CMNT_TITLE

Safety and Health in Mines Convention, 1995 (No. 176) - Austria (RATIFICATION: 1999)

Other comments on C176

Direct Request

2016
2010
2005

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Application of the Convention in law and practice. The Committee notes the Government’s indication in its report according to which the Opencast Mines Regulation (No. 416/2010), which governs the protection of workers engaged in the above-ground prospection, extraction and processing of solid mineral raw materials, centres on risk-specific planning and organization of surface mining. The Government explains that, in this context, the employers have to determine, on the basis of geological and geotechnical investigations, the particular slope heights, inclines and widths of levels that will permit safe working of the mine, and the reasons for these calculations must be spelt out in the safety and health protection document. The Government adds that a targeted review, which was carried out in consultation with the labour inspectorate in all opencast mines during the 2012–14 period, found that approximately 90 per cent of all opencast mines in the country had their own safety and health protection document. Furthermore, the Committee notes the detailed statistical information provided by the Government for the 2010–14 period and according to which the number of occupational accidents in the mining sector has decreased from 149 in 2010 (including 42 serious accidents and one fatality) to 103 in 2014 (including 27 serious accidents). The Committee also notes the information on the number and type of contraventions in the mining sector between 2010 and 2013, and notes in particular that the number of contraventions to technical and safety and occupational hygiene protection rules increased from 505 in 2010 to 1,056 in 2013, while the number of violations of worker protection requirements, which had significantly increased from 11 in 2010 to 62 in 2011, decreased to 26 in 2013. The Committee requests the Government to indicate if an analysis of the causes of the increase in the contraventions to the protection rules mentioned above has been undertaken and to provide information on any measures envisaged to address this increase.