How to prevent slips, trips, and falls in surface mining

Ontario targeted slips, trips, and falls in the mining and aggregates sectors during a 2025-26 compliance campaign.

Between April 2025 and March 2026, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development (MLITSD) conducted an enforcement blitz focused on slip, trip, and fall hazards at mines and mining plants.

The campaign followed a significant increase in critical injuries in the sector beginning in 2020. Between 2023 and 2024, nearly 40 per cent of those injuries were due to slips, trips, and falls.

Hazards like poor housekeeping, unsafe access to equipment and work areas, inadequate lighting, and working at heights all increase the risk of workers slipping, tripping, and falling at the workplace. By putting in place proper controls and complying with the Regulation for Mines and Mining Plants (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 854), you can prevent these incidents and the lost-time injuries that they often cause.

Housekeeping hazards in surface mining

Jobsite clutter might seem like a trivial problem, but something as simple as an unclean, wet, or debris-strewn work area can cause serious injuries. Hazards related to these sorts of housekeeping issues are the leading cause of slips, trips, and falls in surface mining.

Keeping a clean and orderly workplace is therefore fundamental to any good health and safety program. Employers must have a formal system in place to identify the situations or conditions that could cause workplace slips or falls and put measures in place to eliminate or reduce the risk of those hazards. More specifically, sections 5.1 to 5.3 of Regulation 854 require employers to conduct a written risk assessment and develop controls for housekeeping hazards.

That assessment requires a thorough inspection of the workplace, looking for housekeeping hazards such as:

• Accumulated debris
• Poor lighting
• Failure to secure loose materials and cables
• Uneven walking surfaces (e.g., cracks, potholes, floor openings)
• Pooling water or spills
• Ice, slush, or wintry conditions

Once all hazards are identified, the employer must share the results of the risk assessment with the health and safety representative or joint health and safety committee and work with them to address the hazards.

Housekeeping best practices for mining sites include:

• Keep work areas tidy, well-lit, and ventilated
• Clean as you go; keep equipment and surrounding areas free of debris
• Store tools and materials properly
• Ensure bins for waste materials are easily accessible
• Remove and dispose of tripping hazards promptly
• Address water and/or ice accumulation to prevent slipping hazards—or set up barriers and warning signs around any areas where the hazard cannot be controlled
• Regularly clean around aggregate production equipment
• Show workers where the garbage bins are

Supervisors should regularly review housekeeping procedures with workers—and assign specific cleaning responsibilities to workers when necessary.

Adequate lighting on mining projects

If you can’t see a hazard, how can you take steps to avoid it? Employers must make certain that all work areas and travelways are well lit so that everyone at the workplace can move around safely. Note, however, that lighting shouldn’t be so intense that it creates glare and obscures obstacles on the ground.

But it’s not just about keeping the workplace bright. Light positioning matters, too. Improper placement or spacing of lights can cast shadows that create alternating dark and light areas. If a worker steps into a dark area shortly after leaving a bright one, their vision will be impaired until their eyes adapt. Situate lighting along walkways to minimize the negative effects of visual adaptation.

Providing safe access to work areas and equipment

At mines, workers must often work in areas that are high off the ground or difficult to reach—places like elevated work platforms, roofs, the edges of open mines, mining mills, or tankers. If access to these areas is makeshift or poorly maintained, workers who use it face an increased risk of falling from a height.

The MLITSD’s 2025–26 campaign brought this issue to the forefront by enforcing workplace compliance with sections 46 to 54 (Part III) of Regulation 854. The regulation requires employers to provide a safe means of access to work areas and equipment via walkways, stairways, or ladders.

In practice, that means taking the following precautions when setting up accessways:

Protect open edges with guardrails and handrails

Any walkway or working platform that is more than 1.5 m (5 ft.) above the ground must have a handrail. Handrails must include a top rail, mid-rail, and toeboard. Install guardrails around—or secure coverings over—any floor openings that workers could fall through.

Provide fixed staircases or ladders for higher slopes

Where accessways have a slope between 20 and 50 degrees, staircases with proper handrails must be provided. Tall staircases should be designed to include rest landings roughly every 3.6 m (12 ft.).

Provide a ladder for access requiring a slope of greater than 50 degrees. Section 48 of Regulation 854 requires ladders taller than 3 m (10 ft.) to be fixed in place and equipped with a safety cage or a fall protection device, such as a vertical lifeline that workers can use as a connection point with a safety harness.

Ensure safe access to vehicles

Regularly inspect and maintain vehicle access points to ensure they are in good condition. Workers must also be trained to mount and dismount mining equipment safely, always maintaining three points of contact (i.e., two hands and one foot or two feet and one hand).

Practice good housekeeping on all accessways

As with the rest of the jobsite, keep accessways clear of debris, spills, and other hazards. Inspect all accessways regularly to ensure they are maintained in good working condition.

Speak up about hazards

Preventing slips, trips, and falls at any workplace is a team effort. It requires open communication between all workplace parties, as well as a shared commitment to continuously improving safe work practices.

Section 28 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act says that workers must protect themselves and others by reporting any unsafe conditions to their supervisor or employer. The safest workplaces encourage workers to immediately report any hazards they observe, including slip, trip, and fall hazards.

Workplaces must also recognize and combat complacency—the mindset that develops when workers underestimate hazards and their risks. Complacent workers are less likely to follow safe job procedures, like using anti-slip footwear or fall protection. Not only does this set a poor example for other workers and negatively affect safety culture, it also significantly increases the risk of serious incidents.

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