Members of the Mining and Energy Union’s Oaky Creek lodges are due to be briefed this afternoon as further details become known about yesterday’s fatal accident at the metallurgical coal mine.

Emerald-based MEU district vice president Shane Brunker was travelling to the mine site, near Tieri, this morning and said MEU industry health and safety representative Jason Hill would be involved in the investigations.

He said the people who had spoken to him since the accident yesterday afternoon were numbed by yet another fatality in the Bowen Basin coalfields.

“And again, everyone says to me, oh, another poor bloody contractor,” he said.

MEU Queensland district president Mitch Hughes has announced that the union will be pushing for an industry-wide examination of work practices, especially involving contractors and maintenance tasks, after a run of four fatal accidents at Queensland coal mines this year.

One man died and a second worker was airlifted to hospital for treatment after the incident at Glencore’s Oaky Creek complex yesterday afternoon.

While Oaky North is an underground mine, it is understood the men were undertaking a maintenance task at surface involving a conveyor belt.

Mr Brunker said the union’s industry health and safety representatives must be contacted in the event of HPIs (high-potential incidents), including fatal accidents.

Among the tasks the union carried out was offering support for workers, including through services such as Mates in Mining, he said.

Mr Brunker said he would be meeting with the Oaky North lodge president and a gathering was planned this afternoon of the Oaky North, Oaky wash plant and Oaky surface operations lodge members.

“The members will come and have a discussion and hopefully we’ll have more info for them by then because the investigation will be well underway,” he said.

Mr Brunker said the prevalence of contractors in serious accidents at coal mines this year raised wider questions for the Queensland industry.

He said also the industry was expanding at a great rate of knots, and there were broad questions about the standard of training as well as the impact of casualisation of the workforce.

“Suddenly there’s been large numbers of incidents happening. Some get reported, some don’t,” he said.

“The industry’s just too big. The RSHQ, they’re just a paper tiger. They’re ineffective in their roles.

“They don’t seem to want to take the industry on or pull up operations for safety issues.

“Our four industry health and safety blokes are just run ragged with the amount of safety issues that they’re trying to look after.”