Miner son: Bring the unions back in!!!!

[Clark2008]

Just now on NBC.

John Bennett, son of Jim Bennett, one of the miners who died, said that the mine was unsafe and that the only way to correct this in the future is to allow the mining unions back in.

Said they feared for their jobs if they tried to bring back in the unions.

Instead of losing their jobs, they lost their lives.

No link: was on NBC with Matt Lauer.

[Clark2008]

1. Kicking my own thread, but I'm wondering how this will be explored.

As a Southerner, I know that unions are thought of as scum down here by a lot of people after years-long corporate-planted stories in the media.

Will this make a difference?

[BlueCollar]

no union at this mine?

I thought West Virginia mining was fairly strongly represented by the UMWA

[ohio_liberal]

9. No, not true at all

There are plenty of mines around the Pittsburgh coal seam that have no union representation.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

It used to be strongly represented by unions, but the last two decades....

...of anti-union legislation and corporate-sponsored media assaults on unions have really battered union membership/representation.

What happened in that mine is exactly why miners in West Virginia unionized in the first place.

[RazzleDazzle]

45. and getting unionized in the first place wasn't exactly easy --

lost lives there too.

Unions are essential in such industries. There is absolutely no one -- no force -- that will properly look after the safety and health and well-being of workers, especially in industries that are so dangerous. Even if there are good govt regs (there aren't, not any more), that still doesn't address situations on the ground, here and now, etc.

Unions are essential, and I'm absolutely aghast to learn these folks are basically no longer represented.

And yes, death (and maiming) is the standard result. Extractive industries are especially greedy, exploitative and unsafe.

I really have a very strong belief that NO ONE should die or be maimed by his or her job. If the company or industry "can't afford" this or that to ensure the safety of workers, then they either should't be in business OR the industry isn't charging enough OR consumers can fucking well do without it.

I heard these guys made $71 - $18 an hour. That's not enough to risk life and limb. Frankly, I don't know how much is "enough" to risk life and limb, which is why I said NO ONE should die or get maimed by their job. (Firefightrers and police are a slightly different category. But even there, in a perfect society, we wouldn't need much of this kind of protection...)

The other thing that torqued me about these deaths is that the pay, while not what I would call "good," is nevertheless much better than they can earn anywhere else. It's what gets them into the mines in the first place.

We have to take better care of the people who work near the bottom of our consumer society -- and by bottom I mean of the production cycle. These aren't computer programmers, they're involved in producing the very most basic things that our culture runs on. IMO, their jobs are no less important than that of computer programmer, and a heckuvalot harder than sitting in an office all day. And yeah, I realize some people are allergic to offices and desks and so doing something like computer programming would be torture versus working in a mine, but the point remains.

I want a lot of changes to the whole way our society is structured. I'm fed up with it.

[deutsey]

28. Here's something from the WSWS

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which once had half a million members and was known as the most militant union in the US, has been reduced to a little more than a shell over the past two decades. It claims today to have 220,000 members, and represents 42 percent of active coal miners in the US. It has refused to oppose the ongoing destruction of jobs and has instead collaborated in company efforts to drive up production and impose concessions in wages and working conditions.

In the 1980s, a series of bitter struggles by miners against unionbusting and concessions demands, most notably at A. T. Massey and Pittston Coal, were isolated and betrayed by the UMWA, leading to a surge in non-union coal mining operations.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/mine-j03.shtml

[hang a left]

31. Infiltration of UMWA by the corporfacists.

[RazzleDazzle]

46. wow

makes you wonder.

And it's been my experience WSWS gets their facts straight.

[Dorian Gray]

17. This is exactly

why unions are necessary. I may not have been waving the flag about the TWU in NYC and their strike, but stories like this... the dangers of working in horrible conditions without someone looking out for your safety, is why unions are so necessary in our country.

This is such a horrific tragedy. My heart goes out to the family members who lost their loved ones.

[FreedomAngel82]

48. I hope so

Maybe at least make people more aware of unions and how they're good for the country in cases like this.

[XanaDUer]

2. I just heard that, too.

So, they were no longer unionized?

[CornField]

3. No -- and many other companies which were formerly unionized are now not

For instance, Toyota plants in the states are not.

Let me say that I'm not sure if this was the case in WV, but in some instances, workers have been threatened with a complete facility closure if they begin to organize.

[XanaDUer]

4. Wow.

I remember "Harlan COunty" in 1973.
All about miners' attempts to unionize.
Barbara Kopple made a documentary about this.

[goclark]

33. Huum, WalMart Mines Inc. nt

[wallybarron]

8. Number of union

mines steadily declining. A lot of miners that worked for union mines have lost their pensions and health care when the mines were taken over and the unions done away with.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/national/24miners.html?ex=1256270400&en=b8988ec6269744fa&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

[ohio_liberal]

10. Union mines shut down, workers had to go to non-union mines

The miners like it even less than we do. :( :cry:

My neighbor worked for a union mine near Cadiz OH for 20 years. It shut down because production wasn't as high as the corp. wanted it to be. So he had to take a job in a non-union mine and he knew it was not as safe. He also got substantially less pay.

[wakeme2008]

5. This will IMHO bring back Unions in WV

But it is a very bad way to do it. :(

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Unions are only half of the solution.

The other half is to give OSHA some fucking teeth. Did this company ever get anything more than a slap on the wrist for its safety violations? But of course the Republicans hate OSHA and believe that safe working conditions should be determined by the marketplace, or some other such idiocy.

[flyarm]

20. no, unions are <all >of the solution with a corrupt pres that we have!

* has gutted osha and epa..and without unions osha is worthless !
as are all safety concerns...

when are americans going to get it..??

when????

when we are a third world nation with no safety at work, no pensions, no insurance, no work protections..when does mr. and mrs america get it??

i know when the rethuglicans have you all manipulated and unions and health insurance and pensions villified...

thats when you get it..only when it hits "your " pocket book..or your father , mother, sister or brother..well its too late then!

unions not only protect the worker ..but in any business where safety is involved the unions protect all of us..and they make osha and epa , and dept of labor work..they demand they work...without unions we are all screwed...

from a lifelong retired proud member of APFA...flight attendant union..fly

[Blue_Tires]

27. good point nt

[hollowdweller]

44. The other half is legislation banning replacement workers during strikes

[sandnsea]

6. Good post on the company

It was bought out by a real scum bag, the one who ruined the US steel industry and took it over to China. Doing the same to coal, along with Massey, apparently.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x46924

[pnorman]

15. Here's some more about that scabby union-busting company:

Gold in the Rust Belt
Mark Tatge, 11.28.05

Has Wilbur Ross ever met a hard-luck industry he didn't love--especially if its assets can be had for 75% below book value?

Everyone knows what he did with steel. Turned into a slag heap by low-cost imports, bloat and ridiculous work rules, the U.S. business was ripe for a roll-up and rationalization. Ross combined five bankrupt U.S. steel companies, trimmed $15 billion in legacy liabilities and sold the whole caboodle last year, netting a gain of 2.5 times his $104 million cash investment over a three-year period. Timing was on his side. Unions couldn't bargain, since some mills had shut down. Ross began buying just as a 30% tariff was imposed on foreign steel.

Here's how he is transforming other industries:
>
>
>
COAL

Prices were in a slump when Ross began buying the debt of bankrupt coal companies in 2001. Most were poorly capitalized; some couldn't afford to pull the coal out of the ground. Yet the black stuff is still a mainstay for power companies and steelmakers and fuels 51% of electricity production. Into his bag of tricks went Anker Coal, Coalquest Development and Horizon Natural Resources, to become International Coal Group, now the world's sixth-largest coal producer, with reserves of 700 million tons. Ross plans to raise $250 million in a public offering soon.
>
>

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/1128/194sidebar.html

pnorman

[Lasher]

29. Massey is the main anti-union coal company in southern WV

Massey currently has 19 mining operations here in southern West Virginia, in eastern Kentucky, and in southern Virginia. Although their headquarters is in Richmond, their CEO, Don Blankenship likes to refer to himself as a West Virginian, to avoid the appropriate label of carpetbagger. He does maintain a residence in WV, but I think he votes in VA. This guy is pure evil, and is highly visible on the WV political scene - supporting repukes and their anti-labor agenda, or course.

About 5% of Massey miners are unionized. Massey has been buying UMWA-covered mining operations from other operators, then refusing to honor existing union contracts, pension obligations, or retiree healthcare. They have even refused to consider miners for employment at these non-union operations, if they were union members who had been employed at the mine at the time of the takeover.

This is how the union is being systematically dismantled. I wish we would see a comeback now, but I believe that's wishful thinking.

[tjdee]

11. Well, no fuckin' shit.

What's upsetting about this situation is that people were concerned for their jobs, which is why the unions weren't in place.

So I'd like Republicans to tell me how great unions aren't, POSs. It was so great the way the mine had over a hundred safety violations, and it was so great the way the workers could do NOTHING about it but go to work every day or quit, right?

Because George's America has sooooo many good jobs that will pay that much. Maybe they could have gotten two or three jobs? So uniquely American, na?

:grr:

[lonestarnot]

12. Excellent!

[tlsmith1963]

13. See What Destroying the Unions Has Done?

And yet I know people who trash unions all the time. People in this country are so stupid.

Tammy

[Clark2008]

16. I do, too.

Seems that the corporate media and Reich-wing radio have turned something that works for the working-class into something the working-class hates.

Go figure.

[bpilgrim]

14. that corporate mine had over 200 Safety Violations in 2005 (NPR)

peace

[Greyhound]

32. and 200 violations = <<$4,000 in fines...

Disgusting...

[dennisnyc]

18. i saw John Bennett on last night, before the news of his fathers death

he said something like his dad was always complaining about the conditions in the mines and his dad said that the union would have never allowed the conditions there to stay so terrible.

it was on cable, i think... sorry no link, it was as i was falling asleep

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Does seem like we've gone backwards with the present political

atsmosphere.

[IronLionZion]

21. They don't have unions?

:wtf:

West Virginia is easily one of the most Democratic states in the union. What's Pork-barrel Byrd doing about this? Oh, he's probably building more Robert Byrd highways and importing more nuclear waste into his beautiful state.

My hometown had 9 miners trapped underground for a few days, but all of them were rescued alive.

[ohio_liberal]

23. Those guys in Somerset were non-union too, no?

:hi:

[AllieB]

22. I wonder where the folks denouncing unions are today

The other day, there were plenty of people on DU saying that the demise of unions in the mining industry had nothing to do with this horrible tragedy. How wrong they are!

[texpatriot2004]

24. Mr. Bennett is right nm

[EVDebs]

25. US still gets around 50% of electrical energy from coal, right ?

And similar accidents took place in China recently. Mining is a dangerous job but needs safety regulations (and increasing automation helped to destroy the old unions).

We need a Manhattan Project of energy conservation and new, clean, sources of energy to #1 get out of the Middle East and #2 get back to what Washington spoke about in his Farewell address.

[no_more_rhyming]

30. I agree we should conserve

In this case what we need is fewer mines not more unions.

[Rainscents]

36. Obviously, GOP is NOT willing to conserve and don't care to,

until the workers has good safty rules to protect them, we NEED UNIONS!

[usregimechange]

26. kick

[myrna minx]

34. kick

[Cleita]

35. I always thought open shops were a potential disaster.

In a closed shop, all the workers belong to the union. In an open shop, you can chose. I worked for an open shop once and when we went on strike, the non-union workers could cross the line. Not only that the company brought in free food and paid double time for overtime.

We also had hazardous conditions in the workplace that the union was trying to address, but since this was open shop, the union eventually settled for less than the company had offered to begin with to save the jobs that were rapidly being filled by scabs and nothing was done about the hazardous conditions.

I think the USA is ready for a big labor movement just about now whether the workers are on the job or in the unemployment line.

[alfredo]

37. Hell Yes!!!

[Tom Joad]

38. Damn straight! It was beautiful hearing him say that in front of the

Governor.

The airhead Matt said the Gov took it like a man. ....

[Cocoa]

39. wait til Bill O'Reilly gets ahold of him

Bill HATES relatives of dead people that say things he doesn't like.

[mzmolly]

40. Damn right!

So very sad.

[cmd]

41. Watch Matawan (movie)

You will understand how the UMWA became a powerful force in labor. Corporations were able to take back the power in the eighties by closing mines forcing miners to take jobs in non-union mines. State troopers and snipers were called out last night to protect the owners. The owners, in my opinion, are fearing a violent response to last night's screw up. I don't think the story is over yet. cmd (coalminersdaughter)

BYW the coalminer thinks this was an unfortuate accident. The fire boss had inspected the mine earlier and declared it safe. He thinks there was a methane build up in one of the high spots near the entrance. Something sparked and caused the explosion.

[adigal]

42. Hey, just like WalMart

except mines can kill you. Disgusting.

[annabanana]

43. K&R. . . . .n/t

[Cha]

47. Unions! Unions who

look out for the workers..what a concept!

The bushites would get rid of all the safety rules if they could..look at what Katrina did And could have been prevented by some reinforced Levees!

[Name removed]

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