The miner’s new clothes

— The following is an excerpt from Mining Explained, published by The Northern Miner.

Before the beginning of his or her shift, which usually lasts 10 hours, the miner reports to the dry or change house. Street clothes are exchanged for work clothes and then there is time to chat with friends while waiting for the cage to go underground.

Warm underclothes, a pair of overalls that are lightweight but strong, steel-toed rubber boots, and gloves are standard work wear. The miner straps a heavy safety belt around the waist to support a battery pack for a headlamp. A hard hat is worn, to which the lamp is attached.

The miner also wears safety glasses, and earplugs or earmuffs for protection from excessive noise. If the mine is wet, the miner will wear a set of waterproof outer clothing often referred to as oilers.

The men and women employed in mining must be in good health. Although mechanization has reduced the amount of physical work required, the individual must still have reasonable strength and good hearing and eyesight. A physical examination is required by law upon starting employment in the mining industry and medical checkups are carried out on a regular basis.

The development of safe job procedures, combined with common sense, has always been a high priority for mining companies. Accident prevention is the responsibility of everyone involved — management, workers, unions and governments.

Each mine also has a rescue team. These usually consist of six to eight miners specially trained to find and assist trapped miners in the event of cave-in, fire or some other accident.

Powerful modern ventilation systems have greatly reduced the risks once associated with mining, but mining companies, unions and governments continue to work with research organizations in order to ensure that working conditions are always improving.

Skill level increasing

While many unskilled workers with little formal education still work in North America’s mines, the increasing complexity of mines today requires that those who wish to advance to the highly skilled and better-paying jobs should, at minimum, have a high school education. Technical training from a high school or community college is an advantage and, of course, an engineering or other university degree gives a young miner many more possibilities for the future.

Mining companies provide the inexperienced worker with a period of initial training common to all employees. This common core training (or stope school, as it is sometimes called) includes an introduction to the basics of mining and mining safety procedures, classroom study on surface and underground, followed by on-the-job training as helper to an experienced miner. Specialized training is then necessary to become qualified to operate individual machines.

Office staff

Besides the miners and various supervisory personnel, there are the technical and professional staff whose duties encompass such things as sampling, surveying, drafting and planning. Directing their activities are the mining engineers and geologists who map the progress of the mining operations, design the mining methods, and direct the search for new ore.

Upper management usually includes a mine manager and a mine superintendent. Naturally, there are also accounting and secretarial personnel at each mine.

Mill and smelter workers

The treatment of ore demands another set of skills, and thus, another group of specialized operators are on the job to watch over the ball mills, flotation tanks and other machinery. Assayers and chemists are also on hand to carry out the analysis of samples for the control of the milling and mining operations.

When the metal concentrates are shipped out for refining, yet another team of workers comes on the scene — furnacemen, smelting equipment operators and refinery operators, to name a few.

Computerized “programmable logic controllers” are common in most mills and smelters, so operators are required to monitor a whole sequence of operations from a control console that keeps tabs on what is happening in various parts of the plant.

Finally, the gold, copper or other metal is ready for shipping, making the shippers the last workers in the unbroken line of people who discovered, mined and processed it.