Mine Safety Hearing: Dennis O'Dell

[Omaha Steve]

Run time: 06:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=486lZqVK9lE   Posted on YouTube: July 26, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 31, 2007 By DU Member: Omaha Steve Views on DU: 635

 
Last year, as more coal miners were being killed on the job since 1996—eventually 47 died—Congress passed the first major mine safety laws in more three decades. Mine safety advocates hailed the MINER Act as a good first step in improving mine safety and responding to emergencies.

But, “The job is not done,” Dennis O’Dell, Mine Workers (UMWA) Health and Safety director, told a House panel yesterday. O’Dell and other witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections that two recently introduced bills (H.R. 2768 and H.R. 2769) address many of the most pressing needs in mine safety and health. (Click here to read O’Dell’s full testimony.)

Subcommittee Chairman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said the bills

…put teeth into the MINER Act, by tightening and supplementing current law with regard to detailed emergency response plans mine operators are required to put into place, the rescue, recovery and incident investigation authority of MSHA and penalties for those who break the law.

Among other provisions, the bills:

* Increase the enforcement powers of the federal MSHA;
* Increase the penalties against mine operators that have a pattern of safety violations or that retaliate against miners who report safety and health violations;
* Require a more rapid deployment of proven safety technologies, including underground communications systems and refuge chambers where miners could escape poisonous smoke and gases;
* Ban the practice of using conveyor belt openings to ventilate mines (belt air);
* Require employers to provide miners with multigas detectors any time they work alone;
* Reduce miners’ exposure to coal dust by requiring them to wear personal monitors and cutting the permissible coal dust exposure levels.


MORE info here: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/07/27/mine-safety-job-not-donelaw-needs-more-teeth/