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The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) express our deep sympathy to the families, friends and communities of the coal miners killed, and others still missing, as a result of the April 5 explosion at Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. For many members of UE Local 170, the West Virginia Public Workers Union, this tragedy is personal, because they have friends and relatives who work at that mine or live in nearby communities. We recall the words of Mother Jones, the great union organizer known in West Virgina as the Miner’s Angel: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
Four years after a methane gas explosion killed 12 workers at a nonunion Sago, West Virginia, coal mine, this even bigger explosion ripped Raleigh County’s Upper Big Branch mine. Upper Big Branch is operated by a subsidiary of Massey Energy which, like Sago, is non-union.
In 2009, inspectors from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) cited the Massey operation for nearly 500 violations, twice the number of any previous year. Ten percent of the citations were for unwarranted failure, meaning the serious threat to lives, a rate five times the national average. A number of the violations were related to coal dust, methane and ventilation problems.
During the same period, Upper Big Branch tripled production. It has been estimated that each miner at Montcoal produced over a million dollars in revenue for Massey. Massey CEO Don Blankenship reportedly instructed managers to do nothing but “run coal,” putting all their emphasis on raising production. Cutting corners is not new to this company. Massey also operates the Aracoma mine in West Virginia where two workers suffocated in a fire in 2006 after ventilation controls were removed the previous year and never replaced.
MSHA has authority to close down mines that show a pattern of violations, but Massey and other coal companies have been able to deflect that authority and continue their lucrative operations by filing appeals to contest MSHA citations and fines.
Davitt McAteer, a mine safety expert who conducted studies on Sago and Aracoma, called the Upper Big Branch explosion a preventable tragedy. The size of the explosion was such that observers speculate coal dust was involved, making any ignition of methane even more intense. As recently as January, inspections by MSHA cited coal dust problems in the mine, even though the means to offset coal dust have long been available.
For over a century, the coal industry has exerted enormous political influence over West Virginia, and Don Blankenship is a case study of that control. Blankenship spent millions of dollars to defeat a pro-labor State Supreme Court justice, replacing him with a pro-business unknown. The new judge then voted in Massey Energy’s favor in a lawsuit with a smaller, unionized operation, saving the company even more millions. Later, photos surfaced of Blankenship vacationing on the Rivera with yet another State Supreme Court judge, even as the case was pending.
Massey is also typical of the increasing trend of non-union coal mining; non-union mines now dominate the industry. In former times, when the United Mine Workers represented the greater part of West Virginia’s coal miners, the union would shut down unsafe operations, rather than waiting for government inspectors to get around to doing their jobs. Today, miners without union protection risk immediate dismissal for refusing unsafe work, or even for openly discussing the conditions under which they labor daily.
In the absence of a sufficiently strong union presence, Big Coal’s political clout has meant that stricter regulations, and the enforcement of those regulations, are entirely dependent on adverse publicity arising in the wake of deadly disasters like Upper Big Branch. The health and safety of future coal miners are literally paid for with the blood of their co-workers.
UPDATE: Click here for a very important article on the website truthout.org, on how union busting in the coal industy, particularly by Massey, has made mining less safe and led to the Upper Big Branch tragedy.