Chairman Robert L. Frantz opened the Pennsylvania Bituminous Mine Safety Advisory Committee (BMSAC) meeting at 10 a.m.

Attendance:

Chairman Robert Frantz opened the business portion of the meeting. Minutes of the April 11 meeting were distributed. A motion was made by Gerry Finfinger and seconded by Dave Rebuck to approve the minutes as typed. The motion carried.

Old Business:

Accident Review, Recommendations, and Reduction Through Safe Job Procedures: Matt Bertovich and Joe Sbaffoni gave a brief update on the accidents investigated by the Bureau. Discussion was held on the June 27 fatal accident at Solar No. 7 where a remote-controlled miner operator went under unsupported roof. This accident is very similar to the fatal accident that occurred on December 22, 1999, at Canterbury Coal Company’s Dianne Mine. Carol Boring reported that MSHA is still investigating the accident and that more information would be available at the next meeting. Joe Sbaffoni explained the Bureau’s lost-time accident reporting procedure.

Biosolids and Associated Health Hazards: At the request of the UMWA and PCA, this agenda item was postponed until the next meeting.

Aging of the Workforce: Gerry Finfinger, NIOSH, reported that no subcommittee meetings had been held. An additional item was added to the subcommittee’s mission. The mission is now defined as:

1. Develop a "best practices" guide for the current workforce drawing on available literature, industry contacts and other relevant sources. This would encompass the mining and construction industries and would include training, education, and the design of work systems/practices.
2. Develop a strategy for dealing with the influx of new mine workers. This would include the identification of training needs, current training resources available, and an approach for developing training resources that are not available. The mining community could use the future training needs assessment as a guide for future planning purposes.
3. Develop data documenting historical and future employment needs of the mining industry. This would include researching data from the 1970s and documenting what has happened since that time. This data will be used to project what we see happening in the future and communicating this information data to the mining community.
4. Develop data and collect information relevant to the demographics of the workforce specific to the mine industry including age, nationality, language, and literacy.

Chairman Bob Frantz made a motion for Gerry Finfinger to obtain funding for a pilot project to take a look at the issues identified in the subcommittee’s mission. Tom Strong seconded the motion. All were in favor. Gerry Finfinger will inform the advisory committee within a week on whether the funding request was granted.

A discussion was held on foreign-speaking immigrants and the mining industry. The committee also discussed strategies to improve existing training programs for older miners retrained in the workforce.

Due to a conflict with the Chairman’s schedule, the meeting scheduled for October 17 will be held on October 31, 2001 at 10 a.m. at the Fayette County Health Center in Uniontown. Agenda items for this meeting will be Update on E-Government Program by Concurrent Technologies Corporation; Accident Review, Recommendations, and Reduction Through Safe Job Procedures; Aging of the Workforce; and Biosolids and Associated Health Hazards.

With no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 11:45 a.m.