More revelations about Upper Big Branch mine explosion

Photo: Mine Safety and Health Administration

More details are emerging about the two sets of safety records kept at Upper Big Branch mine leading up to the explosion that killed 29 workers there. The more you read, the worse Massey Energy's behavior looks.

The New York Times reports that:

In a presentation in Beaver, W. Va., Mr. Stricklin offered a stinging indictment of Massey practices, saying the federal investigation by more than 100 people had been able to rule out the company?s assertion that the explosion on April 5, 2010, happened because of an event beyond its control: a huge inundation of gas.

His findings matched those of the earlier report, conducted by a former federal mine safety chief, Davitt McAteer, which said that coal dust had been allowed to accumulate, spreading what had been a small ignition of methane through the mine and creating the deadliest mine blast in 40 years. ?We are further along than this just being our theory,? Mr. Stricklin said. ?This is our conclusion.?

Stricklin, the Mine Safety and Health Administration's administrator for coal, showed examples of how safety hazards noted on the mine's internal books were absent on the official reports seen by the government. The NYT notes that two people have been indicted for lying; those, however, are relatively low-level management. Senior management up to former CEO Don Blankenship haven't been indicted, though they were certainly responsible for the overall corporate culture of disregard for safety.

Also,

Massey managers appeared to have pressured workers to omit dangerous conditions from the official books, Mr. Stricklin said, a finding that echoed Mr. McAteer?s conclusion that workers who tried to report risks were intimidated.

One fact seemed to buttress that conclusion: In the years leading up to the explosion, the federal mining watchdog received just one phone call on its anonymous safety hot line from a worker in the mine.

At the time of the explosion, Meteor Blades explained how unions can both make mines safer and lead to more citations for safety violations:

In fact, union mines may have a higher number of citations for safety violations than non-union mines. That is because union inspectors accompany Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors when they check out a mine. They are far less likely to pass over problem situations than are inspectors who are being pressed by company officials to finish up and get out of their hair so they can get back to digging. Union inspectors seek those citations because they want to prevent injury and death.

Workers have somewhere other than an anonymous tipline to go to with their safety concerns, and more assurance that those concerns will be heeded. That's just one of the reasons union mines are safer?and safer they are. A recent study by Stanford Law professor Alison Morantz found that:

My best estimates imply that overall, unionization predicts about a 17-33% drop in traumatic injuries and about a 33-72% drop in fatalities. However, unionization is also associated with higher total and non-traumatic injuries, suggesting that injury reporting practices differ substantially between union and nonunion mines. Unionization?s attenuating effect on the predicted frequency of traumatic injuries seems to have grown since the mid 1990s.

None of this brings back the 29 miners. But seeing just how far companies will go in putting profit over safety highlights the need not just for more aggressive government regulation and oversight of mine (and other workplace) safety, but for a workforce empowered to protect its own safety.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/_Y3IOG4EXgk/-More-revelations-about-Upper-Big-Branch-mine-explosion

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