In Russia, mines will be suspended if safety violations are detected
Following a meeting on the situation in the coal industry of Kuzbass, held on December 2, 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to amend the Administrative Code (Code of Administrative Offenses), providing for the suspension of mines for non-compliance with degassing requirements during coal mining.
It is proposed to introduce the following types of punishments for non-observance of safety measures at mines:
- suspension of mine operations for failure to comply with the requirements for degassing during coal (oil shale) mining;
- strengthening the responsibility of employers for violation of labor protection obligations of workers employed in work with harmful and (or) hazardous working conditions, including underground work;
- specifying the composition of administrative offenses committed at mining sites and related to non-compliance with industrial safety requirements;
- establishment of responsibility of officials of authorized bodies for non-issuance or untimely issuance of an order to eliminate detected violations, failure to conduct or untimely verification of compliance with a previously issued order.
In addition, Vladimir Putin instructed, by January 1, 2023, to create systems for auditing organizations operating hazardous production facilities in Russia, as well as to make it mandatory for such an audit by the controlling persons of these organizations.
Until February 1, 2022, it was instructed to exclude from the structure of the conditionally constant part of the wages of miners payments that directly or indirectly depend on the output (the amount of coal mined).
Let us remind you that on the morning of November 25 at the Listvyazhnaya mine in Kuzbass there was smoke, as a result of which miners and rescuers died. The number of people injured in the accident at the mine is estimated at 99 people, as a result of the accident 51 people died. On the fact of the incident, a criminal case was initiated under Part 2 of Art. 217 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Violation of industrial safety requirements for hazardous production facilities, resulting in the death of a person by negligence"), as well as a criminal case on the fact of negligence of employees of the Rostekhnadzor department.