In the stope
Dr Sizwe Phakathi:
agent of change
Dr Sizwe Phakathi, head safety and sustainable
development at the Chamber of Mines, tells Leon Louw
more about his book and the realities of working in an
underground mine.
Dr Phakathi, what is the title of
your book and what did you try
to achieve with the research?
The book is called Production, Safety
and Teamwork in a Deep-Level Mining
Workplace. I hope it will bring to
the fore the realities of how work
processes shape the actions of frontline
mining teams, production supervisors,
and managers. In an underground
mine, the day-to-day lived experiences
of workers directly shape production
processes. Those experiences are of
fundamental importance to a range
of managerial concerns, including
organisational behaviour and human
resource management, organisational
safety and risk management,
production systems, work relations,
and change management. Yet,
they are too often overlooked by
the executives and managers who
design management strategies.
The book will help practitioners,
policy-makers, and researchers to
understand the factors influencing
work processes, production, safety,
teamwork, and work relations —
not only in a mining workplace
but more generally as well. The
insights it provides into the
importance of day-to-day lived
working experiences will help
them to improve organisational,
employee, and team performance.
When did you join the Chamber
of Mines?
I joined the Chamber of Mines
seven years ago. I head up the
safety and sustainable development
department at the Chamber.
[28] MINING MIRROR MARCH 2018
I consider myself a mining sociologist.
My PhD (in industrial sociology)
focused on workplace studies and in
this case, it was mining. As part of
my research, I looked at how teams of
mine workers respond to productivity
and safety-enhancing initiatives while
going about their day-to-day work in
the underground mining workplace.
As I understand it, you worked
underground at the rockface
with the mining teams to get
the data you required for your
research?
Yes, that is correct. I immersed myself
in the everyday life of an underground
mine worker and became part of
a production team at a prominent
gold mine on the West Rand. For
six months, I was part of deep-level
underground mining teams and spent
time with them for the full production
shift. In academic terms, the method
I used is called ethnography or
participant observation.
So, you worked underground as
a miner?
Yes, but I would not become involved
in activities that I was not trained for
or that was unsafe. I mostly only did
housekeeping. Of course, I could not
do the hard-manual work like drilling,
as it requires a certain level of skill,
experience, and training. It is a tough
environment. Part of my experience
was living in the hostel, eating with
the workers, waking up at four o’clock
in the morning, and going down the
shaft in the middle of winter — a
typical day for an underground mine
worker. Moreover, I mingled with
them at restaurants, entertainment
areas, and even played soccer with
them after shifts, so I got a good idea
of how it feels to be an underground
mine worker in South Africa.
There is no doubt that the
experience enriched the quality
of my research and the data that
I collected, and it gave me better
insight. Then I went back to Oxford
to write it up as my PhD. The book
is based largely on my PhD research.
How will your experience enrich
the current knowledge about
safety and underground mining?
In South Africa, there are still too
many fatal injuries in the mining
industry. Hopefully, this book can
contribute to the mining industry’s
goal of achieving zero harm. The
content of my book highlights
perspectives from the rock face. I
believe that these perspectives, and
the voice of the workers in the stopes,
are missing in the boardrooms.
We continue talking about health
and safety and zero harm, but the
voice of workers at the point of
production — the frontline crews
and operators — is missing.
And this is the book’s contribution:
it highlights the hidden world of
underground deep-level workers, how
they go about organising production
and safety, and how they work
together as a team. Furthermore, it
touches on the relationships they
have with supervisors. There are
chapters on supervisors as well, and
it shows how management ensures