Re: [Marxism] Mine accident was no accident

["acpollack2@xxxxxxxx" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

More on the same theme. The Post saves the safety issue -- and the idiotic 
quote about God saving the Pennsylvania miners -- for the last third of the 
article.
One of the trapped miners said last week "he didn't know how much longer he was 
going to be alive because of the idiots at the mine."
-----------
The mine has had a spike in health and safety violations, according to records 
kept at the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration -- 205 
citations and orders were issued against it in 2005, compared with 68 in 2004. 
State investigators said they will review the records to see whether there were 
warning signs.

Kitts said at a news conference Monday night that the federal mine safety 
agency had cited the mine for 46 alleged violations during an 11-week review 
that ended Dec. 22.

"These 46 violations were not considered of that magnitude," he said, adding 
that "we addressed them" by improving equipment or providing more training. 
Kitts said there was an 80 percent drop in safety violations between the second 
and fourth quarters of 2005, and he noted that the mine agency could close a 
mine for serious safety violations.

The West Virginia mine presents an altogether different situation from the 
flooded Pennsylvania mine that trapped nine workers three years ago, said 
Joseph Sbaffoni, director of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Mine Safety, who was 
closely involved in the 2002 rescue. It helped that the best minds in the 
mining business made the right calls in the Pennsylvania rescue, Sbaffoni said, 
but "we had a lot of help from the Man Upstairs."

The Sago mine is listed as belonging to Anker West Virginia Mining Co., 
according to Terry Farley, an administrator at the West Virginia Office of 
Miners' Health Safety and Training. Anker's parent company is International 
Coal Group. Information provided to reporters at the mine said it was opened in 
September 1999 and employs 145 miners. The mine produces 800,000 tons of coal 
for electrical power plants each year.

Cindy Burke, who lives near the church where family members were waiting, said 
that one of the trapped men was a neighbor and had recently complained about 
safety conditions at the mine. Last week, she said, the miner, whom she 
identified as Junior Hammer, walked into a general store and asked for a cigar. 
"They said, 'You don't smoke,' and he said he didn't know how much longer he 
was going to be alive because of the idiots at the mine."

Vedantam and Staff Writer Fred Barbash reported from Washington. Researcher Don 
Pohlman in Washington contributed to this report.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

full at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300304_pf.html



________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism