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Who Killed the Miners? Profits Over Safety?
All coal mining safety laws have been written in miners' blood.
My grandfather, who barely survived an explosion in a coal mine in southern Illinois, taught me this phrase. He also taught me about the 150-year-old battle in the coalfields over reckless production at the cost of responsible safety measures.
As our prayers and condolences go out to the many coal mining families in Raleigh County, West Virginia, I think about the needless safety violations and subsequent disasters that have taken place over the past century.
Over 104,000 Americans and immigrants have died in our coal mines. According to one inspector, many, if not a majority of those "accidents" should not be considered mishaps, but acts of negligent homicide.
As a coal miner's widow from Raleigh County, West Virginia told me on the phone last night, every time she sees a miner just off his shift, draped in coal dust, standing at the convenience market, she knows that mine is rife with violations.
Three coal miners still die daily from black lung disease--one of the most flagrant safety issues and scandals overlooked in our nation.
While we are still waiting for the details on the Performance Coal Co. Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and whether methane gas buildup--the release of highly flammable and toxic gas that has haunted coal miners for centuries--led to the explosion that has taken at least 25 lives, reports are now coming out of the mine's history of safety violations. According to Ry Rivard in the Daily Mail:
In March alone, U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration officials cited the mine, which is owned by Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co., for failing to control dust; improperly planning to ventilate the mine of dust and the combustible gas methane; inadequate protection from roof falls; failing to maintain proper escapeways; and allowing the accumulation of combustible materials.Since 1995, there have been more than 3,000 violations at Upper Big Branch, though it was not immediately clear how that compared to other mines of its size.
Of the $1.5 million in penalties MSHA proposed since 2007, Massey has actually paid less than $300,000.
The proposed fines for this year alone amount to about $190,000. Last year, the mine faced $900,000 in fines for more than 450 violations, including 48 "unwarrantable failure orders," which are considered serious.
Many of those citations and fines are being contested.
The violations appear "quite relevant" to Monday's explosion, said Scott Simonton, a professor of environmental science and environmental engineering at Marshall University.
"The fact that these seem like to me to be some serious violations and not just some paperwork violation - these are serious violations, especially in light of what has happened," he said.
Massey, of course, has become infamous for its devastating mountaintop removal operations.
But the company also pleaded guilty to criminal violations for a January, 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine in Logan County, WV, which took the lives of two miners. As Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward noted:
a huge problem at Aracoma was also that Massey officials had removed key ventilation walls, or stoppings, allowing smoke to enter that primary escape tunnel in the first place -- a move that U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver later said "doomed two workers to a tragic death.
In a now infamous internal memo to employees that was used in the Aracoma mine trial, Massey's CEO Don Blankenship openly declared: "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. -- build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal," the complaint quotes the memo. "This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills."
Nonetheless, Massey is ramping up its mine productions and profits, especially in its hurry to export coal to India and China. Last year, nearly 3,000 coal miners died in China's own mines.
When my grandfather was in the mines in southern Illinois, a group of UMWA miners from Centralia, Illinois, outraged by the political machinations in the Department of Mines and Minerals, wrote a letter in 1946 urging the governor to take action on clearly dangerous buildups of coal dust. The letter described the mine's situation, the politics, and then made a desperate request for intervention:
"In fact, Governor Green, this is a plea to you, to please save our lives, to please make the Department of Mines and Minerals enforce the laws at No. 5 mine of the Centralia Coal Company at Centralia, Illinois, at which mine we are employed, before we have a dust explosion at this mine like just happened in Kentucky and West WV."
Despite numerous inspections, recommendations, and noted violations, the mine owners did not consider the dust situation to be of imminent danger. On March 25, 1947, an explosion ripped through the Centralia mine and killed 111 miners. Half of them died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Three of the four men who had written the governor also died in the explosion.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out, a crime was committed at Centralia. Just like modern operators, the Centralia Coal Company had made it a habitual practice to violate mining safety laws and simply pay the fines.
And the violations and the deaths continue today.
I can't get the words of an old Welsh coalfield ballad out of my mind:
"Oh what will you give me, say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future, say the brown bells of Merthyr
Who made the mine owners, say the blackbells of Rhondda
And who killed the miners, say the grim bells of Blaenau. . . "
32 Comments so far
Show AllBlack is the heart of a mine owner's soul.
"Nonetheless, Massey is ramping up its mine productions and profits, especially in its hurry to export coal to India and China. Last year, nearly 3,000 coal miners died in China's own mines."
Strange, for all the energy guzzling that this nation is, why bother exporting and isn't China and India turning to green technologies anyway that they'll be less dependent on coal? Just what are we trading our coal for anyway?
The coalfield ballad is called "The Bells of Rhymney" and the Byrds do an excellent version of it. It can be heard for free on Youtube.
Why does this article not point out that Massey is one of the most notoriously anti-union coal companies around? Why is it that none of the news stories tell us that the recent mine disasters occurred at non-union mines?
"If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. - build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal"
Wow! That memo is right out of the murderous robber-barron era of coal mining - which I can attest from personal observations we are moving back into at the hands of the union-hating operators like Massey.
The excellent French film "Germinal" adapted from the Émile Zola 1885 novel, depicts the times and the miners well. This is a good time to get a copy of this superb film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107002/
In Germinal (the book) during the miners' strike a band of starving miners' wives invade the local butcher shop, kill the butcher, (who had customarily demanded sex from women who could not pay for food), cut off his family jewels and place them on top of a pole, which is carried as a banner for the rest of the demonstration. Is this shown in the film?
Perhaps this will get people interested in reading this brutally realistic book. The miners are not prettified, but the owners and the system are depicted as truly vile.
Joe
I saw the film recently. Yes, it showed the nasty bit you are referring to.
And it's a very good book. Very good. It shows all the mechanisms of capitalism at work.
If you can get hold of and rent the film "Harlan County USA", that's also a film worth seeing, because it, too, gives an excellent insight into the unsafe conditions that coal miners must work under, the poor pay, and bad benefits, etc. It's a documentary, where the miners and their families were interviewed by the makers of this film, and, although it came out in the mid 1970's, it's still quite relevant, even today.
My prayers are going out to the families who have lost a loved one. How many more times will this scene be repeated? When will someone step in and make companies like Masey do the right thing?
Not to long ago I watched a debate between Don Blankenship and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. One of the things I noticed was that Mr. Blankenship didn’t really listen to the concerns of the people who live and work with Masey Coal. He talked about being from the working class but he has been living in his rich world and doesn’t really concern himself with the conditions of the working man anymore. Does he do this on purpose so he can justify his actions or does he not listen because he doesn’t want to know the truth? Either way the result is tragic accidents like this that leave hard working people dead and their families mourning their senseless death.
My own impression of characters like Blankenship (Massey), Murray (Muray energy), Hatfield (ICG), and less well-known rich prople is that the almost always exude an arrogance borne from a deep belief that their money demonstrates their status as a smarter and superior type of being - an übermensch, and any appeals or arguments from the wage-earner are just the nonsensical talk of young children.
Canadas Westray mining disaster happened under much the same circumstances. In order to enhance profits the owners of the mine cut back on safety measures.
The leaders of the Unions from the beginning were complaining about this. Unemployment in the region was high and the message back was more or less, if you wont work it we will find someone who will.
The tragedy is this. Nothing is done until people are killed and until people are killed nothing is done. It takes miners dying to force change and once those changes have occurred and the deaths slowed the fact less die each year is pointed to as rationale to lower Standards so as to enhance profits and "Create Jobs".
Not only are coal mining profiteers to blame but so too are the solar technology manufacturers failing to lower those steep prices so that people can freely go green by themselves. How many coal mine accidents would there be if solar and wind for electricity been given a chance over coal and nuclear? What about converting chemical waste to useful sources of electricity?
We can place two tiny robots that travel around on the planet Mars and send back stunning photos, but can't safely mine coal in the year 2010, (not to mention solving our energy needs without having to resort to it.)
Go figure.
Death on the job, like poverty, is not the result of nature or accident. It is usually the result of a series of many cold deliberate actions that place profits above life.
Like Biggers, my grandfather was in a coal mining accident, but in Washington County PA. He died. My heart goes out to the families who have lost their father, husband, or son forever. Or maybe these days it would be a mother or daughter. I know what it means for the family, not just in the grief of now, but in the prospects for the future. There are few jobs for women with children in the coal towns. Poverty is their likely fate.
And why are the miners not unionized? That is appalling. Obviously unionization is the difference between life and death. As Biggers noted regarding the Centralia mine, letters and the labor laws are often ineffective, especially in today's lawless environment which mimics the twenties in terms of labor's rights. Direct action, organization and striking are required.
That Massey memo forbidding the miners from shoring up or taking an hour to secure the mine is grounds for charging management with murder, if there is any justice. It establishes a mindset that pervades the company. I hope the miners can sue the pants off the owners so the children will not have to live in dire poverty like my grandmother, mother and her siblings did. For the miners' sake and ours, I would like to see restitution in the form of setting up manufacture of windmills and solar panels where the miners live and lived.
Any unemployed lawyers out there ready to take up the fight?
Joe
Most coal mines are not unionized for the same reason that most industries are no longer unionized. First they close the mine or plant, or sometimes just lock out the union workers - or just threaten to close the plant if they don't de-certify. Management offers the the former union workers similar pay and benefits thay got from their union contract, but no union dues to pay - so, no protest from them. Solidarity? Huh? Soli-what?
Then, they slowly ratchet down the pay and benefits for new workers. Hours increae and working conditions decline - but gradually. They call the workers "team members" ply them stories about how all unions do is take money out of their paychecks just like "big government" does, and convince the workers that their job is to give value to the shareholders, not to their paychecks. Any worker who asks for more pay and benefits is "not a team player" and doesn't last long. Overall, they get convinced that the their intersts and the CEO's interests are one in the same. They call this "empowerment" and it gives the workers the warm-and-fuzzys.
Other tactics include only hiring people who live far from the plant or mine, the long, expensive, tiring commute, and their far-flung homes guarantee that they wont be getting together to commiserate or organize - I see this a lot in the coal fields. I bet few of the dead miners at this mine even lived in Raleigh County, in spite of the big town of Beckley being nearby.
Or, they get re-designated as "independent contractors" and no longer have to be paid overtime, and get stuck with a big SS and Medicare tax bill every year - the 7.65% that the company used to pay for them. But, of course, rather than call it as a 7.65% pay cut, they blame it on big tax-and-spend government.
Pretty soon, the workers are doing dirty, dangerous work for $8.50 an hour, but proudly still think of themselves "middle class". Then, when they have trouble making ends meet, they are told by their bosses spokespersons on the radio and TV, that socialistic taxes, environmental and safety regulations are why they can't earn more money.
And finally, if all else fails, the white workers will stop complaining if thay are reminded that at least they aren't a lazy nigger - that one STILL works among the low-wage working class here in western PA.
Thanks for the excellent explanation pjd412.
I have seen a similar anti-union playbook in operation in other less dangerous industries, like health care. And the unions are exceedingly timid about confronting this. They need a kick in the ass.
Joe
Three of many songs in tribute to the miners. Such passion is needed now.
From Jean Ritchie West Va. Mine disaster, from a woman's viewpoint
http://softrockrenegade.blogspot.com/2010/04/
watch-jean-ritchie-west-virginia-mine.html
Blue Diamond Mines
http://es.netlog.com/go/explore/videos/videoid=es-3085784
From Pete Seeger: Which Side Are You On?
http://es.netlog.com/go/explore/videos/videoid=es-3085784
Joe
I keep thinking that somehow, somebody should have invented a machine to dig stuff out of the ground by now. Or maybe we can learn again how to live without what is down there. why do people keep losing their lives like this?
Strip mining and mountain top removal remove the immediate dangers of explosions, floods and cave-ins. But they damage life in bigger and slower ways. We need safe and clean energy, of which coal is neither.
Joe
One thing this tragic, travesty shows is that the Tea Baggers that want no government controls on corporations do not know what they are talking about as Massey Mining traded Miners lives for profits as they have been found to be in the egregious, violation of safety rules time and time again. That pretty much sums up the whole capitalistic system: PROFITS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEOPLE!
Tragedy that is the direct result of our comatose regulatory agencies and mining bosses that are every bit as murderously greedy and anti-union as they ever were. Watch Harlan County USA, or read about the Coal Strike of 1902 in the anthracite mines of PA for further examples. Bastards.
PLease also remember the almost 150 kids killed in Aberfan or the 232 miners killed in Gresford, etc etc
Why is it that people , even mining communities sometimes, will support Big Coal?
Ah yes I forgot, cheap energy.....
Listen to The Miner's Strike at to hear the mendacity of the need for cheap energy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r33b2
Or read
Coal
a human history
by Barbara Freese
What about the Springhill mining disaster, in 1958, in Nova Scotia, Canada?
nobody dies working on solar or wind or hydropower-- get a green net going with these three augmented with natural gas when the wind don't blow and sun don't shine--
green net is being planed in Europe right now.
It sure is safer than these mines which belch out Mercury all over the Northeast and kill the Loon and make us not be able to eat fish if we are pregnant.
COAL IS DIRTY and not clean at all and now we see coal also kills as well as being dirty as well as causing global warming.
Capitalism killed those miners.
The profiteers who benefit from the exploitation and abuse of others should be tarred and feathered.
Coming from KY I know the effects of "clean" coal oxymoronic statements. We need to close down all of these dirty pits of shame. They pay the miners nothing for the work they do and their lives they give. Unions aren't the answer but new job fields are! Close them all down, put WVA and KY on the path to prosperity with new industry.
Put Massey and the rest of these bastards out in the cold. CLOSE THESE PITS DOWN AND GET OUT OF THE COAL BUSINESS! DON'T BE FOOLED BY BIG BUSINESS TOUTING WE HAVE ALL THESE RESOURCES. WE HAVE NOTHING WHEN WE DESTROY OURSELVES AND OUR LAND!
Wake up people and do what ever it takes to make a decent living!
More likely it was Bonus over Profits over Safety
I don't know about Blankenship's role but the stock symbol for Massey is 'Mee'
as in not You or Us but Me which might illuminate the corporate values.
I wonder how large a bonus Don will carry home this year.
Close the mines. Put the corporations out of business. Give the miners and their families jobs in sustainable, renewable energy manufacturing and production. Why do we continue to allow this devastation? Deaths for coal? Where is Bill Gates and his $billions$? Where is George Soros and his $billions$? Where is Warren Buffet and his $billions$? Where is Oprah Winfry and her $billions$? Yeah ... Ralph Nader ... this is where all the wealthy people in this country could start to make a difference.
Give people a chance! Give them jobs, a way of life that doesn't take their lives in the process.
Our collective humanity is on the line ... right here, right now!
Stop the wars ... including the one here.
Our hearts break, once again, for all who lost their lives and for all their families and friends ... left behind, to carry on.
Amen to that, sputnik.
Joe
Indict Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Corporation on twenty-five counts of negligent homicide.
Listening to Bob Kincaid at HEAD ON RADIO NETWORK dot COM (West Virginia) ... the miners gave their lives for Massey Energy to sell that coal to CHINA! Jeff Biggers indicated that Massey Energy was hurrying to export the coal to India and China. The coal was on its way to CHINA!
India and China? India and China ... WTF!!!
What is going on in OUR country that we allow OUR own citizens work such dangerous jobs without a labor union? Without safety regulations that are enforced!!! Thousands of violations, without regard for safety, Massey was allowed to continue to operate. How can we ... as human beings ... allow a corporation, for that matter ANY corporation, exist, nevermind continue to actively operate, as it thumbs its nose at the safety and welfare of its workers? Has the U.S. become China or India? Has the U.S. become a 3rd world country with our government's approval?
To China? A new level of low. That shoots holes in any pretension that the coal is being mined for our own benefit. It is pure profit for Massey. And who cares who gets killed in the process?
Joe