The role of workplace health and safety representatives and the creeping responsibilisation of occupational health and safety on South African mines

Abstract

ILO Convention 176 provides for worker selected health and safety representatives (HSRs) with which the South African Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA) No 29 of 1996 as amended complies. Although arrangements for worker consultation is well established in other industrialised contexts worldwide, it is threatened by neo-liberalism and a trend within occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation described as ‘responsibilisation.’ This paper examines the experience of South African HSRs in relation to this globalised context. In-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 37) and short telephone interviews (n = 53) were conducted at four large underground mines (platinum, gold and diamond) with workplace HSR (n = 25) between February 2015 and June 2016. Interviews explored HSR perceptions of their preparation, day-to-day activities, context and experience of OHS transgressions. Interviews were translated, transcribed and thematically analysed (Max QDA 12). A four domain framework was developed to encapsulate the experience of HSRs, that left them feeling accountable, or having to account, for the OHS transgressions of co-workers, and in some instances, facing employer action against themselves. The term ‘creeping responsibilisation’ was introduced to describe the slide towards HSRs holding responsibility for OHS transgressions in place of the employer. The pre-conditions for autonomous worker representation in South Africa are judged to be insufficient which holds lessons for other African states wishing to strengthen their own commitments to OHS.