Analysis of Mining Accident Levels against the Background of Changes in Productivity and Employment in the Hard Coal Mining Industry

Abstract

Occupational safety is an extremely important area of concern in every company. In mining companies, it occupies a particularly
high position in the hierarchy of tasks and objectives. An accident at work is defined as a sudden event, caused by an external cause,
resulting in injury or death of a worker and which occurred in connection with work. An accidental event consists of a number
of interrelated adverse technical, organisational, environmental and human events. However, it is recognised that human error
(interference) is usually the initiating factor of an accident at work. Among the causes of errors can be distinguished primarily: human
failure, characteristics of the tasks performed, the conditions of the physical environment and the impact of the social environment,
technical conditions. Therefore, within the framework of accident prevention, apart from the technical sphere, attention is also paid
to the sphere of management – motivation, proper training, information flow, as well as assessment of psychophysical features of
employees and their adaptation to the workplace. It is even more justified in the situation, where as it results from many years' data of
the Central Statistical Office (GUS), the so-called human factor is responsible for about 60% of accidents at work in Poland. The level
of accidents can be analysed from several angles. Interesting is correlation of level of accidents from factors, which have influence on
management. Then it is possible by controlling these elements to influence the number of accidents at work. It is especially important
in such branch as mining, in which according to GUS data the highest number of accidents was registered in Poland. Intuitively,
most causes of accidents, according to the literature, are caused by human factors. A fall in the accident rate should be a natural
consequence of a reduction in the workforce. However, a reduction in employment must not result in a decrease in labour productivity.
In this article, the authors present the results of a study of correlation between these three indicators: employment level, productivity
and accident rate, in Polish coal mines over the period 2003–2020.