“Drug Disneyland” is part of lax safety culture in the shadow of Victoria Gold disaster, workers say

“I would constantly see workers complaining about certain safety issues,” said a former health and safety member who worked at Eagle for four years. “And it was just put on the back burner. ‘Oh, we’ll take care of it. You know, we don’t have any parts, we don’t have any time.'”

The lax safety culture may have contributed to Victoria’s predicament. Since operations at Eagle were suspended following the June 24 leak and landslide, the company must repay C$232.5 million in debt and has no cash flow. The incident sent Victoria’s share price plunging more than 85% in the last week of June. The single-asset company now has a market capitalization of C$54.1 million.

Victoria has issued three press releases since the accident. The state has not responded to several requests for comment. The exact cause of the accident is under investigation.

“There was always an excuse why we couldn’t fix anything or make it safer,” said the former security worker. “It was always just postponed, you know, production versus safety.”

Avoiding insurance claims

Workers agreed that Victoria’s alleged negligence on safety stands out in light of the company’s approach to Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) claims.

If a worker was injured, the company should have reported the incident to the WCB. But instead of paying compensation, the worker’s wages were withheld, he was ordered to stay home and no injuries were recorded in company records, the sources said.

“We were instructed to send them computers and provide them with online training so they could stay from home and remain on the payroll, which meant no loss of time,” said the former security department member.

The department employs fewer than a dozen guards, supervisors, paramedics and EMTs, but has lost 14 people due to staff turnover in three years.

“They just got fed up and looked for other jobs,” he said.

A construction equipment operator who has worked at Victoria for more than two years but was injured over a year ago said the company is avoiding WCB claims to limit payments and prevent an increase in insurance premiums. Details of his injuries are being kept confidential because he is still employed by Victoria.

“I got injured there and they are paying me money not to go to WCB, but only for six or seven months. Then they said they don’t have the (technology) to allow me to work from home, like administrative work or training,” he said. “I argued with WCB and the company because they didn’t support me in any way.”

“They went to lunch”

Last month’s accident was the second landslide at Eagle this year, the Yukon government confirmed in a press conference in late June. The January incident was smaller than the one in June and involved a dump that was not being leached. During dump operations, a solution containing cyanide is applied to ore pads to separate the gold from the ore.

The operator confirmed what another operator had said The northern miner in an interview last week about the aftermath of the January accident. Production continued after the landslide, although regulations require that such events be followed by a safety shutdown or shutdown.

“We drove down from the top of the ramp to the dining hall,” he said. “Before I got out of the truck, I asked (the mine manager), ‘Is this a safety break or is this a normal lunch?’ He said it was a normal lunch. I said, ‘I don’t agree with that.'”

Another operator who was not working on the runway at the time said there was no disruption in operations.

“It’s true that there was no lockout there, everyone just went to lunch,” he said.

Drug and alcohol consumption

Although alcohol consumption is prohibited at Eagle, one of the operators and security staff stated that alcohol consumption and drug use would be tolerated.

“I saw a whole pile of beer cans and bottles in the garbage can and a few whiskey bottles in the warehouse next to the incinerator,” said the operator. “You’re not allowed to drink alcohol there. It’s a dry warehouse.”

Drug testing was only done when there were metal-on-metal accidents where machines collided with other machines, the security department member said. Bags and clothing were not checked when staff entered the premises and there were no follow-up investigations after housekeepers gave security staff drug paraphernalia they found in the warehouse buildings.

“Unless they were caught and tested, they were essentially in the wild,”The former security guard said: “A man addicted to cocaine came to me and said, ‘This is Disneyland for an addict like me.’ We just looked the other way because no one wanted to deal with the deeper problem of how to control it.”