Wheel loader at work under an open sky

Health and safety

Contractor safety management

Contractors work to our standards, and the obligation is written into the contract rather than communicated after it.

Why this has its own requirementsThe five stagesSubcontractingStop-work and escalation

Why this has its own requirements

A substantial part of the physical work on a mining project is carried out by specialist contractors: drilling, geophysics, earthworks, transport and camp services. That is the normal structure of the industry and it is not a weakness, but it means that much of the exposure we create is created by people who are not our employees. A safety framework that governs only employees would therefore govern only a part of the risk.

The requirement is accordingly stated without qualification: contractors are held to the same standards as employees, and our obligations to a person working on our sites do not depend on who pays that person.

Key facts

Same standards

Contractors are held to the same standards as employees, and the obligation is contractual.

Prequalification

Safety is a prequalification criterion, applied before selection.

Subcontracting

Unauthorised subcontracting triggers investigation, disclosure and corrective action.

Recording

Contractor incidents are recorded in our own system, not the contractor's alone.

The five stages

01

Prequalification

We assess a contractor before selection on its safety management arrangements, its competence for the work, its incident history, its licences and insurances, and its capacity to supervise its own people. Safety is a selection criterion in its own right, not a compliance step after award.

02

Contracting

We write safety obligations into the contract: the standards to be met, the reporting required, our right to audit and to stop work, the treatment of subcontractors, and the consequences of failure.

03

Induction and mobilisation

Site-specific induction covers the hazards of the site, the emergency arrangements, the permit system, the reporting channels and the stop-work authority. We verify competence and certification against the work to be done rather than accept them on assertion.

04

Supervision and monitoring

The contractor supervises its own work and we verify that it does. We conduct field verification, joint inspection and audit on a defined cycle, and the contractor reports its incidents and near misses into our system.

05

Review and close-out

We review performance against the contract, record findings and close out corrective actions, and the outcome informs prequalification for future work.

Field team walking over a high plateau site

Labour standards

Contractor arrangements are the point at which labour rights risk is highest, because employment is intermediated and terms are less visible. The Supplier Code of Conduct accordingly requires compliance with applicable law on working hours, wages and conditions, respect for freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the absence of forced labour, child labour and human trafficking. Contractor labour arrangements are within the scope of our human rights due diligence.

Human rights

Subcontracting

A contractor may not engage a subcontractor on our work without authorisation. Where a contractor uses an unauthorised subcontractor, we investigate the matter and require full disclosure and corrective action. An authorised subcontractor is subject to the same prequalification, induction and supervision requirements as the contractor engaging it, and the contractor remains accountable for its conduct.

Stop-work and escalation

Any person, employed or contracted, may stop work they believe to be unsafe. We investigate a contractor incident on the same basis as an employee incident, and we escalate a potential-fatality event involving a contractor to executive management immediately and report it to the board. Repeated or serious failure by a contractor is grounds for suspension or termination of the contract.

Reporting

Where an activity generates them, contractor safety statistics are published. We record contractor incidents, near misses and corrective actions within our system on the same basis as those of employees, so that performance reporting covers the whole workforce rather than a part of it.

Raising a concern

Employees, suppliers, communities and any other party may raise a concern through the confidential reporting channels. We provide for anonymous reporting, and we do not tolerate retaliation against a person who raises a concern in good faith.

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Rigid haul truck on a haul road in a quarry