Coal Mine Safety Witness: "It can't be that bad...but you had to live out of your car."

[Mike 03]

This hearing will shock you. Mining workers have been trying to organize for almost one hundred years, and have relentlessly been met with scorn and attacks when they do, especially from corporations like Massey Energy

Mining workers, in good faith, would go to work at Massey and find themselves living in their own cars, or in squalor, like indentured servant/construction workers in Dubai, working night and day with no safety instructions or guidance whatsoever and shocking, inhospitable living conditions that no human in this country should inhabit. Massey Coal Mines are not in compliance with the most basic safety standards. This is why almost thirty coal mining workers are dead today who did not need to be. Massey coal mine workers and their families have been intimidated for decades, and this hearing exposes management for what it is. Time for criminal prosecution. The owners of these mines know, and have known for a decade, how hazardous, unregulated and toxic they are.

One witness at this hearing says: "Fear and intimidation is the rule here."

Excerpt from a letter from a 25 year old coal miner at Massey to his family: "If I die in this coal mine, please tell everyone that I love them."

Think of this fact: This is not even the worst mine that Massey had; it is the fourth worst. Massey controls three mines that are even more dangerous than Upper Big Branch.

On the positive side, finally a President--a great POTUS called Obama--has put a Coal Miner in charge of Coal Miner Safety.

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/04/27/HP/A/32228/Senate+HELP+Cmte+Hearing+on+Mine+Safety.aspx

This hearing is important because it exposes a disgrace in our nation that we need to remedy immediately.

Thank you for reading this long post.

[appal_jack]

1. k&r

Miners continue to be exploited by greedy plutocrats. Massey is among the worst. I have a hard time deciding which I hate more: the surface mines (i.e. - Mountain Top Removal) or the sub-surface mines like Upper Big Branch (these can be somewhat environmentally friendlier, but the risks to workers are so much greater...) Any way you slice it, 'clean coal' is a myth.

The citizens of Appalachia deserve better.

All DU'ers should support the UMWA, and all unions for that matter.

-app

[Delphinus]

2. Union yes!

:kick:

[Kalyke]

5. Yes

[Shell Beau]

3. I can't even begin to imagine how hard that job is.

The perks and benefits should be out the roof, and they should be treated like the brave workers they are. They should be the one to make the rules since they are risking their lives daily.

[Lugnut]

4. K&R for the miners. n/t

[truedelphi]

6. That statement is chilling - that mine wasn't the worst? Just the fourth worst?

Oh Lordy!

[Mojeoux]

7. K and R