We have no protection for our workers. Re:Tragedy in West Virginia Coal Mine

Last night I went to bed happy that the Coal mine workers survived the blast and deadly gases.This afternoon came to read the bloggs and found out this.Oh my GOD!

The nation watched with horror as we learned of the 12 deaths in
the mine explosion in Tallmansville, W.Va. Our hearts sank with
the grief of the miners' families, compounded by the tragically
erroneous reports that most of their loved ones had survived.
All of our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these
men and to the men and women who worked side by side with them
every day.

As we watched the tragedy unfold and learned more about the
mine, our grief was coupled with anger. We learned the Sago Mine
had more than 270 safety violations over the past two years. In
the past year alone, the mine was cited nine times for failing
to enact a proper mine ventilation plan, a key to preventing
fires and explosions in the mine.

Despite a record of violations and injuries much higher than the
average for coal mines of similar size, the mine's owner paid
just $24,000 in fines in the past two years--with most of the
serious violations carrying a penalty of just $247 each--far
from enough to force the company to change its practices.

Why so little enforcement? As the New York Times put it in an
editorial this morning, "the Bush administration's cramming of
important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased
operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring
about general safety in the mines." The administration followed
a similar practice at the Mine Safety and Health Administration
(MSHA), the agency responsible for overseeing mine safety,
appointing coal industry management officials to key positions,
who promoted "cooperation" over enforcement.

What's more, the administration and the Republican-led Congress
has cut inspectors and worker safety programs from MSHA at a
time when the coal industry is growing and more resources are
needed to keep our miners safe. The 2006 budget passed by
Congress cuts $4.9 million, after adjusting for inflation, from
MSHA's 2005 budget.

And we cannot ignore the fact that workers in the Sago Mine did
not have a union to back them up when they raised safety
concerns. As John Bennett, whose father was killed in the mine
accident, said on NBC's Today show yesterday:

"We have no protection for our workers. We need to get the
United Mine Workers back in these coal mines to protect
[against] these safety violations, to protect the workers....

"Now they got to work in unsafe conditions. That's why we got 12
dead men laying in the morgue right now, along with my father."

When the workers who go down in the coal mines every day have no
one to speak for them, when former coal company officials are
responsible for enforcing worker safety laws, when companies
face only a slap on the wrist for serious, repeated violations
that put their workers in grave danger, tragedies like the Sago
Mine explosion are inevitable. We must do everything in our
power to see safety measures are strongly enforced and workers
have a real right to form a union without employer harassment or
interference.

What happened to these 12 miners is an unspeakable tragedy. The
grief of their families is unfathomable. Our thoughts and
prayers are with everyone touched by this disaster.

As mine workers' advocate Mother Jones told us, we must "pray
for the dead, and fight like hell for the living" to see that
this kind of tragedy does not happen again.

Sincerely,

Working America, AFL-CIO
Jan. 5, 2006

P.S. If you would like to learn more about the Sago Mine
disaster, here are a few resources worth a look:

The New York Times editorial, "The Sago Mine Disaster," Jan. 5
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/gdAlzg51Vqg-/

USA Today, "Mine Had Hundreds of Violations," Jan. 4
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/g7Alzg51VqgJ/


Working for Change, "EXCLUSIVE: Bush Ignored Explicit Warnings
in 2002 About Mine Safety," Jan. 4
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/gpAlzg51VqgD/

House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Democratic
staff, "Lawmakers Call for Immediate Congressional Hearings into
Mine Safety to Help Prevent Another Tragedy," Jan. 4
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/g1Alzg51VqgF/
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