Volume 5, Issue 3

April 2009

One of LA Crushers’ smallest departments has seen a surge in activity recently. The Retail Department, with its Batch Plant located adjacent to the LAC Workshop, has been working steadily on a stream of orders due to an apparent increase in construction in Phalaborwa and the surrounding areas. LAC ready-mix trucks have been seen as far away as Hoedspruit, Tzaneen, Giyani, The Oaks and Acornhoek, filling orders with their customary efficiency.

The Retail Department sells 13mm and 19mm stone, building and river sand and ready-mix concrete. Apart from regular residential building works the depart-ment has serviced orders for a fire station, packhouse and airport in Hoedspruit, the Leboneng Library in Namakgale, and several industrial projects such as the new Woolworths building and Simpson Motors in Phalaborwa. One of Retail’s toughest customers is our own LAC Civils Department, who have used concrete

recently on their PMC projects such as the Magnetite Load-out and the East Paddock dam, as well as at the Foskor Tail-ings Dams.

The outlook looks good for the Retail department with numer-ous major projects in the pipe-line that will require their services. The department is manned by a staff comple-

ment of nine, comprising the site agent, ready-mix drivers, loader and scraper operators, the batch plant operator and a lab assistant. They are an established and effective team, and are so often the face of LA Crushers that is seen by the public. Keep up the good work!

CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH! RETAIL REVIVAL

Site Agent Clorinda Meintjes, who

manages the Retail Department

The ready-mix trucks undergo regular

stringent services

Retail Department personnel

Above: An aerial view of the Retail Batch Plant

Page 2 CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!

PAYROLL MATTERSPAYROLL MATTERSPAYROLL MATTERSPAYROLL MATTERS: : : :

All Payroll input must be supplied

by Wednesday 15 April 2009.

“Success is not a

doorway, it’s a

staircase”

Dottie Walters

LA CRUSHERS ACHIEVES ONE MILLION LOST-TIME INJURY-FREE HOURS!

Management would like to congratulate every member of LA Crushers on the achievement of

attaining 1,041,218 lost-time injury-free hours to 15 March 2009. This is a significant accomplishment

and one of which we can be proud.

It should have been front page news in fact, but a mere 5

days after reaching the target the company suffered an

LTI at our Mining Load & Haul operation. An ill

thought-out attempt to replace a fuel cap on an RDT

resulted in a broken leg. Procedures are in place to

prevent such an incident, but when they are wilfully

disregarded accidents will happen. This is unacceptable,

and the implications are significant. LAC is not prepared

to have any employee fail to return home safely at the

end of each shift, but be under no illusion that it is up to

each of us to take responsibility for our own safety and the safety of others around us. There is no room

for disregarding instructions and HIRAs, and Safe Work Procedures must be complied with to the letter.

This is non-negotiable, and every transgression will result in disciplinary action.

Every job that LA Crushers undertakes can be done with complete

safety. If any employee is convinced that their work is not safe for

any reason they have complete authority to refuse to work without

any fear of repercussions. But when you do work, do so with

diligence and care, be alert to your surroundings and do not take any

risks. Of course production is important, and in the current financial

climate it is probably critical. But it comes a distant second to the

importance that LAC places upon the safety of its workforce, clients and sub-contractors.

The Managing Director of PMC has expressed his concern at

the recent spate of safety incidents, which are largely due to

lapses in procedure amongst contractors working on the mine.

We cannot afford to be part of the problem, and must all apply

ourselves to ensuring that LA Crushers again reaches a million

LTI-free hours, and many more besides. We have the trained

workforce, the experience and the commitment. Let’s not let

ourselves down, when there is so very much at stake.

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS: APRIL 2009

10 April—Good Friday

13 April—Family Day

22 April—Election Day

27 April—Freedom Day

CONGRATULATIONS!

�To Full Time

Shop Steward Tho-

mas Gobela on the

birth of his son;

�To Louis Mmola

on the birth of his

daughter.

CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH! Page 3

“If you have the will to win,

you have achieved

half your success:

if you don't, you

have achieved half

your failure”

David Ambrose

PERFORMANCE

MANAGEMENT

The latest round of performance

management assessments is draw-

ing to a close, and there has been

an improvement in the quality and

scope of assessments. Supervi-

sors are using the system to moti-

vate and coach their shifts, and

trends have been identified for pro-

active corrective action. Dolly

Mangena will be producing her

quarterly

report provid-

ing depart-

ment to

department

comparisons

for discus-

sion. As

ever, it has been impressed upon

all supervisors that performance

management is an on-going

system of constant monitoring and

measurement, not simply a formal

quarterly assessment meeting.

MURRAY & ROBERTS AWARD SUB-CONTRACT TO LAC

Murray & Roberts Construction have awarded the sub-contract to LAC to

perform the backfilling to the Crusher building (site pictured below right) and

Stockpile Tunnel at the Foskor PEP project, as well as small ancillary works.

The work involves mixing, placing and compacting layers of backfill material,

including dump rock and fines. Work commenced in mid-March, and it is esti-

mated will reach completion early next year. The main portion of the backfill-

ing is due to start in mid-May and about 100,000m3 of material will be back-

filled in total. The backfilling will be done in phases, as the crusher building

goes up.

The stockpile tunnel floor final layers will be complete next week, when Murray

& Roberts will commence with the tunnel construction. (Pictured below left).

“It is for us to “It is for us to “It is for us to “It is for us to

pray not for pray not for pray not for pray not for

tasks equal to tasks equal to tasks equal to tasks equal to

our powers, our powers, our powers, our powers,

but for powers but for powers but for powers but for powers

equal to our equal to our equal to our equal to our

tasks”. tasks”. tasks”. tasks”.

Helen Keller

WELCOME! To the following new employees:

PHALABORWA

J. van Zyl (Workshop)

F. Venter (PUMP Batch Plant)

We look forward to working with you!

WANTED: COST EFFICIENCIES!!

LA Crushers, along with all of its major clients,

continues to seek cost effective savings ideas in

an effort to stretch every Rand. There can be

no compromise on safety, but there are

certainly still unidentified ways to work smarter and with more efficient use of

resources. There are well over five hundred employees of LA Crushers, and with so

many eyes we are sure that there are innovative and useful ideas out there.

Discuss any ideas with your manager, supervisor or shop steward, or submit them

through the suggestion box scheme. It doesn’t matter how you tell us, just be sure

to make your voice heard. Your suggestion could be the one that makes the crucial

difference. So let’s all speak up!

APRIL FOOL!

Oh dear - an April never seems to pass without

some poor soul having a trick played on them -

invariably by the MD. And this year was no differ-

ent. MD Bill Smith, Finance Manager Liesl Niena-

ber and HR Supervisor Lydia Magro conspired to

organise a “transfer” to the Workshop for Civils

Administrator Jeaneth Mgiba. Targetted for her

own wicked sense of humour, Jeaneth was issued

with overalls and gumboots and told to await trans-

port to an uncertain future. She dressed in her new

“uniform”, but was the first to howl with laughter

when she realised that she had been set up! Whew,

we can all now relax for another year……..

“The game of life is a

game of boomerangs.

Our thoughts, deeds and

words return

to us sooner or

later with

astounding accuracy”.

Florence S. Shinn

Page 4 CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!CRUSH!

GOAL—GET OUT AND LOOK!

To attain a "G.O.A.L" of zero accidents means

you have to "Get Out And Look" for hazards

Whether you are operating a front-end loader, excavator, haul truck, mobile crane or a bakkie, your vision is gen-erally impaired when you sit in the operator's seat.

When you are working in a new area on the mine or if the conditions have changed in a familiar area it's a good idea to get out of your equipment and inspect the work area before performing your job.

Larger front-end loaders are often equipped with large decks above the engine compartment which allow you to scan the work area for hazards.

A serious accident was recently avoided at another company when a loader operator noticed that a bakkie that had been near his work area wasn't visible. Getting no response on his radio, the operator stopped his machine for a moment, climbed onto the engine deck and found the bakkie had stalled behind the loader and its radio was not operative due to the electrical failure. If he had continued reversing, he would have run over the bakkie.

Fortunately, the loader operator had been encouraged to "Get Out And Look" for hazards that may not have been present at the beginning of his shift. Make that your GOAL, and let’s keep everyone safe.

EVER WONDERED ABOUT EASTER

ORIGINS?

Since its conception as a holy celebration in the

second century, Easter has had its non-religious

side. In fact, Easter was originally a pagan festival.

The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring

with an uproarious festival commemorating their

goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eastre. It would have been

suicide for the very early Christian converts to celebrate their holy days

with observances that did not coincide with celebrations that already

existed. To save lives, the missionaries cleverly decided to spread their

religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to

continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner.

As it happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred at the same time of

year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It made

sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself to make it a Christian celebra-

tion as converts were slowly won over. The early name, Eastre, was even-

tually changed to its modern spelling, Easter. And the rest is pretty much

history.

The Easter Bunny is not even a modern invention. The

symbol originated because the goddess, Eastre, was

worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons through her earthly

symbol, the rabbit.

As with the Easter Bunny and the holiday itself, the Easter

Egg predates the Christian holiday of Easter. The exchange

of eggs in the springtime is a custom that was centuries old

when Easter was first celebrated by Christians. From the

earliest times, the egg was a symbol of rebirth in most

cultures. Eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf or, if you were

a peasant, coloured brightly by boiling them with the leaves

or petals of certain flowers. Today, children hunt coloured

eggs and place them in Easter baskets along with the modern

version of real Easter eggs -- those made of chocolate.

CONGRATULATIONS!CONGRATULATIONS!CONGRATULATIONS!CONGRATULATIONS!

To Mirna van

den Berg, who

married Lourens

Coetzer on Sat-

urday 21 March

2009. We wish

them all the best

for the future.

IN SYMPATHY:

We would like to

offer condolences

from all at LAC to:

• Tabu van den Berg, whose

grandchild passed away;

• Petrus Malebati, whose son

passed away;

• Sammy Baloyi, whose brother

passed away;

• Ronald Ramoloto, whose grand-

father passed away; and

• Simon Masilela, whose brother

passed away.