Responsibilities of the Miners' Representative

A miners' representative is a vital part of helping to ensure healthy and safe working conditions and practices at a mine. The representative's knowledge of the worksite can provide MSHA's inspectors with insight into the mine's collective workforce and their grievances or suggestions.

By observing an inspection, a representative can better understand how MSHA enforces health and safety regulations.

A representative's responsibilities may also include the following:

• Reporting accidents, health and safety hazards, and unsafe work conditions to MSHA
• Helping mine operators to comply with mandatory health and safety standards and provisions of the Mine Act
• Maintaining compliance with all federal and state laws and regulations as well as company safety and health policies
• Providing factual statements and representations (orally or in writing) during any inspection or investigation; or on any applications, records, reports, plans, training certificates, or other documents required by the Mine Act to be kept or filed
• Refraining from giving any advance indications of an inspection conducted by MSHA

To learn more about MSHA Part 48 training requirements visit our MSHA Part 48 Subpart B Surface Mining Online Training web page.