Woody was on the money
It looks like the folk singers had it right: Mine owners are heartless bastards.There's blood on the coal and the miners lieThe Tribune reports that mine operators have been appealing 100 percent of their federal citations to thwart efforts to enforce tougher mine safety laws. Mine safety head Richard Stickler says:
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky.*
They're deliberately abusing the system and creating a backlog that is making it difficult for [the Mine Safety and Health Administration] and everyone involved. It's unfortunate, the amount of resources going on in that process.The operators of the Crandall Canyon mine, of course, are leaders in this bureaucratic sabotage. An investigation drags on into a series of cave ins at the Emery County mine that killed six miners and three would-be rescuers last August. The six miners' bodies were never recovered.
Internal documents show Murray Energy Corp.'s subsidiaries had instituted "a blanket policy of contesting all MSHA safety violations, regardless of the merits of the contest petition."
*From "Springhill Mining Disaster."
2 Comments:
Having dealt with MSHA during the investigation of a death at a paving company gravel plant (yes, that's MSHA jurisdiction, nothing is too far reaching for them) I've got a different take on this. I've seen MSHA investigators with an agenda railroad a business to make sure the big bad company pays when a worker dies, even when that worker is dead due to their own actions, not the disregard or negligence of the deep pockets employer.
MSHA exemplifies everything wrong with government oversight. Were I a mine owner, I'd be doing everything in my power to torpedo their efforts at every turn as well.
Clearly mine owners are not blameless, but painting them as evil based on their reaction to the bureaucratic BS that is MSHA is far off the mark.
Not to pick nits, but "The Ballad of Springhill" wasn't written by Woody Guthrie. It was composed by Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger (half-sister of Pete Seeger).
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