This also permits miners on each shift to talk with the inspector concerning safety and health issues. At small mines requiring relatively few AAA inspection days, a representative number of weekend inspection days should be allocated over the course of each year if production regularly occurs on weekends. This procedure is intended to ensure that all production shifts and crews are observed and inspected by the regular inspector during AAA inspections. Application of this procedure is mandatory only to the extent that resources are available within the district for the resulting overtime costs. Background Currently, many surface and underground coal mines regularly schedule compacted weekend production work.
Some miners work exclusively two or three extended-length shifts per week.
Production often begins Friday or Saturday and ends Sunday night. It is possible that no inspection of this activity could occur for considerable periods where regular inspections are limited to on-site days of Monday through Thursday. As a result, distinct crews and shifts involved in weekend work may not be observed by an inspector during regular inspections.