initiate   industrial action or even  criticise PRC’S  safety standards, even after a group of workers  walked off the job to protest the lack of basic emergency equipment.

The walk out by miners was revealed by miner  Brent Forrester. He  told TVNZ’s Sunday  on December 5 2010 that  he once helped organise a walkout of about 10 miners to protest the lack of basic emergency equipment, including stretchers and an emergency transport vehicle. They received no support from the EPMU .  Andrew Little  even insisted that  PRC ‘ had a good health and safety committee that’s been very active.’

It was exactly this benevolent attitude  by the EPMU that allowed PRC – and the Department of Labour – to continue as if it was just ‘business a usual’. It appears that no-one was  protecting the interests and concerns of the workers on the mining site.  The EMPU failed to organise industrial action  to address safety concerns  at the  mine in favour of  ‘cooperating’ with management, what it and the CTU sometimes  refer to as ‘modern unionism’.

There won’t be any resignations from within the EPMU for dereliction of duty and, of course, Andrew Little  has escaped to Parliament.

I think the Royal Commissions recommendations should be implemented, unless there are massively good reasons not to. But it is worth noting that the suggestion that union sift inspectors would have prevented this tragedy may be more wishful thinking than reality.

NZ Herald reports:

Solid Energy is largely to blame for the “dumbing down” of mining industry standards that allowed the Pike River disaster to happen, West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O’Connor says.

So does that mean Qantas was responsible for Erebus?

Solid Energy’s general manager of communications Vicki Blyth said she was shocked by Mr O’Connor’s comments.

“It’s appalling to suggest that Solid Energy is in any way to blame for what happened at Pike River.”

Ms Blyth said Solid Energy had benchmarked itself against international best practice for some time. It had made submissions to the previous review of mining regulations.

“That’s what we submitted to the Royal Commission. We fully support the recommendations and the commission’s proposals.”

A somewhat bizarre attack on Solid Energy.

John Armstrong writes:

In its most damning criticism, the Commission says Wilkinson’s department should have prohibited Pike from operating the mine until its health and safety systems were adequate.

Given the mine opened in November 2008 – just a month before Wilkinson became Minister of Labour – there would have been demands for her resignation as her department’s woeful performance happened on her watch.

Certainly the mine did operate during her watch, and she has resigned. But the interesting thing is that Armstrong has reported that the Department of Labour should never ever have allowed Pike River to start operating.

The Minister, when it did start operating, was Trevor Mallard - not Kate Wilkinson.

Now I say this not do do a blame game. I don’t think either Mallard or Wilkinson are to blame. And I think David Shearer’s statement that Labour accepts responsibility for their period in Government was the right thing to do, as was the PM’s apology for the failings of the current Government for the lack of oversight. But it is an important fact that the report finds the mine should never have been allowed to open.

Where this goes now is in two directions.

The first is the Government’s formal response to the recommendations.

The second is the prosecutions of Pike River Coal and certain former managers. The findings of the Royal Commission are incredibly damning with regard to them.

Just heard that Kate Wilkinson has resigned as Minister of Labour as the “right and honourable thing to do” as it happened on her watch. Indeed an honourable call.

The report is here, NBR has a good summary:

• Setting up a new crown agency solely focused on health and safety. It would have an executive board accountable to a minister. It would be responsible for administering health and safety in line with strategies agreed with the responsible minister and should provide policy advice to the minister.
• Setting up an effective regulatory framework for underground coal mining. This would include establishing an expert task force to carry out the work. Its members would include health and safety experts and industry, regulator and worker health and safety representatives, supported by specialist technical experts.
• A change in the crown minerals regime to ensure health and safety is an integral part of permit allocation and monitoring.
• A review of the statutory responsibilities of directors for health and safety in the workplace to better reflect their governance responsibilities.
• The health and safety regulator should issue an approved code of practice to guide directors on how good governance practices can be used to manage health and safety risks.
• The health and safety regulator should issue an approved code of practice to guide managers on health and safety risks, drawing on both their legal responsibilities and best practice.
• An extension of the current regulations imposing general health and safety duties on the statutory mine manager to include detailed responsibilities for overseeing critical features of the company’s health and safety management systems.
• Worker participation in health and safety in underground coal mines should be improved through legislative and administrative changes.
• The regulator should supervise the granting of mining qualifications to mining managers and workers.
• Urgent attention needs to go on emergency management in underground coal mines. Operators should be required to have a current and comprehensive emergency management plan which is audited and tested regularly.
• An urgent review of the implementation of the coordinated incident management system in underground coal mine emergencies.
• Legislative support for the activities of the New Zealand Mines Rescue Service. The adequacy and fairness of the current levies imposed on the mines to fund the services also need to be reviewed.
• Operators of underground coal mines should be required to have modern equipment and facilities. This includes facilities suitable for self-rescue by workers during an emergency.

The Government has indicated it intends to implement at least most, if not all, of the recommendations but a formal response will take some time.

The Pike River explosion was deemed preventable, and we must make sure such a terrible accident does not occur again.

Stuff reports that the families of those who died in the Pike River mine explosion have accepted it would risk further people dying to attempt a recovery of the bodies.

This is very sad for the families concerned but there may be a silver lining in that they will at least have some certainity. It is good that Solid Energy arranged for them to talk through all the issues around any recovery with the experts.

Stuff reports:

 Pike River Coal has been sold to state-owned enterprise Solid Energy under a conditional agreement, receivers for the mine said today.

The receivers said they have reached agreement with Solid Energy New Zealand for the sale of the assets of Pike River Coal. …

”We, as the receivers, are pleased with this agreement as we consider it the best way forward for all parties. As part of the agreement, negotiations will continue with the Crown to establish a trust that will help oversee efforts to enter the main area of the mine and facilitate body recovery – if it is safe and technically feasible.

”In the meantime, work on the tunnel reclamation is continuing. We will provide further updates as appropriate,” Fisk added.

I suspect the families of the dead miners will be pleased with this sale, as Solid Energy has publicly committed to doing what it can to recover the bodies. The Government had said it would make recovery of the bodies a condition of transferring the mining licence, so this may be why other parties did not bid for the mine in the end.

Deidre Mussen at The Press reports:

Pike River’s mine manager job-hunted in the minutes after its fatal November 2010 explosion despite knowing power and communications had been lost, the inquiry into the deaths of 29 men has heard.

His revelation prompted one of the dead men’s mothers to call out: “This is while my boy was dying, Jesus Christ,” before she fled in tears from the royal commission into the tragedy.

Former general manager Doug White began giving evidence in Greymouth District Court yesterday, his second time in the inquiry’s witness stand.

Commission lawyer Simon Mount said White emailed two people at 4.02pm and 4.03pm on November 19, 2010, less than 15 minutes after being told communication and power had been lost to the underground West Coast mine. It exploded at 3.45pm that day.

He was the mine general manager and he had been told the mine had lost power and communications, and he carried on with his e-mail!

I would have thought the general manager would immediately drop everything else, and personally co-ordinate the efforts to establish what has happened in the mine. A loss of power and communications is no minor incident.

Michael Daly at Stuff reports:

Recovery of the bodies of the men killed in the Pike River Coal mine disaster is not expected to be completed for at least 3 1/2 years, a new independent report says.

The estimates in the draft independent review by engineer Bruce McLean depend on a successful sale of the mine.

Even with a sale, the report does not expect recovery of the bodies until some time between July 2015 and June 2017.

That timetable depends on the completion of a new shaft or tunnel to establish a ventilation circuit by June 2014.

This report or review was commissioned by the families of the dead miners. While the conclusions are probably not the ones they hoped for, it is good they agree with the advice from the receivers and the Government that one can’t just rush in them in a matter of weeks or months.

The fact the Government won’t consent to a transfer of the license unless the new owner agrees to do best efforts to recover the bodies means that eventually they will recover the bodies or remains, I believe. It will be important closure for the families.

Herald reports:

The Department of Labour has laid charges against three parties in relation to alleged health and safety failures at the Pike River coal mine, where 29 miners died after an explosion almost a year ago.

25 charges were laid at the Greymouth District Court this morning, but the charges have not been specified because they could lead to the identification of the parties involved.

“They either have existing name suppression orders in their favour, or have the right to apply for name suppression,” the Department said in a press release issued this afternoon.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of $250,000.

This is no surprise to those who have been following the Royal Commission. The prosecutions will not bring the men back of course, but may provide some accountability for the tragic loss of life. Of course the charges must be proven in court, and assuming guilty pleas are not entered, we’ll have a trial at some stage.

This was posted to Facebook today by the Labour Party candidate for Rodney – Christine Rose.

So John Key didn’t only arrange the H Fee, he also blew up the Pike River mine, arranged the earthquakes and was the pilot of the Rena.

Again, this is a Labour Party candidate, not just an activist, who approvingly Facebooked this photo. Is this who you want in Government?

I’ve not been commenting on most of the evidence at the Pike River Royal Commission because it is the Commission’s job to come to conclusions based on the evidence.

But I have to say that on the basis of reports to date, I’ve been horrified by some of the evidence. No trial evacuations, lack of escape routes, the fact it took 45 minutes to even realise there had been an explosion, no answer on the emergency line, safety equipment not working. It must be horrific for the families to be hearing this evidence.

Also chilling has been the strength of the explosions. The Press reported:

Footage of three subsequent explosions at Pike River mine was also shown at the inquiry yesterday, including the second explosion at 2.36pm on November 24, which ended all hopes of the men’s survival.

White said the second explosion was of greater magnitude than the first, and blew a 300-kilogram robot inside the mine more than 100m.

My physics is too rusty to calculate what level of energy is needed to move a 300 kg object over 100 metres, but my gut reaction is absolutely unsurvivable. If the first explosion was anything like the second, then those down the mine hopefully died quickly. I guess this will be a key issue the Commission will form a view on.

Michael Dickison in the NZ Herald reports:

The Pike River mining disaster being cited by a union boss as an example of an anti-worker culture is “churlish”, says the Prime Minister.

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly told the Labour Party Congress yesterday that Pike River had “failed in its fundamental duty to provide a safe workplace” yet was initially protected from scrutiny by the state.

She noted how John Key had sat next to Pike River’s chief executive during the memorial service.

Mr Key said last night that Ms Kelly was being “churlish” – and dangerous, too, considering that a Royal Commission of Inquiry was ongoing.

“For Helen Kelly to make those comments until we know what actually happened in that mine is inappropriate in my view. It’s getting in the way of the royal commission.”

The memorial had been a time for everyone to grieve rather than to apportion blame, Mr Key said.

“That day may well come, depending on the results of the royal commission, but it wasn’t appropriate at the time when we held a memorial service.”

 It was a bizarre rant from Helen Kelly. She seemed upset that Pike River executives were not immediately tarred and feathered and made into national villians.

As the PM says, she doesn’t seem to realise the difference between a time to mourn and a time to find out what happened, and who is to blame.

Stuff reports:

State-owned Solid Energy, if successful with a bid, would probably look to develop the mine in a joint opencast/underground approach. It would need to get part of the surrounding land removed from schedule 4 protected conservation land for opencast mining. Access would be difficult and so would resource conditions.

If Solid Energy do buy Pike River, I hope the Government does make it possible for them to carry on mining there, in the safest way possible. If that means moving a couple of hectares out of Schedule 4, then so be it.

Rodney Hide at the weekend seemed to have ESP with his call:

ACT leader Rodney Hide is calling for open-cast mining at Pike River and on protected conservation land.

State-owned Solid Energy should be allowed to open-cast mine Pike River, to access an estimated $10 billion of resources, he said. “It seems to me it will require a great deal of care and sensitivity. But I can’t see how not continuing their [the miner's] work respects them.” …

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn backed Mr Hide’s call for open-cast mining at Pike River.

“Yeah, Rodney Hide is correct. We need to get on with it and we need to do it in a way that will safeguard the environment and at the same time get economic development.”

It looks like it might happen, which is good.

The EPMU has done a release saying:

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), which is the union that represents miners, is calling on the government to provide support for its legal representation in the Pike River Royal Commission of Inquiry.

The call follows the government’s announcement it will now fund families’ and contractors’ legal representation costs to allow them to participate in the inquiry.

The EPMU has around $13 million of assets and a turnover of around $12 million a year. They are in a totally different situation to individual famuilies and contractors. A legal bill of say $100,000 is a mere 1% of the EPMU’s annual turnover, yet would bankrupt many contractors and be well beyond what a West Coast family could afford.

Incidentially the EPMU has skilled in house lawyers such as their national secretary. If he wasn’t so busy running the Labour Party and running for Parliament, perhaps he could represent the EPMU at the Royal Commission hearings as part of his job.

It is of course up to the EPMU how they decide to interact with the Royal Commission, but if they start to ask for taxpayer funding, them we get the right to have a view on that.

John Hartevelt reports:

Financial help for legal costs will be extended to all 150 Pike River miners and contractors who were employed when 29 men died at the mine last year.

Prime Minister John Key said surviving miners and contractors would have a crucial role in the Royal Commission of Inquiry. The Government had agreed to cover their legal costs.

Cabinet had already agreed to provide legal assistance to the families of those who died at the Pike River mine.

Today’s announcement was over and above that because it extended legal assistance to some of the 150 workers and contractors who might be required to contribute to the Royal Commission.

I doubt many would disagree with this decision. Generally I would not expect those who don’t face potential liability or criticism to need legal assistance or representation at the Royal Commission, but it would be harsh to make surviving miners etc pay for their own legal assistance.

The Chief Coroner has found that the 29 dead miners in Pike River died within minutes of the initial explosion. While not the final word on the disaster, it is reassuring to family and friends that any suffering was relatively brief.

Chief Coroner Neil MacLean found the Pike River miners would have died either from the impact of the blast or from the poisonous atmosphere it created in the mine.

Evidence showed those that survived the explosion would have lost consciousness and died from hypoxic hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, within minutes, he said.

The focus will soon shift to the Royal Commission.

Stuff is running an NZPA story:

The tragedy at the Pike River Coal mine would not have happened if New Zealand had maintained a mining inspector programme canned more than a decade ago, a mining specialist says.

A chief inspector would have noticed the dangerous levels of gases pooling at the West Coast mine, and the 29 men who died in explosions from November 19 on would still be alive.

Safety officials do monitor mines around the country, but the system was inferior to the inspector system that was used until the late 1990s, Dave Feickert said.

I am automatically suspicious of any so called expert who without any evidence at all claims the mine explosion would not have happened if x had been done. Considering we have a Royal Commission about to hear actual evidence on what caused the explosion, you wonder about the motives of someone who states opinion as fact.

It was not right that Prime Minister John Key was making decisions about mine safety because he was not an expert in the area, Mr Feickert said.

“No wonder the families of the 29 dead are furious. So they should be.”

I get even more suspicious when this expert makes a personal attack on the PM which is factually incorrect (Key has not made any decisions), and is encouraging the families to blame John Key.

Then a birdie from Whanganui tells me that Mr Feickert is in fact the Chairman of the Whanganui Labour Party. Suddenly it all makes sense.

A google search has not verified he is currently a Labour Party Chairman, but what it does reveal is that Feickert is:

• a former top official in the militant British National Union of Mineworkers
• the CTU unions Wanganui secretary
• a member of the NZ Labour Party
• supported Arthur Scargill in 1984 UK strikes

This is not to say that Feickert does not know a lot about mining. He does. But by not reporting he is a militant unionist and labour party office holder, then people don’t understand the context of why he is attacking John Key on false grounds.

UPDATE: Now confirmed that Feickert is (or at least was earlier this year) Labour’s Whanganui chairman.

Amy Glass at Stuff reports:

Police heading the Pike River operation have agreed to release documents detailing why they decided to abandon their efforts, a lawyer for some of the families says.

Barrister Nicholas Davidson QC said yesterday Police Commissioner Howard Broad had said the information would include reports and the advice police had received from experts and the Mines Rescue Trust.

“For the first time, we will be able to take that material and consult with our experts,” Davidson said.

I am surprised that this is only happening now. In my opinion it would have been far more sensible of the Police to have shared these reports with the families before they made a decision, ask the families for any feedback on the reports and then make a decision. Then at least you would have families being able to understand the rationale for the decision.

Keith Lynch in The Press reports:

A “marked improvement” in the atmosphere in the Pike River mine does not mean it is safe to re-enter, an Australian expert says.

Yesterday, the families of the 29 mine workers released a statement saying the decision to seal the Pike River Coal mine was wrong and needed to be revisited.

“There is a stable atmospheric environment now achieved which is likely to be sustained,” the statement said.

Mine safety expert Dr David Cliff, of the University of Queensland, said that while the atmosphere in the West Coast mine had improved, to say it was safe to enter was a “quantum leap”.

Personally I’d love it if the mine could be entered, but I am not an expert, and you really have to rely on expert advice on these things.

“The atmosphere is now inert without the use of the GAG [Gorniczy Agregat Gasniczy],” Cliff said.

“It’s not capable of supporting combustion. It’s full of methane, as far as we can detect.

“But then to say everything is OK, we can go enter the mine, that’s another quantum leap beyond that.”

The mine’s atmosphere was close to 100 per cent methane, with oxygen excluded, he said.

“Therefore it’s a dramatic improvement. There’s no active ignition sources in the mine, most probably, but we still don’t know for sure.”

If conditions were maintained, there would be “no more explosions”, Cliff said.

“The atmosphere is one part of the equation – there’s the mining conditions, it is the logistics of re-entering up a single tunnel that is 2.5-kilometres long into unknown conditions – these are the sort of factors bearing on people’s minds.”

Bore holes would be required to stabilise the mine, at a cost of $250,000 each.

If, and I stress if, that is all that is required to make the mine safe, then the price is well worth paying. However it is not at all clear that is all that is required.

I do have to say that the reasons the mine can’t be re-entered according to the experts has not been clearly communicated. Hopefully when the receivers submit their plans tonight, there might be more light on this.

Newstalk ZB reports:

EPMU secretary Andrew Little thinks sealing the mine would be wrong on at least two fronts.

“Making a decision to seal the mine now is not just a decision to leave the men down there, but a decision to say we’re not going to get the evidence to find out what really happened.”

Mr Little said the Government has let the families down and the union will continue to work with them to get justice.

Does Andrew have some magic way to enter the mine we do not know of?

Is Andrew speaking as Labour Party President or EPMU Secretary when he alleges any decision to seal the mine is part of a plot by the Government to conceal evidence?

The local Mayor is more rational:

Despite the union’s concerns, the Grey District Mayor said he is confident there will be enough evidence for the Pike River mine inquiry, even if the mine is sealed.

“They’re going to interview 400 (people) all up. They’ve got every single hard drive and computer from day one of Pike River coal. Even though they can’t get evidence from the mine, I feel there’s enough evidence out there to get to the bottom of this”, Tony Kokshoorn told Newstalk ZB.

Maybe Andrew could explain exactly what evidence he thinks still exists after weeks of thousand degree fires.

After a couple of months of failure to make Pike River safe to enter, the Police announcement that the recovery operation will cease is no surprise.

It is deeply disappointing for the families. It will make it far harder to get closure.

From what I have read of conditions in the mine, there may not have been much in the way to recover – perhaps some bones and teeth. If the temperatures have been over 1000 degrees as some reports suggest, then it could be just teeth.

UPDATE: Labour shows there is no depth to which they won’t let Trevor descend to. And they wonder why they are so low in the polls. Everyone knows it is not about the money – but about the inability to safely enter the mine. This really is a new low in disgusting and crassness. One could almost see them celebrating the news the mine could not be entered safely, thinking “yay we can try and slime John Key with this”.

Clayton Adams, whose brother Conrad died at Pike River, says thank you through the NZ Herald:

During the time we spent on the Coast the people of NZ and Greymouth have been unstinting in their support, kindness and generosity of spirit towards the workers’ and contractors’ families.

On our arrival friends of my brother provided accommodation to the family for several weeks and when we needed a second car they delivered a vehicle immediately for our use. But it was not just these larger more obvious offers of help that were so meaningful.

When I arrived my only pair of shoes fell apart so I resorted to using my brother’s jandals, which were 3 sizes too big. When one of Conrad’s friends found out they took my shoes away and returned them within an hour, repaired. Everyone wanted to do something to help. …

Donna at Kiwibank in Greymouth was amazing and without her support we would have struggled to manage the household finances in my brother’s absence.

In the initial days of waiting Air New Zealand provided a staff member for every family to assist them with the burden of the seemingly endless small tasks that filled our days and required decisions. This help was invaluable in removing the strain and pressure of arranging flights, accommodation and accessing the myriad offers of support provided by New Zealand companies.

Well done Kiwibank and Air New Zealand.

Later that night it seemed as if the whole of New Zealand had mobilised to provide any assistance they could, people who had never met my brother offered accommodation, meals and to pick family members up from the airport, baskets of food, supermarket vouchers, cash. There seemed to be no end to the generosity. Even kindergarten children baked biscuits and couriered them to the families in Greymouth.

If it was not for the compassion of my employer and the donations of fellow staff and workmates my wife and I would not have been able to dedicate two weeks to helping my brother’s children and providing support to them where we could.

No one should ever have to experience the intensity of the days while we waited and then the desolation as we realised our loved ones would not be returning to us, however the selflessness, generosity and compassion of the people of Greymouth and New Zealand has been humbling and I would like to publicly thank those people and companies who assisted us.

A very moving letter.

Anna Leask at the Herald reported:

Staff at a North Island freezing works had their pay cut for the official two-minute silence to remember the 29 miners killed in the Pike River mine.

My reaction upon reading this first paragraph was to do a post lashing out at the employer as a bad employer who should be ashamed of themselves. Bad employers piss me off, because they make life hard for all the other employers.

But upon reading the full story, it is more nuanced. The employer is not without blame, but neitehr is the union. In fact the poor employees are the victims in a struggle between the two.

Staff at the Silver Fern Farms Te Aroha plant lost two cattle each from their daily quota – the equivalent of between 98c and $1.60 for each worker – after downing tools.

Staff are paid for each beast they process, and have a daily quota of 280 cattle.

It takes about 63 seconds to skin, gut and bone an animal.

Depending on their experience, workers are paid between 49c and 80c for each beast processed.

So my thought was why not just pay them for the two extra beasts, or alternatively just carry on working until 5.02 pm.

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper said all workers were encouraged to observe the two-minute silence.

He said the local branch of the Meat Workers Union approached Silver Fern Farms in support of observing the memorial silence.

“As the meat workers are remunerated on the basis of throughput, Silver Fern Farms offered the union the opportunity for workers to process the missed two animals at the end of day as overtime.

“However the union declined the offer as a gesture of solidarity with Silver Fern Farms as an employer and in the spirit of comradeship with the West Coast workers.”

So the union refused to allow the workers to gain the money back.

When asked why Silver Fern Farms didn’t just pay the workers for the two cattle, a spokeswoman for Mr Cooper said it “just wasn’t an issue at the time”.

Well, it was still a dumb call. Yes you may be peeved at the union for refusing permission to work until 5.02 pm, but why not be a good employer and not punish the staff for doing the very decent thing of observing two minutes silence.

Union president Mike Nahu said the local union representative declined the overtime offer because the union did not want their tribute to the miners to be based on money.

He said workers had a clause in their contract saying they could have extra time at the end of a shift to process any remaining beasts.

“We chose not to make up the loss. It wasn’t about the money, it was about respect. They could have very well made it up, but that wasn’t the issue.”

He could not say if the local union representative explained the decision to all workers before the stoppage.

He said no one had approached the union to complain, but accepted some workers might not be happy with the decision to forgo the remaining beasts.

Basically both the union and the employer have crapped on the workers.  They have both put their desire not to give in to the other over doing the right thing.

However at the end of the day, Silver Fern should have done the right thing and paid them for two extra beasts. If I was on the board of Silver Fern, I’d want to know who made that decision, and hold them accountable for it.