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NEWS & LETTERS, February 2008 - March 2008Miners' lives cheaperDetroit--The Mine Safety and Health Administration has disclosed that over 4,000 mine penalties have not been assessed against hundreds of mining companies since 2000. This revelation underscores the article on miners' deaths in the October-November 2007 NEWS & LETTERS, which noted that criminal negligence by the federal MSHA in its failure to enforce mine safety laws has resulted in needless deaths of miners. This confirms also the collusion between mining companies and the MSHA in avoiding and reducing penalties. From daily experience, every miner knows of the lack of mine safety enforcement. This disclosure by MSHA gives a glimpse of how pervasive the violations are and the unconscionable degree of negligence of mine safety in the industry. These thousands of violations were "discovered" as a result of a review of a Kentucky mine violation in which a miner had been killed in 2005. The director of the MSHA, Richard Stickler, said that hundreds more assessments, going as far back as 1996, had not even been issued. This means that violating mine owners have not paid millions of dollars in fines that they owe. There is no doubt that whatever may be recovered as a result of these revelations, it will be a very small part of the total owed due to the continuing collusion between the mine-friendly MSHA administrators and the mine owners. Most important of all is the continuing threat to the life and health of miners, which will remain as long as this close relationship between mine owners and government exists. --Andy Phillips |
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