On May 9, 1992, the Westray mine in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada, blew up, killing 26 miners working at the time. Shortly thereafter, the premier of the province appointed Justice Peter Richard to sit as a Commission of Inquiry empowered by broad terms of reference to look into the causes of the explosion. Former miners, safety experts, engineers, Westray supervisors, union representatives, members of provincial and federal government, and two former Westray senior managers all testified at the Inquiry. Justice Richard’s report, released in 1996, described a workplace characterized by unsafe practices and an overriding concern for productivity. He did not spare Curragh Resources, Westray’s parent company, its executives, and managers in his assessment. He cited the company’s tough negotiating stance to secure government backing, its autocratic style of management, management’s contempt for miners who complained about safety, and both tacit and overt encouragement of unsafe practices in the interest of production. Justice Richard was equally condemnatory of provincial mine inspectors who disregarded the complaints of miners and operated in a bureaucratic system unable to follow up, manage or enforce its own regulations.

The case provides introductory material on the social, economic, and political contexts of Nova Scotia and Pictou County intended to situate the analysis within a framework that may not be familiar to many students. Pictou’s long history of mining, its disproportionately high unemployment rates, and its lack of alternative job opportunities provide a partial explanation as to why miners continued to work in conditions that many recognized to be unsafe. (Most behavioral analysis and virtually all writing on the mine attempt to answer this question.) In addition, the case explicates a complex series of political relationships among the company, the provincial government, and the federal government. Zealous intervention by elected politicians led to controversial decisions by the province to invest $12 million in equity and to buy coal from the company for the provincial electrical utility, and by the federal government to guarantee a $100 million loan.

The case tells the story in the words of many of the key players, primarily through their inquiry testimony and interviews conducted by a number of researchers subsequent to the explosion. The case also describes the interplay of these and other key players through the negotiations to establish the mine, its brief period of operation, the mine’s explosion, and rescue and recovery efforts. The case concludes with commentary on the findings of the Commission of Inquiry and its fallout.