Considerations on the Building of Safety Culture in Village and Township Coal Mine

Zhang Heping

Shuozhou Safety Supervision Station of Coal Mine, Shanxi Province

The "Three Represent's" theory raised by Mr. Jiang Zemin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, has given brilliant exposition on culture establishments. Mr. Jiang has pointed out that the Communist Party of China should all along represent the orientation of advanced culture. The safety culture of coal mine is the integral part of the advanced culture and the ideological basis of safety work in coal mine. To strengthen the building of safety culture in coal mine has a significant strategic significance for guarantee safety production and social stability. To strengthen the building of safety culture of enterprises and to increase consciousness of this culture is a great significance for developing staff's ability of safety guarding, for prevent and reduce accident and for guarantee life safety of workers and staff in coal mine. This is particularly for village and township coal mine with backward mining method, poor safety, low education level of employees and many accidents.

1. Status of Building of Safety Culture in Village and Township Coal Mine

● Remote from city and ill-informed. Most of village and township coal mines are scattered located in mountain areas with backward communications and ill-informed. These mines lack culture atmosphere and even more lack healthy culture. Currently, Vulgar culture, even unhealthy culture, such as decadent, gambling and drag taking, occupy local culture front. All these above mentioned are obstacles affecting the building of safety culture.

● Low education level of employees and poor humanism environment. Coal mine is labor intensive enterprise and also hardship, dirty and dangerous one. Most employees are poor educated and some are even illiteracy or semiliterate. These mines especially lack talents in literature and art. Employees in these mines have outmoded mentality with mainly small-peasant economy and ancestral idea. They come from all corners of the country and customs of various areas are quite different. These employees are with poor sense of organizational discipline and lack ideological communication among them. In addition, most of employees are seasonal workers or temporary workers with serious hired hand and vagrant mentality. All these above mentioned are the internal obstacles for building of safety culture.

● It is seriously short of investment in culture, organization and staff are not perfect, and poor culture facilities. The tendency has been existed for many years in village and township coal mine of lay too much stress on economy but look down on the building of culture. Up to now, most village and township coal mines adopted private management system with various forms, such as lease, contraction or transfer. Legal persons of enterprises only think how to earn money and recover investment but ignore the building of culture. In addition, the situation of coal selling has becoming worse since 1997. Most of coal mines have been operated in debt and even salary and wages could not paid in time, the owners of coal mines have no money to invest into the construction of culture facilities. From the view of organization, most coal mines are managed by family and employees are unable to affect the management of these mines. From the view of content of culture activity, the education method to employees are only meeting before go on duty or safety meeting and no lively and vivid content and form of safety culture activity. Thus, most village and township coal mines have become "three non culture" enterprises, that are no place, no organization and no content of culture activity. The problem above mentioned is the basic obstacle for the building of safety culture in coal mines.

● Local governments not pay enough attention on safety culture. The local governments have not constantly placed the building of safety culture in village and township coal mines on an important agenda for many years. They have only paid attention to economic results, but ignored the building of safety culture. As a result, the building of safety culture has been not placed on the right place during appointing manager of coal mine and on the idea of managing enterprise as well as on production and marketing, thus causing ignorance of the building of safety culture by cadres and employees. The problem above mentioned is the main reason for the slow building of safety culture in coal mines.

2. Countermeasures

● It should adhere to principle of mass participation. The building of safety culture in village and township coal mine should pass through a hard procedure, it could not be completed in one day and should follow the principle of gradual improvement. It is essential that the safety culture of village and township coal mine is mass culture, therefore, it should rely on active participation of masses. It should establish encouraging and voluntary participation mechanism, arouse the broad masses in coal mine, bring the enthusiasm of the masses into play of participating, organize spontaneously and self-education. At the initial stage of the building, the standard should not be too high, but should popularize as possible as it can be. The employees could be educated, awakened, constantly enhanced for their own quality during participation in the building of safety culture as well as conscientiously rectify bad action, strengthen legal knowledge and consciousness of self-protection.

● It should adhere to principle of flexibility and diversification. The staffs and employees in village and township coal mine have different education levels and hobbies. Therefore, the building of safety culture should be diversified and varied from person to person. It should particularly adopt the forms that are loved by the masses, the forms should be popular and easy to understand. It should make entertainment a medium of education to educate the masses. Some state-owned coal mines have provided valuable experiences. For instance, in 1980's, some mines compiled the typical case of abiding by rules or breaking rules and regulations into the form of small drama, clapper talk, doggerel or comic dialogue to praise or criticize the related action, in order to reach the aim of educate employees. Some mines set up honor roll or exposure roll of breaking rules for praise advanced person or spur backward person so as to reach the aim of uphold the good and suppress the bad. Other mines strengthen propaganda to create the atmosphere of safety culture in mining area and occupy employee's ideological front with healthy culture. All these effectual and valuable experiences which were proved early are worth to be used for reference and popularization. The village and township coal mines should adopt related education method keeping in mind the ideological characteristics of employees in different periods, and adopt different form in coal mines with different conditions. At the same time, the government should bring the enthusiasm into play in the building of safety culture, guide coal mine and non-government organizations to participate in the building of safety culture of coal mines, and form the building system of safety culture in which the government combines with society and coal mines.

● It should adhere to principle of scientificalness and integration. The important content in the building of safety culture in village and township coal mine is to spread scientific knowledge and constantly improve cultural, scientific and technological knowledge of cadres and employees. In view of various poor conditions of village and township coal mines, currently, we should adopt "connection through marriage" tactics to cover self shortage, i.e. to rely on the culture advantage of large coal mine and carry out joint operation reform, constantly develop the safety culture of enterprise. We should strengthen training to employees and core members by adopting the method of "sending people to learn outside or invite people from outside to give lecture to the employees" and perform "snowball rolling" strategy, constantly develop safety culture of enterprises. We should persist in the strategy of culture manage mine, merge safety into culture and constantly enrich safety culture of enterprises.

● It should adhere to principle of mandatory and systematization. Local government at all levels should pay high attention to the building of safety culture of village and township coal mines, put it at place as important as economic construction, the safety culture and economic construction should promote each other. Particularly, at the initial stage of the building of safety culture, the mandatory measures should be adopted. The building of safety culture should bring into the whole process of business management and perform synchronously the building of safety culture and production operation. We should set up building fund of safety culture, increase investment in culture facilities; set up and amplify related rules and regulations, institutionalize and normalize the activity of safety culture; perfect organization and strengthen the building of a contingent of cadres.