The mine manager’s guide to underground mine safety : TUC lectures on occupational safety and health and on basics of emergency response

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is one of the key factors of productive and responsible underground mining. In this textbook, Walter Hermülheim passes on the practical know-how he has acquired, helped develop and field-tested during his career as a mine safety professional in the German underground hardcoal mining industry. After a short descriptive introduction on the history and theory of OSH, the book imparts the skills essential for a mine manager to safely manage an underground operation. These include coaching employees to behave safely in their workplaces, to lead, instruct and supervise them effectively, to enhance their risk competence, and to prepare a health and safety document which includes hazard identification, risk evaluation and the controls derived from this for the relevant underground workplaces and work processes. The main hazards to be considered in an underground mine are discussed in overview paragraphs, regarding the related technical, organizational and individual safety measures, and are further deepened in leaflets for workplace inspection. The book is supplemented by an outlook on basics of emergency response. However, this topic is dealt with in more detail in a linked second textbook. Due to the international master course at TUC, the related special literature and legal bases are mainly chosen from Anglo-Saxon sources, respectively from documents of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva. In addition, relevant German sublegal rules and regulations are included in footnotes for the interested reader. In the sense of a best-practice compilation, this textbook serves to familiarize future managers with relevant topics of the subject area of mine safety and health early on during their university education.