25 dead have been removed, 14 bodies still down there with four others, probably dead, but maybe not. This is the death toll of yesterday's Upper Big Branch mine disaster.
Meanwhile I'm listening to NPR today. A miner's quote is played. "We'd die for each other", this miner says. I want to yell at the radio... "You idiot, you didn't die for each other, you died for the Massey Energy Company!"
Meanwhile, my wife is showing me a long New York Times list of the bonuses handed out to the 12 top hedge fund managers. 85 million here, 50 million there. I can't even think how I'd spend the money if it was mine; the scale is too enormous.
Acquaintances, chance conversations; over and over again I hear people say about these high rollers, "Well, I guess they should have their big bonuses; they earned them".
"Yeah, they earned them, right..." So how many of these hedge fund managers run the risk of getting burned and suffocated a half mile underground? How many of these managers run the risk of a quiet sleepy death in a confined space? How many of these managers per year get mushed down to protoplasm by a faulty stamp press? How many run the risk of getting burned down to a thimble full of ashes (as happens to workers in steel mills for instance)?
Let's not forget the routine either. How many fund managers work 70 hours a week in back breaking labor. This is the routine of average US autoworkers; those that are still working at any rate. Or, how many of these high rollers work hours so weird and spread across the day that it's a chore keeping track of when day and night are?
"They earned them..." What a lot of hooey. These CEO types, fund managers, bank execs, etc. don't earn a damned thing. OK, they do connive and cleverly come up with schemes. And so what if these schemes are new clever ways to defraud either their productive workers (for instance, cutting corners and cheating on safety standards) or customers (like sub-prime mortgage lending). What matters is that these guys do come up with new and novel ways to increase their personal wealth and the wealth of their companies . And they do it by going to meetings, milking the high roller network, going on exotic vacations and buying/owning multiple homes in multiple cities. I mean, what else can be said?
There are sometimes where this world really doesn't make sense. I guess for me, Upper Big Branch is one of those events which calls our schizo-world into question...
Note: Anybody who works in a mine and isn't a member of the Mine Workers Union is an idiot with a death wish (yes, Upper Big Branch is non-union. So was the Sago mine with its 2006 disaster). This level of idiocy is doubled given the long history Of Massey and Upper Big Branch's gross safety violations. These guys might very well still be alive if they were union and held Massey to safety standards the way union miners do. Now the best they can get is the following epitaph on their tombstones:
"Never had to Pay Dues"
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I have been resisting writing about the Massey explosion because it touches a few nerves: I moved to Oregon from West Virginia, I had a miners card there, some of my family worked in the mines and I had two distant relatives die in the mines.
Massey is largely non-union, but that isn't the worst of it. The famous and heroic strike against the company ended in a draw which the company has worked to turn into a victory. The company exercises a greater-than-usual control of West Virginia politics and has apparently bought or influenced enough politicians, lawyers and State Supreme Court Justices that it believes that it can get away with murder. Time will tell if this is true or not...
I also heard the NPR story referred to. The miner quoted was saying that miners will die for miners in the mines, not that they will give their lives for the companies. My experience is that this is generally true and this attitude forms as much out of a concept of manliness, which one of the people on NPR claimed, as it does out of worker solidarity and the unique relations which form in a group working underground. Coalfield culture stresses solidarity and sacrifice to the point that these become instinctive responses to conditions at work and, sometimes, in the community.
Every miner should indeed be in the UMWA. But the UMWA itself needs change.
Finally, it's great that the Obama administration has hired more and better workplace safety enforcement people, chief among them Joe Main of the UMWA. It will take years to undo the damage done to workplace safety under Bush & Co.
I was sort of annoyed yesterday to hear that the Administration is ordering a "review" of the disaster. Understanding that this is probably a logistical step that is necessary, the word "review" is nevertheless a thorn in my ear.
Anyone who follows the issues at all could fix this problem without a "review". Anyone involved in the business of industrial safety, or industry itself, could not only fix this today, but could have given a "preview" of what happened.
There will always be risk, but most of what is needed to be known about how to keep miners safe is already known. This is about practices. I don't need a "review" of what caused this. And neither should the government. This is just another tragic example of the need for government regulation. Industry, especially in a capitalist society, will not regulate itself when the dollar is involved.
From the AFL-CIO:
President Obama today ordered a federal safety blitz on coal mines with a history of safety violations, like Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch where 29 miners were killed April 5. He also called for stronger enforcement of current mine safety laws and closing loopholes “that permit companies to shirk their responsibilities.”
Speaking specifically of the West Virginia mine disaster, Obama says:
"The people of West Virginia are in our prayers. But we owe them more than prayers. We owe them action. We owe them accountability. We owe them an assurance that when they go to work every day, when they enter that dark mine, they are not alone.
Owners responsible for conditions in the Upper Big Branch mine should be held accountable for decisions they made and preventive measures they failed to take."
Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts, who yesterday called for the arrest and jailing of Massey CEO Donald Blankenship, says Obama “hit the nail on the head.”
The issues surrounding the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine are very troubling, and we need to get to the bottom of what happened there. But we must go further and deal with the larger issue of serial “safety violators like Massey” that must be addressed.
Before addressing reporters in the Rose Garden, Obama met with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) chief Joe Main and other MSHA officials who briefed the president on the latest in the investigation of the Upper Big Branch blast.
Obama told Solis to work closely with Congress to strengthen existing laws and also to consult with the U.S. Department of Justice “to ensure that every tool in the federal government is available in this investigation.”
The focus on mine safety, says Obama, isn’t “just about a single mine. It’s about all of our mines.”
The safety record at the Massey Upper Big Branch mine was troubling. And it’s clear that while there are many responsible companies, far too many mines aren’t doing enough to protect their workers’ safety.
Yesterday, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, released the list of 48 mines (32 coal mines and 16 other types of mines) identified by MSHA officials in August 2009 for increased scrutiny, but were not targeted due to unresolved appeals filed by mine operators. Upper Big Branch and five other Massey coal mines are on the list.
When a violation is under appeal, it does not count in the formula MSHA uses to initiate the tougher inspections and penalties, including closure of the mine for unsafe conditions. Miller says he released the list because
"we owe it to the families of these fallen miners, all mining communities across the country, and the American people to ensure that all relevant information regarding potentially dangerous conditions at mines be made public, especially as investigations into the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine continue. Mine operators who game the system to avoid tough scrutiny by federal safety officials must be held accountable."
Obama said one tool to help save lives is the right of miners to refuse to work—without fear of reprisal—in unsafe conditions, even in nonunion mines. Roberts says he “applauds” Obama’s “determination that miners must have the right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions.”
UMWA members have that right written into our contracts, but nonunion miners do not have the protection of a contract and are at risk of being fired if they refuse to work in conditions that threaten their lives or their health.
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