Robert L. Borosage
The Utah Mine Disaster: Don't Call It an AccidentPosted August 17, 2007 | 02:52 PM (EST)
Three lives are lost and counting in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah. The flamboyant, camera-hogging mine owner, Bob Murray, has called this a "once in a lifetime" accident, like a car crushed by a boulder suddenly dislodged. These horrors happen.
Yes, but when we add one plus one plus one, we don't call three an accident. We call it a product, a sum, the result. And the Utah disaster wasn't random; it is the product of conditions just waiting to be added up.
Murray, a self-made millionaire, owns companies producing more than 20 million tons of coal annually. He's known as a hard-driving executive who pushes the limits in his mines, seeking to extract the last dime from the coal.
At Crandall Canyon, the miners were working at depths that test the limits of safety. Although Murray denies it, federal regulatory officials say that retreat mining was being practiced. Retreat mining is a perilous technique in which pillars of coal hold up portions of the roof, and when the area is mined, the pillars are pulled down, capturing the useful coal and collapsing the roof.
Even hard-driving mine owners aren't allowed to run amok. There are federal and state laws and regulations that help protect worker safety in the mines. But the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration isn't exactly a bulldog. The mine safety czar, Richard Stickler, a former coal company executive with a lousy safety record, was deemed so unfit for the post by Republican and Democratic senators alike that they wouldn't confirm him. So Bush appointed him on October 2006 when the Congress was in recess.
And Murray, the owner of the Utah mine, is infamous for routinely opposing safety regulations. "Anything that will cost Bob Murray any extra money, he will find reason to find fault with it," said Phil Smith, communications director of the United Mine Workers, which doesn't represent the workers in Utah.
Murray also knows how to buy influence. He is a big-time donor to the Republican Party, personally donating over $115,000 to Republican candidate over the past three election cycles and another $724,500 to the GOP over 10 years through political action committees connected to his businesses. He brandished that clout in 2003, threatening the job of MSHA district manager Tim Thompson, who ordered him to shut down one of his Ohio operations. "I will have your jobs," he said. And in fact, Thompson was transferred to another office and retired in 2006.
Continued @
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/the-utah-mine-disaster-d_b_60899.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
