Unions save miners' lives

An examination of recent mine disasters reveals that accidents happen far more often in non-union mines.

As United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, whose union is one of two major U.S. unions representing mine workers, said:"This is another series of fatalities at another non-union mine."

"I can absolutely say that if these miners were members of a union, they would have been able to refuse unsafe work in our collective agreements, and they would have been able to refuse that work, and would not have been subjected to that kind of atrocious conditions."

Gerard blasted the culture "that developed during the Bush years that was against regulation, against enforcement," and noted, "we’ve seen a marked improvement since the appointments of the Obama administration into Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, despite the holds placed by some Republicans.

But that’s only part of the story, as Gerard noted:"The CEO of Massey promotes himself as a union buster, promotes himself as having a record of fighting unions wherever they show up in his work place. If he spent as much time helping the workers get a union and helping us clean up his workplace we wouldn’t have these fatalities, we wouldn’t have these fines."

Massey’s accident is hardly the first that falls into this category.

Following the death of 12 miners at an explosion in January, 2006 at West Virginia’s Sago Mine, which had been cited for 200 safety violations during the prior two years, a hearing was held by the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Among those testifying were miners who had worked at both union and non-union mines.

"So I got a good taste of both sides of the spectrum," Randy Duckworth of Farmington, West Virginia told the committee. "When I was at a union-represented mine, I was greeted with a safety committee appointed by the union to oversee the health and welfare of those employees."

At a non-union mine Chuck Knisell of Morgantown, W Va., was ordered to do several things he regarded as unsafe. "I didn’t like to do it, but (my boss) said, ‘if you don’t like it, there’s the track... You’re not going to have a job. We’ve got a stack of applications this thick."

As Rep. George Miller put it, "people are in a situation where they can be intimidated if they speak out because they really don’t have the security of a safety committee" and "union representation."

In a commentary April 29, 2006 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, titled "Stopping another Sago. There’s no question that union mines are safer," writer Charles McCollester was even more emphatic:

"A union presence at the Sago mine might well have prevented the disaster."

McCollester cited the numerous safety precautions won by unions in mines they represent, and added that union mines do a better job resisting efforts by cutthroat employers to slash safety standards or install "dubious products."

Ultimately, the key difference, he noted, is the voice union representation provides for the workers, he wrote:

"Critically, workers in a union mine are not afraid to speak. In a non-union operation, asking questions or challenging company mining practices or safety procedures can lead to termination. The company’s fear of knowledgeable, independent inspects was illustrated in their attempt to bar the entry of UMWA at Sago."

Deficit reduction will perpetuate mass unemployment

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman warns that if deficit hawks like Wisconsin's Republican Congressman Paul Ryan get their way mass unemployment will continue:

What worries me most about the U.S. situation right now is the rising clamor from inflation hawks, who want the Fed to raise rates (and the federal government to pull back from stimulus) even though employment has barely started to recover. If they get their way, they’ll perpetuate mass unemployment. But that’s not all. America’s public debt will be manageable if we eventually return to vigorous growth and moderate inflation. But if the tight-money people prevail, that won’t happen — and all bets will be off.

Murder in West Virginia coal fields-miners deserve justice!

The nation's coal mining safety laws are written in miners’ blood.

Twenty-five miners died in the non-union Upper Big Branch Mine owned by the Massey Energy Company.

Twenty-five men are dead because of the Massey Energy Company's ruthless pursuit of profit, zeal for deregulation and blatant disregard for the welfare and safety of the hard working men it employs.


When Massey's anti-union chief executive Don L. Blankenship arrived at the mine at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, escorted by at least a dozen state and other police officers, the crowd of miners and their families screamed at him about caring more about profit than miners' lives. One miner threw a chair, a surviving father and son stormed off screaming they were quiting the mine and others yelled at Blankenship that he was to blame, before he was quickly escorted away.

The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia has been subject to sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record. Several of its violations have been for improperly ventilating methane which is suspected to have caused the blast.

Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America, called for a serious investigation of the Massey Energy Company's operations: “Every year, like clockwork, at least one person has been killed since 2000 on the property of Massey or one of its subsidiaries. With those already known to be dead at Upper Big Branch, it’s now up to 45 people in the past 11 years, and four more missing at this point. No other coal operator even comes close to that fatality rate during that time frame. That demands a serious and immediate investigation by MSHA and by Congress.”

While the cause of Monday’s disaster is under investigation, the deadly blast raises serious questions about Massey’s attention to safety under the leadership of Don L. Blankenship, and also why stricter federal laws, put into effect after a mining disaster in 2006, failed to prevent another tragedy.

Representative Nick Rahall II, a Democrat from the district in West Virginia where disaster struck pointed out: “This is the second major disaster at a Massey site in recent years, and something needs to be done.”

The rescue efforts and the state and federal inquiries that are sure to follow will tell more about how and why at least 25 coal miners died. But anger is building against the mine’s owner, the Massey Energy Company's, which has long been accused by its critics of putting profits before the welfare of its workers. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, suggest that Monday’s explosion and the carnage that followed were preventable,

The Upper Big Branch mine, according to federal records, was an accident waiting to happen.

It was cited for 458 violations in 2009, double the amount from any previous year, many involving poor ventilation of dust and methane, failure to maintain proper escape routes and the accumulation of combustible materials.

Massey’s chief executive, Don Blankenship, has long invited criticism. He spent an extraordinary $3 million to buy the election of a Supreme Court judge, who then returned the favor by throwing out a major damage award against the company. He is a deregulation zealot who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican Party.

Blankenship also authored a controversial internal memo instructing mine superintendents to put coal production ahead of all other considerations.: Blankenship's memo concluded:"“If any of you have been asked...to do anything other than run coal (i.e. – build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills.”

In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch due to dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

Representative Rahall II said he had received similar reports from miners about recent evacuations at the mine, which as recently as last month was fined at least three times for ventilation problems, according to federal records.

In 2008, one of Massey's subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations.

Kevin Stricklin, an administrator with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said the magnitude of the explosion — the worst mining accident in 25 years — showed that “something went very wrong here.”

“All explosions are preventable,” Mr. Stricklin said. “It’s just making sure you have things in place to keep one from occurring.”

One of those things is a union so that miners can report unsafe, even deadly working conditions without fear of losing their jobs. This isn't a matter a matter of speculation. If you're an underground coal miner, your chances of emerging alive at the end of your shift are better if you work in a union mine than if you don't.

A report from the March 28, 2007, hearing on Protecting the Health and Safety of America's Mine Workers released by the House Committee on Education and Labor contains the following statistics for the five-year period of 2002-2006:

Underground coal injuries: 19,282
In union mines: 5,362 (or 27.8% of total)
Underground coal fatalities: 109
In union mines: 22 (or 20.2%)

In 2007-2009, there were 45 underground coal-mining fatalities. Only six of these were in union mines. Thus, for the 15-year period, less than one-fifth of the fatalities occurred in union mines.

Another thing is the aggressive enforcement of the nation's mine safety laws. Yet Blankenship and Massey vigorously fought the enforcement of these regulations.

Twenty-five miners, grandfathers, fathers, sons, uncles, and nephews, are dead because Massey and its CEO have arrogantly flaunted the nation's mine safety laws.Investigations are sure to follow. But too often investigations are the only response. After the nation's attention fades, so do the demands for action. The twenty-five miners who died in the Massey mine and their families deserve more than speech-making and another study. So do future generations of coal miners who will continue to toil underground. They deserve justice.

The Massey Energy Company and Don L. Blankenship should be charged with murder.

New York unions take the fight for jobs to Wall Street

New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness has just launched a media campaign all across the state aimed at urging the Legislature to help save New Yorkers from losing even more jobs during these tough economic times.

While Wall Street has largely recovered from the economic crisis and reaped record profits in the last year, Main Street continues to suffer from the fallout of the economic crisis. It seems like corporations are doing better than the rest of us.

Make Corporations Pay Their Fair Share! by NYFF from New York State AFL-CIO on Vimeo.

Murder in West Virginia coal fields-miners deserve justice!

The nation's coal mining safety laws are written in miners’ blood.

Twenty-five miners died in the non-union Upper Big Branch Mine owned by the Massey Energy Company.

Twenty-five men are dead because of the Massey Energy Company's ruthless pursuit of profit, zeal for deregulation and blatant disregard for the welfare and safety of the hard working men it employs.

When Massey's anti-union chief executive Don L. Blankenship arrived at the mine at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, escorted by at least a dozen state and other police officers, the crowd of miners and their families screamed at him about caring more about profit than miners' lives. One miner threw a chair, a surviving father and son stormed off screaming they were quiting the mine and others yelled at Blankenship that he was to blame, before he was quickly escorted away.

The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia has been subject to sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record. Several of its violations have been for improperly ventilating methane which is suspected to have caused the blast.

Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America, called for a serious investigation of the Massey Energy Company's operations: “Every year, like clockwork, at least one person has been killed since 2000 on the property of Massey or one of its subsidiaries. With those already known to be dead at Upper Big Branch, it’s now up to 45 people in the past 11 years, and four more missing at this point. No other coal operator even comes close to that fatality rate during that time frame. That demands a serious and immediate investigation by MSHA and by Congress.”

While the cause of Monday’s disaster is under investigation, the deadly blast raises serious questions about Massey’s attention to safety under the leadership of Don L. Blankenship, and also why stricter federal laws, put into effect after a mining disaster in 2006, failed to prevent another tragedy.

Representative Nick Rahall II, a Democrat from the district in West Virginia where disaster struck pointed out: “This is the second major disaster at a Massey site in recent years, and something needs to be done.”

The rescue efforts and the state and federal inquiries that are sure to follow will tell more about how and why at least 25 coal miners died. But anger is building against the mine’s owner, the Massey Energy Company's, which has long been accused by its critics of putting profits before the welfare of its workers. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, suggest that Monday’s explosion and the carnage that followed were preventable,

The Upper Big Branch mine, according to federal records, was an accident waiting to happen.

It was cited for 458 violations in 2009, double the amount from any previous year, many involving poor ventilation of dust and methane, failure to maintain proper escape routes and the accumulation of combustible materials.

Massey’s chief executive, Don Blankenship, has long invited criticism. He spent an extraordinary $3 million to buy the election of a Supreme Court judge, who then returned the favor by throwing out a major damage award against the company. He is a deregulation zealot who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican Party.

Blankenship also authored a controversial internal memo instructing mine superintendents to put coal production ahead of all other considerations.: Blankenship's memo concluded:"“If any of you have been asked...to do anything other than run coal (i.e. – build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills.”

In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch due to dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

Representative Rahall II said he had received similar reports from miners about recent evacuations at the mine, which as recently as last month was fined at least three times for ventilation problems, according to federal records.

In 2008, one of Massey's subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations.

Kevin Stricklin, an administrator with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said the magnitude of the explosion — the worst mining accident in 25 years — showed that “something went very wrong here.”

“All explosions are preventable,” Mr. Stricklin said. “It’s just making sure you have things in place to keep one from occurring.”

One of those things is a union so that miners can report unsafe, even deadly working conditions without fear of losing their jobs. This isn't a matter a matter of speculation. If you're an underground coal miner, your chances of emerging alive at the end of your shift are better if you work in a union mine than if you don't.

A report from the March 28, 2007, hearing on Protecting the Health and Safety of America's Mine Workers released by the House Committee on Education and Labor contains the following statistics for the five-year period of 2002-2006:

Underground coal injuries: 19,282
In union mines: 5,362 (or 27.8% of total)
Underground coal fatalities: 109
In union mines: 22 (or 20.2%)

In 2007-2009, there were 45 underground coal-mining fatalities. Only six of these were in union mines. Thus, for the 15-year period, less than one-fifth of the fatalities occurred in union mines.

Another thing is the aggressive enforcement of the nation's mine safety laws. Yet Blankenship and Massey vigorously fought the enforcement of these regulations.

Twenty-five miners, grandfathers, fathers, sons, uncles, and nephews, are dead because Massey and its CEO have arrogantly flaunted the nation's mine safety laws.

Investigations are sure to follow. But too often investigations are the only response. After the nation's attention fades, so do the demands for action.

The twenty-five miners who died in the Massey mine and their families deserve more than speech-making and another study. So do future generations of coal miners who will continue to toil underground. They deserve justice.

The Massey Energy Company and Don L. Blankenship should be charged with murder.

Colorado's for-profit college experience a cautionary tale for Milwaukee

A recent Denver Post report on the troubling record of for-profit colleges in Colorado is a cautionary tale for Milwaukee as it awaits the opening of Corinthian Colleges Inc.

The Post's examination of graduation rates, loans, default rates and other federal data disclosed that for-profit schools generally underperform their public and nonprofit counterparts and have a record of misleading students about job placement, credit transfer and potential incomes.

The Post reports:

...with that growth (of private for-profit colleges) have come complaints and lawsuits over recruiting practices, tuition costs and the ability of graduates to land jobs in their fields of study.

There also is growing concern in Washington, D.C., about the graduates' ability — or inability — to repay the millions in federal loans for- profit students take out to pay tuition.

In three years, the state has received 164 student complaints about for-profit schools. The state has revoked authorizations of two for-profit schools and one for-profit vocational school since September...

Among the Post's findings:

• For-profit students are defaulting on their loans at much higher rates than students enrolled in public or private nonprofit schools. Twenty-three percent of students who attended Colorado for-profit schools were in default in the first three years they are required to make payments, according to a Denver Post analysis of 2009 federal Department of Education data.

• Tuition rates are high. Associate's degrees usually run $30,000 to $40,000, and bachelor's degrees usually cost between $60,000 and $75,000 at for-profit colleges.

That compares with Metropolitan State College of Denver, where a three-year bachelor's degree runs about $12,900, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where the cost is $29,000 for in-state students.

• Taxpayers are paying for it. Last year, Colorado students received $1.6 billion in federal loans and Pell grants. Of that, $690 million went to for-profit schools, according to an analysis of federal loan data.

• Twenty-five percent of students seeking bachelor's degrees at for-profits receive their degrees within six years, compared with 55 percent at public colleges

Critics say problems often begin the moment potential students reach out to the for-profit college.

Colleges are allowed to compensate admissions representatives based, in part, on the number of students they sign up. Critics say that makes the process less of a counseling session and more of a sales job.

"Whenever you pay someone such as a recruiter based on numbers they bring in, you're just opening the door for abuse," said Rich Williams, a higher education associate with the Public Interest Research Group in Washington.

Aggressive recruitment strategies is a key allegation made in a complaint against Westwood College, a Denver-based online and career college...The complaint alleges Westwood engaged in "deceptive and illegal trade practices" by failing to disclose the total cost of the education program and misleading potential students about job placement opportunities and the ability to transfer credits to other schools.

The entire Denver Post expose is linked here.

No You Can't (featuring John Boehner)