MR. SELAN: Let's go ahead and open things up to the audience here. Sir, do you have a question? Could you direct it to whoever?

Q: Yes, I am Scott Schneider with the Center for Workers Rights. There are a couple things. One of them, with regard to Cypress Amax, I guess, what I am wondering is: Is that the extent of their ergonomics program or are they doing all the things that AEP and Consolidated are doing also because it seems to me that you are doing a disservice to the workers if you are not reducing the physical requirements first to see how far you can reduce them, before you start selecting people out. It seems like then you are doing a disservice.

MR. SELAN: We are taking a look at what are the engineering controls that are available to them, and the engineering controls are going to be, hopefully, systematically worked into the work environment. The physical ability test battery is something that could be plugged in immediately. The engineering controls are something that are more a long term gradual phasing for Cypress. Yes, it is not being disregarded by them at all. I think there are benefits associated with taking a look at what are the things that we can be doing now to reduce injuries in the workplace, as well as what are the things that we can be folding in on a more long term basis.

Q: I have to disagree. I mean, I don't know the mining industry that well, but I have worked in the construction industry, and I have done some ergonomic work with firefighters who have very high physically demanding jobs. You would be amazed at the changes that have gone on in the last 20 years in both construction and firefighting. If you talk with firefighters and they say oh, yeah, 20 years ago we had these very heavy turnout coats. Now they are lighter weight. We had brass couplings, and now they are made out of plastic. We have lighter weight hoses now, and all sorts of things have happened.

In the construction industry there is a lot more power tools being used. There is a lot more mechanization that is going on. There are enormous changes that have gone on in the last 20 years, even though it seems like it may be the same job. I am sure the same is true in mining in a lot of respects. The equipment has changed tremendously.

MR. SELAN: Yes, I don't want to over simplify my position. I certainly am willing to admit that there have been improvements in the underground mining industry. There certainly hasn't been that level or degree of improvement that we would like to see, but there have been improvements that have been made. There are still great physical demands associated with this type of work which is just not the type of level of physical demand that everybody can acceptably perform without increased risk of injury.

Q: There is also a lot of self-selection too. Not everybody wants to be a miner or aspires to be a miner because they just know that they are not even going to apply. So I think there is a lot of self-selection in there.

I do want to mention with regard to the masonry blocks, I have been working with a masonry institute, and they have been working with the Army Corps of Engineers in Nebraska developing a light weight block too. I don't know if you are aware of it. If you give me your card, I will send you some information about it. So it is available. They are also working on a lot of other things like small hoists that they have available to be used on a scaffold, which could be adaptable to a mine situation where the hoist picks up a block and puts it in place and then the masonry uses their skill to make sure it is set properly but doesn't have to use their strength to lift it and put it in place. So there is a lot of stuff going on in the construction industry that may transfer over into the mines as well.

MR. SELAN: Any additional questions?

Q: My name is Ian Chong. Guys, I have to admit that your presentations have been one of the most entertaining that I have seen through the whole day, so kudos to you all.

My question is directed to Tim. I was very impressed when you placed your slide of the ergonomics committee. You had upper management. You had middle management, line supervisors, and, of course, the workers themselves. My question is: On an ergonomics committee is there a particular reason you omitted a board certified ergonomist?

MR. MARTIN: Not really. We approached this type of process from just common sense. We have worked with other agencies and other industries that have certified ergonomists that performs a lot of their studies and research, and we have seen in those other types of industries that particular problems would be studied to death. In the mining industry, as we mentioned, the conditions are so obvious that at times we didn't feel it was necessary.

Q: But not all ergonomists are placed in the area of analysis and data collection.

MR. MARTIN: Well, we have a contract with companies such as the Joyce Institute and the Bureau of Workmen's Comp., a division of Hygiene and Safety, that has worked with us in certain areas, as well as Mr. Gallagher with the U.S. Bureau of Mines. At this particular time, we do not employ or have we contracted on a regular basis professionals in that field.

Q: That feels to me that you don't look upon ergonomists as being able to design and build prototype specific tools for a specific applications. What I am hearing from you in your interpretation of your answer seems to be that the role of the ergonomist is to make an analysis of a job, do some of the biomechanics and then put a series of analysis and reports together detailing that this is a bad job. Well, it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that someone hauling 100 pound bag of concrete is a tough things to do, and that is what I am hearing from you. Is that a correct interpretation?

MR. MARTIN: Well, our success with the projects that we have identified and our approaches to make those improvements, that I have mentioned have produced results. We have the chairmen of our ergonomic committees meet at our corporate office and present each year what has accomplished. These committees are completing around 75 to 100 projects per year per site. So there is a lot of activity going on, and there are a lot of things that have been done that has resulted in ergonomic improvements. We just haven't seen in the past a need to employ someone in that particular field on a regular basis, since we have been so active.

Q: My contention is that if you are having a brain surgery committee it is good to have a pediatrist and an internist and maybe a hand specialist, but also it might be a good idea to bring a brain surgeon in. My whole point here is maybe some of the private sector may be hearing an ergonomist's role is limited where it really isn't. Maybe by opening up your mindset as to what some ergonomists can do, not just data collection and analyzing a job and assigning an inducies rate of 6.5 on a subjective scale of one to ten, whether it is good or bad or at risk, low risk or high risk, but rather whether they can actually help you make things to implement.

MR. SELAN: Just to give a few other people an opportunity since we are running short on time, Tim, would it be safe to say that your committee has received some training in ergonomics?

MR. MARTIN: Oh, yes.

MR. SELAN: So we are not talking about ergonomic naivete here. We are just talking about unfortunately they didn't hire a consultant. So I lost a little money on the deal there, but I don't think you necessarily need an ergonomics consultant. I think we are all in agreement that you need some ergonomics expertise. Ma'am.

Q: Good morning. I am Celeste Monforton with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and I first want to thank Sean Gallagher for putting together such an interesting panel.

My question is directed to Tim and Dan. You both represent larger companies, and what is your response to other mine operators and small employers who get frightened by the term ergonomics?

MR. ANDERSON: Go ahead, Tim.

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, Dan. Actually, MSHA, as you know, as taken a very active role in small mine safety, and I have been seeing a lot of proactive things come out of the Mine Health and Safety Academy, along with the U.S. Bureau of Mines and technical support. There is a lot of help that is available to the small mine operator, and you are right that there is a scare with the term alone, especially in some of the fields of the professional people in ergonomics, the money that is charged for doing that type of work. In the mining industry it is still a new concept. It is hard to believe. In other industries they have been talking ergonomics for 15 years. Our company, as large as we are, really started taking that issue serious in 1989, and it is kind of amazing that it has taken that long to be that serious.

Just to give you an idea of how sort of rare this is in the mining industry, I believe, Sean can back this up. I think he searched quite hard throughout the nation for some companies that were heavily involved in ergonomics. I think you are seeing them sitting up here right now today, and we are just a small representation of what is out there in this industry, as far as the number of companies, but it is still a new field within the mining industry. As Joe has mentioned, what is a shame is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. What we have can easily be applied to these other mines, and it is people like Sean and your group where we can share this information out with the other coal companies that we can make some improvement.

Q: Yes, I certainly believe that you have an interesting story to tell from tremendous examples, like the ergo bus, and the more you can talk about those things and let other operators know that there are lots of possibilities out there and by getting your workers involved in solutions, they don't have to be afraid of the word ergonomics.

MR. MARTIN: We try to be positive in sharing what we do. We invite anyone in to our coal operations to take tours and work with our committees. I recently spoke at the National Homes Safety Association meeting in Columbus and presented some of our projects in ergonomics.

Q: I am Sean Gallagher with NIOSH, and we have tried to work with a number of different companies, getting ergonomic efforts together. One of the big problems that we have run into time and time again is this sort of merry-go-round that goes on at different mine sites with people that are in charge with different efforts. What we will find is that we will try and get an effort started with a company and will be three to six months into this process, getting some progress going, and all of the sudden the guy who is in charge of the program gets reassigned to a different place, and what happens is that the process just gets lost in the shuffle. How has your companies dealt with that type of issue? Do you have the problem of managers being moved around, and if so, how do you get continuity with your ergonomics program?

MR. ANDERSON: The one method that we use, I think, to make sure the program maintains its momentum is that every three months the mine site coordinators are required to send up to the regional coordinators the report as to the activities that are going on with their mine site in that particular period. It doesn't sound like much, but I will tell you it is a very bad career move for you to send a letter up to that guy and say oh, by the way, we forgot to do ergonomics this week. It is a bad career move. So that kind of keeps the program going, and I discussed a little bit about some things we need to do to get it fine tuned, so to speak. We are not getting the information out and about as well as we should. That is one method that we use.

As far as people getting transferred and stuff, it happens all the time. You reappoint, and physically we reappoint to the next guy that assumes that particular position. Like I said, it is usually the assistant supers that are pulled. So the next guy that becomes the assistant superintendent, he automatically assumes the position of ergonomics coordinator.

Q: Hello, my name is Robert Smith. I am a district industrial hygienist for the Mine Safety and Health Administration in Western Kentucky. I have been in mining for about 26 years. I have a masters in industrial hygiene and environmental health and mine safety.

Ergonomics has been in mining for a long time. We call it material handling safety. They didn't even come up with the term, but when you look at the statistics and see that this is where you are getting a lot of injury and you start doing something about it, it is ergonomics. They bring in 50 and 100 pound bags of material on palettes that are four or five feet high. They send them underground, and it hits an area where it has to be lowered, and they manually start repalettizing this stuff. They get a hold of the company and say put these half height, and that eliminates that repalettization. They are using a 30 pound adjustable wrench to tighten up roof bolts, truss bolts, and they look ta the problem and look at that all this is done at shoulder height bent over, and they decided to go to an aluminum wrench in weight saving. This stuff has been going no for a long time.

We have got miles to go, for sure, and there is a lot of room for the specialist, the ergonomist, in mining for sure. So I just thought I would bring that about.

Q: Hi, my name is Mike Robatco. I am with the Mine Safety and Health Administration's Denver Technical Support. Dan, first of all, I think you really gave an enthusiastic presentation. As I look at your organizational chart, you said that one of the problems you have is communicating down to the three levels so that you don't duplicate the same things at each place. Have you done anything about communicating some of these engineering solutions to say the long haul company, say the zip mobile, for instance? Has anything been done about that or are you planning on doing anything like that?

MR. ANDERSON: The safety task group that works out at the corporate level, we deal with equipment manufacturers with that particular group. They have had equipment manufacturers modify machines specifically for our use that have ergonomic principles built into it. The thing such as the zip mobile, no, to tell you the truth we haven't gone out there and publicized it very much. Anybody that has been underground at our mines -- and we are pretty much like Tim. We take a lot of people underground. We give a lot of tours. They see these kind of things, and they are welcomed to use them. But, we haven't gone out and done any publishing or sold those ideas to anybody, no.

Q: Hello, I am Marie Haring-Sweeney from NIOSH. I had a question for Joe relative to the physical ability testing. I don't know much about it, but do you know what the predictive value of the physical ability testing is five or ten years down the road? For example, you have a young man at age 25 can lift 100 pounds regularly on the day. What happens five years from then when he has been doing this job over and over again and the population ages? It would seem to me that the predictive value is not very good.

MR. SELAN: Again, we have not done perspective validation studies in the underground mining industry. We have done them in other industries where we have looked at now a maximum length of about five years and still seen injury reductions of the orders that I spoke of after a five year period. Now, is there some period in time where the predictive value of these things does start to diminish? Probably you are right. There is going to be that point in time, but certainly it has at least robustness over a five year examination period.

Q: I guess my point would be something like what Dan Cimmino talked about yesterday. You might as well fix the problem, as opposed to trying to fix the individual and then you could have a lot more people working in that particular situation.

MR. SELAN: I hate to come across like I am heartless and we are looking for some mining super race out there. What we are looking at here is just saying this job requires you to lift a 50 pound bag. Demonstrate to me that you can lift a 50 pound bag, and the job is yours.

Q: Have you applied the NIOSH lifting equation to a lot of the current lifting jobs?

MR. SELAN: The NIOSH lifting equation-you would be hard pressed to find manual handling activities in underground mining that do not exceed the NIOSH recommended weight limit.

MR. MARTIN: I want to make one last comment to the gentleman who is before you. When we talk about sharing information with other companies, manufacturers, we noticed when the mining industry was healthier and there the production and sales of equipment were running extremely high, I made a remark that the mining equipment manufacturers seemed to have a personality of their own and acted very independent. I think one of the things that has helped is the fact that the mining industry has taken a little bit of a slump, and sales of these pieces of equipment has been a little bit lower. They really have to listen to the customer a lot closer now, and the little things, for example like the bag with the symbol on it that the manufacturers came right in and jumped on, we are seeing the same thing from the equipment manufacturers.

MR. SELAN: Additional questions from anyone in the audience? If not, on behalf of the three of us, we greatly appreciated all of your interaction with us.