Two dozen plus five...

[kentuck]

The number of miners that were recovered from the Massey mine. The last four were recovered today.

They all succumbed to the massive explosion caused by the accumulation of methane gas underground. All it took was one little spark and the invisible gas exploded into a massive fireball.

There were ways to measure the gas. There were ways to remove most of the gas. Even then, there was always gas lingering near the ground and the ceiling.

They were poor working people. They knew it was dangerous. Yet, they chose to enter that dark cavern anyway. Their children had to eat. That hole in the mountain provided a way for their families.

Now, they have been sacrificed, as have hundreds of others, in the earthly pursuit of wealth and profits over safety and compassion. But death, in the pursuit of free enterprise, is considered coincidental and not criminal. Even though they knew the gas was there, they had the privilege to overlook the hazards that took the lives of these twenty-nine West Virginia coal miners. Words fail me...

[Morning Dew]

1. Words didn't fail you.

K & R.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Not all kinds of labor are equally valuable

Miners don't sell an hour of their life to the boss every 60 minutes. They sell many hours; a result of shortened lifespan not just from the immediate risks but from exposure to toxins.

Our minimum wage laws are an expression of society's minimum value of labor. With hazardous professions, especially coal mining, that calculation is incomplete, it should also account for the hours that the job indirectly costs the worker.

[laertes]

3. But how else to we do this?

I agree, Jeff, but coal-mining is always going to be dangerous. What should be the standards?

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. It's all about the math.

If an industry is correlated with reduced lifespans, the minimum wage for that industry is adjusted to compensate.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8105172

[Tesha]

6. In this case, would this matter?

Miners aren't paid minimum wage, are they?

Your thesis may make sense in other occupations, though.

Tesha

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Each hour in the mines costs the miner about 3 hours of his life.

... relative to an office-chair kind of occupation.

[Tesha]

5. I don't think there's much excuse for a gas explosion these days. There's *NO* excuse for...

...the rescue huts not having a nice, durable, completely explosion-safe
fiber-optic data link with the surface. Such a data link could provide
an unambiguous answer as to what the conditions are in and near the
rescue hut and whether or not life could possibly still exist there. We
could then take much better decisions about whether or not to risk
the rescuers' additional lives getting to the huts.

I'm completely confident that the reason such data links don't exist
is that they would cost a little money.

I'm equally confident that gas explosions take place because doing
the correct ventilation would cost a lot of money.

By comparison to either, miners' lives are legally cheap.

Tesha