The United Steelworkers Union has filed a complaint with the provincial mines ministry over the safety conditions facing temporary foreign workers at a northern B.C. coal mine.

The letter to Mines Minister Rich Coleman says the workers brought over from China by HD Mining International don't speak English well enough to understand and comply with hundreds of pages of health and safety rules.

Nor do they understand their rights in Canada, say the Steelworkers.

"Underground mining is one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada," says the letter, which points out there were 82 fatalities in mines, quarries and oil fields in 2010, according to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada.

It is essential to the safety of each employee that everyone on a mine site have an adequate grasp of the English language, it says.

"Inserting a foreign national without English language fluency into such a maze of overlapping and precise safety requirements is a recipe for disaster."

The union asks the minister what steps officials have taken to ensure English language competency of the temporary workers at the Murray River mine near Tumbler Ridge, in northeastern B.C.

They also want to know what the ministry has done to verify the workers' training and skills.

They want the province to suspend work at the mine until an investigation is carried out.

A ministry spokesperson said HD Mining qualified for a Notice of Work permit under the provincial Mines Act, which allows them to take a bulk sample for exploration purposes, but no work has begun.

The mine is still under environmental assessment and has not been approved, but exploratory work can take place in the interim.

"Work must begin before the ministry can inspect the site to determine compliance under the act," the spokesperson said in an email response to questions.

"To fulfil its commitment under the act, we require the company to follow all health and safety standards as outlined under the Health, Safety and Reclamation Code for Mines in B.C."

Last year, according to Service Canada, the government received almost 109,000 applications for labour market opinions from employers seeking temporary worker permits, and it issued just shy of 71,000 across the country for myriad industries.

HD Mining International Ltd. is a partnership between China-based Huiyong Holding Group, which owns a 55 per cent stake, and Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc.

The company has been granted temporary foreign worker permits for between 200 and 300 workers at the underground mine. The company said it was unable to find Canadian workers with the necessary skills for the long-wall technique that will be used to extract coal, a method not used at any other operation in Canada.

Seventeen workers have already arrived and another 60 workers are scheduled to arrive in mid-December.

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 and the Construction and Specialized Workers Union Local 1611 have gone to Federal Court to seek a judicial review of the decision to grant those permits, saying the mine offered wages at well below the going-rate for such work in Canada.

They claim the mine also had advertisements that required workers speak Mandarin -- a claim the company denies.

A decision is expected later today on whether the unions can proceed with that case.

The federal minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, Diane Finley, cited the B.C. mine in announcing a review of the entire temporary foreign worker process earlier this month.

The B.C. Employment Standards Branch is also investigating allegations that recruiters in China demanded illegal fees from the temporary workers — allegations HD Mining has denied.

Update: Wendy Stueck of The Globe and Mail tweeted this afternoon that the unions do have standing to challenge the hiring of Chinese miners. Links to HD Mining International and related sites were not functioning at publication time.

Dene Moore writes for The Canadian Press, where this report first appeared.