The Westray Mine Explosion

The Westray Mine Explosion by Caroline O’Connell & Albert Mills Saint Mary’s University Halifax, Canada This case may be used by current adopters of: S. L. McShane & M. A. von Glinow, Organizational Behavior, 3rd ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2005); S. L. McShane Canadian Organizational Behaviour, 5th ed. (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2004); S. L. McShane & T. Travaglione, Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim, 1st ed. (Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia, 2003) Copyright © 2004 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited The Westray Mine Explosion The Westray Mine Explosion By Caroline O’Connell & Albert Mills, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada It was the sixth of February 1996. Carl Guptill sat at his kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee. He was a beefy man with long hair, often tucked through the back of a baseball cap. The next day he would testify at the Commission of Inquiry into the Westray Mine explosion and friends had been phoning to offer their support. One caller, a geologist from nearby Antigonish, hadn’t been in touch since working with Guptill at a mine in Guysborough County more than five years ago; but he wanted Carl to know he was thinking of him. Carl Guptill’s thoughts drifted back to another kitchen table – Roy Feltmate’s. Roy, a longtime friend, had worked on B crew at the Westray Mine. In April of 1992, three months after he had left his job at Westray, Guptill met up with Roy and four other members of B crew, at Feltmate’s home. Talk quickly turned to safety at the mine. Conditions had continued to deteriorate and the men believed that an explosion or a cave- in was inevitable. They calculated their odds of being the crew underground when it happened at 25 per cent. The men made Guptill promise that if they died in the mine, he would “go public” and tell the world what he knew. Mike MacKay implored him to “do it for our widows”. On May 9, 1992, a few short weeks after that kitchen meeting, the odds caught up with Roy Feltmate, Mike MacKay, Randy House, Robbie Fraser and 22 other members of B crew. At 5:20 am an explosion ripped through the Westray Mine. All 26 miners underground died. Fifteen bodies were recovered but 11 bodies, including Roy Feltmate’s and Mike MacKay’s remained in the mine. Guptill would keep his promise to them. One Miner’s Tale Carl Guptill had worked in hard rock mines in Nova Scotia prior to hiring on at Westray. At the Gay’s River Mine, he had chaired the health and safety committee and at the Forest Hill Mine he’d been a shift supervisor to a crew of 35 or more men. He had completed an advanced management course at Henson College, the continuing education arm of Halifax’s Dalhousie University. He was mine rescue certified and had been captain of a mine rescue team. As both a miner and a supervisor, he’d enjoyed a good working relationship with Albert McLean, the provincial mine inspector. Guptill put safety first and believed he’d made that clear to Roger Parry, underground manager at Westray, when Parry interviewed him for a job. After only a few shifts, Guptill began to question safety practices at Westray. Farm tractors, which shouldn’t even be used underground, were loaded beyond their capacity. Combustible coal dust was allowed to build up underground; levels of explosive methane gas were too high and the methanometers that detected the gas were rigged to circumvent Copyright © 2004 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited Page 2 The Westray Mine Explosion their intended purpose of warning miners when gas levels were dangerous. In addition, miners worked 12- hour shifts, often without breaks. The batteries for miners’ headlamps could not sustain their charge and were often dim or out by the end of a shift. There were no underground toilets and miners relieved themselves in unused corners of the mine. Complaints fell on deaf ears. One supervisor answered Guptill’s concerns with the comment that “they got a few thousand applications up on top, men willing to come down here and take your place.” On only his 13th shift, Guptill’s supervisor ordered him to continue working after his lamp had dimmed. In the dark, Guptill stumbled and a steel beam he was attempting to move landed on him and injured him. After three days in hospital, he called Roger Parry. The conversation quickly turned into a shouting match. Guptill then contacted Claude White, the provincial director of mine safety. White, in turn, sent him to mine inspector Albert McLean. Shortly thereafter Guptill met with McLean, John Smith, the man responsible for inspection of electrical and mechanical equipment in mines, and Fred Douche, in charge of mine rescue. In this meeting Carl Guptill spoke of his accident and of the many safety violations he had observed in his short time working at Westray. Guptill expected that his report would result in a shutdown of the mine and a complete investigation. Weeks later, having heard nothing, he again called inspector Albert McLean. The two met once more, this time in a local motel room, instead of the labor department’s offices. McLean kept the television on high volume throughout the meeting. Puzzled, Guptill later concluded that McLean was fearful he would tape the meeting. McLean told Guptill that the other men had not backed up his complaints and that as inspector, he could do little. He did offer to “put in a good word” for Guptill with management if he wanted to return to work. This was the story Carl Guptill told the Commission of Inquiry. A Snapshot of Mining in Picot County The four communities of Trenton, New Glasgow, Westville and Stellarton run into each other to make up Pictou County, Nova Scotia. All told, 25,000 people live there, descendants of Scots that landed with the ship Hector and immigrants from the other British Isles and Europe that followed Britain’s General Mining Association oversees in the early nineteenth century. Hardy stock, they had mined the county’s 25 seams of coal for generations. One historian estimated that nearly 600 residents lost their lives in coal mines, as many as had been killed in both world wars. Although full of coal, the seams were considered among the most dangerous in the world; the beds were uneven and the ash content was high. The mines were subject to rock falls and flooding. Most significant were the high levels of explosive methane gas. At its peak in 1875, Pictou coal mines produced 250,000 tons of coal a year and employed over 1600 men and boys. The last mine operating in Pictou was the small, privately operated Drummond Mine that closed in 1984. By the mid-eighties, the only coal mines left in Nova Scotia were operating under heavy federal subsidy in Cape Breton, an economically depressed area in the northernmost part of the province. Cape Breton mines might have met the same fate as those in Pictou had they not been in the territory of a powerful federal Member of Parliament as the oil crisis in the Middle East Copyright © 2004 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited Page 3 The Westray Mine Explosion dominated headlines and economies in the 1970’s. Under OPEC, oil from the Middle East was subject both to price hikes and embargoes. This rejuvenated the dying Cape Breton coal industry and coal rebounded as a source of energy in Nova Scotia. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, a similar opportunity presented itself to the industry in Pictou. An evolving environmental agenda was driving power generation. The provincial electrical utility, Nova Scotia Power Corporation, was seeking to lower its sulphur dioxide emissions. It needed an alternative to high-sulphur Cape Breton coal. Enter Clifford Frame, Curragh Resources and Westray. Politics and Big Guns Clifford Frame, a big man, who drove big cars, raised cattle and smoked expensive cigars, was a self-made tycoon in the style of a previous era. In his youth he turned down a chance to play for the New York Rangers farm team. Instead he got a degree in mine engineering and worked his way from the pit to the corner office. After rising to the post of president of Denison Mines, he’d been fired in 1985 after a very public project failure in British Columbia. He formed Curragh Resources in 1985 and had early success reviving a lead-zinc mine in the Yukon. In 1987, the industry publication the Northern Miner named him “Mining Man of the Year”. That same year he incorporated Westray Coal and a year later, in 1988 he bought out Suncor’s coal rights in Pictou County. In his time at Denison, Frame had come to know key political players in Ottawa. Through these connections he was introduced to Elmer MacKay, then federal representative for Pictou, and Minister of Public Works. Frame aggressively sought federal and political support for his operation. Pictou County was burdened by a 20 per cent unemployment rate and Frame promised that his mine would employ at least 250 people in jobs paying $35,000 - $60,000 for 15 years. Economic spin-off in neighboring communities would total in the millions of dollars. Politicians, including then Premier John Buchanan, supported Frame. Perhaps the project’s greatest advocate was local provincial MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) Donald Cameron who became minister of economic development as the project evolved and ultimately was elected Premier, his position at the time of the explosion. Frame successfully negotiated a $12 million equity loan with the Provincial government as well as an $8 million interim loan when federal negotiations lagged.

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