9 miners dead as cage cable snaps plunging them down the shaft

The two elevators in the office building are ancient.  At least once a week one of them is down for the day for repair.  Often both are out of action and we have to walk up three or six flights of stairs. 

A while ago I got to smoking outside with one of the elevator repairmen.  I asked him what the problem is that the elevators break down so often.  I cannot replicate his old-style Canadian accident, but through clouds of smoke he told me the cables are old and stretched, and this leads to problems with overshooting and undershooting the safety limits. 

I asked why they did not simply get a new cable.  Through bigger clouds of smoke he brushed off the idea with: they think it is too expensive and any rate the thing works most of the time. 

If so casual and penny-pinching an attitude prevails in a down-town Vancouver office building that is plastered with posters proclaiming that it is a “green” building and energy efficient, what hope for the nine dead workers whose cage cable snapped plunging them down the South Deep, Gold Fields, South Africa mine shaft.

We have the usual statements:   ”South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers has said the accidents will persist until the mining industry invests in proper safety equipment and accepts full responsibility for the training of its workers.”

What is so sad and so maddening, is that usual old statements are right  and the only truth we know. 

It is so easy to see the parallels between my conversational smoker and his property management bosses: reluctant to spend more on a new cable, trying to eek out every last bit of use, regardless of the convenience of the office workers.   And the workers and bosses at Gold Fields: probably all nice guys trying to eek out every bit of use of a cable, regardless of the safety of the contract workers in the cage suspended from the cable.  That’s human nature, worldwide. 

Maybe I will walk up the stairs instead.  But no I cannot do that.  In spite of the bold statement that this is a “green” building, the doors from the stairwell to the office floors are locked.  You cannot use the stars from one floor to the other.  Better not call the bluff and lie of the building owner.  He is just looking after security: the homeless and the drug addicts on the street have a nasty habit of coming up the stairs and pinching things out of the office.  We are really a “secure-green” building. 

I wonder what bold faced lies they fed the contract workers in that plunging cage?  Regardless we offer our sympathy.