This is a photo taken from the aluminium company bus transporting workers to their plant. It traveled through an active brush fire area.
Natural disasters such as tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc have occurred
affecting aluminium plants. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has posted stories
on how an aluminium plant was affected or how they prepared for natural
disasters. This story is a little different. The following story began a number
weeks earlier with brush fires that had spread around the alumina refinery. Some
buildings on the alumina refinery’s property were burned down. That story was
going to be posted in the near future. Then this story occurred and we decided
that this story should be posted first. Here it is.
“We believe the behavior of aluminium company
management was dangerous, workers were pressured to get on those buses and head
into a situation which was still an unfolding disaster for the whole region,”
said the national union secretary.
“Members feared for their lives, they believe
the assurances of managers that the routes and the site were safe was wrong.
There was no discussion about how they would exit the job, no plan they knew of
if the fire took hold at the refinery.”
Workers said they were told to get on the
work buses early one morning during the week of January 10, 2016, leaving from
towns south and north - less than 10 hours after fires had destroyed a nearby
town.
Members worried about asthmatic conditions
were told to use a mask, while workers distressed over their safety received
either bland assurances or sarcasm from one manager. One aluminium company official
is believed to have gained clearance for one bus and a convoy of workers’ cars
to go through a police roadblock in a town 20 kilometers away without any
emergency vehicle escort by wrongly stating they were “essential personnel.”
Their route passed around the still-smoking
ruins of a town, just 3km from the alumina refinery.
“We were told it was safe and the fire was under control,” said one plant
worker, among over 100 workers on-site over a two day period.
“Arriving at work with no escort, nothing
could have been further from the truth. The place was on fire and there was no
(clear) way out.”
The phone network was down, some buildings
were smoke-filled, no emergency services were present and there was fire in
surrounding paddocks.
On one night no emergency escort was provided
out from the alumina refinery for buses carrying about 80 workers.
The road was blocked at a damaged bridge, the
buses were forced to reverse into a paddock still on fire while a site manager
escorting in his own vehicle found another route out.
The journeys in and out lengthened the
working day to 16 hours, with employees dropped off late one night being told
to re-join the bus at 6am next day for another shift. The union has written to
the federal government department of mines, the aluminum company’s senior management
and state government officials asking for an independent investigation into the
aluminium company’s decision to operate the alumina refinery site through the
emergency and how it handled transport.
Local government officials backed the union’s
calls. "Those people spent well nigh on 12 hours in fear of their
lives," the local government offical said
.
"This is just not good enough and there
is clearly a case to answer here."
______________________another media story__________________________________
The national union blasted a mining company
for allegedly putting the lives of its workers at risk by requiring them to
return to work at the height of the deadly bushfires.
The company’s alumina refinery is located about three kilometers from a
town, which has recently been affected by massive bushfires.
The national union’s state secretary said workers were pressured to work
despite unsafe conditions. The union insisted 100 of the mining company’s
workers were bussed through the fire zone without any escort.
“They have shown no regard for their safety and welfare and it was only
by pure luck that 100 lives weren’t lost as a result,” quoted the national
union’s state secretary saying.
A government official for the region called for an independent inquiry
into how the company managed the safety of its workers at the height of the
fire, as reported by local television news.
“Those people spent well nigh on 12 hours in fear of their lives,” said the
government official.
“This is just not good enough and there is clearly a case to answer
here.”
The company rejected claims that the employees’ lives were put to risk,
explaining that staffing levels were reduced to about a third and all
transportation of workers in and out of the refinery were only undertaken after
receiving permission from authorities. They also said buses transporting the
workers were escorted by the Department of Fire and Emergency personnel.
The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog first offers our thoughts and
prayers to all of the people who were displaced by the fires. We also
acknowledge that many, many people lost all of their possessions in the brush fire
that destroyed numerous towns around the alumina fire. We hope that those who
lost all will be able to rebuild their lives.
Here is a photo of one of the hundreds of homes which were destroyed by the brushfire.
Now onto the accusations, which some alumina refinery managers placed
their workers in unsafe conditions. The accusations are the reason why we chose
not to name the company nor their location. The plant workers have accused some
aluminium company managers of forcing them to travel to their place of employment
through hazardous conditions. The story states that the aluminium company had
permission from government authorities to travel with escort through an area
where brush fires were occurring. At some point the aluminium company bus
traveled the previous route but without an escort. It is that action that was
the basis of the complaint(s). We assume that brush fires around this plant are
not a unique occurrence. In the future the plant should develop guideline to
never knowingly place their workers in harm’s way. The APSB have heard of some companies
that take the decision away from their management on whether or not a plant should
operate when facing a natural disaster. They allow the local, state, or federal
governments to make the decision for them.
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