China's trade union federation and its coal mine safety watchdog are to jointly investigate working conditions in the country's major mines. The survey will include occupational hazards faced by millions of workers.

The All China Federation of Trade Unions and the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety this week said the two-month investigation would begin this month in randomly-chosen mines of nine big State-owned producers.

They did not give the names of the mines.

The investigation aims to identify major problems and to prevent and control occupational hazards, including industrial diseases associated with coal production.

Researchers want to ascertain if coal mine administrators have set up regulations to control, and established agencies specializing in, work hazards in the mines and how they are operated.

Working conditions, the use of protective devices, hazards monitoring and reporting systems, and education and training on hazard prevention will also be investigated.

Though unrelated, the move comes not long after a worker's plight sparked nationwide demand better protection of workers exposed to dangerous working conditions.

Zhang Haichao, 28, has made headline news in China during the past two weeks. He had fought two years for treatment and compensation after contracting pneumoconiosis, a debilitating lung disease, from working at a brick factory in central China's Henan Province.

Results of an initial medical check, which confirmed work-related pneumoconiosis, were suppressed by the employer. Further, a local agency for occupational disease control failed to provide supporting evidence or to press the factory to compensate Zhang.

Zhang was eventually given treatment and compensation after undergoing a thoracotomy, an operation to gain access to the lungs, under his own volition. As a result of the case, at least six local health officials and doctors have been either sacked or suspended. But health experts are worried many workers, particularly migrant laborers, still suffer similar problems to Zhang.

The Ministry of Health in June listed coal mines, nonferrous metal factories and construction sites as the top three dangerous workplaces in terms of occupational disease.

Workers in approximately 110,000 factories and construction sites were being exposed to hazardous environments such as dust, asbestos and poisonous chemical solvents, the ministry said.

Nearly 80 percent of new occupational disease cases reported in China during 2008 were pneumoconiosis, which usually affects people working in very dusty environments and which, without proper treatment, can be fatal.

The government is considering sending special health supervisors to various enterprises to intensify safety protection, said Ren Shukui, an official with the State Administration of Work Safety, early this week.

Trials are now under way at enterprises in Beijing and northeast China's Liaoning and Jilin provinces.

Ren said about 20 million small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly private ones, should be supervised to enforce work safety measures.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2009)