The company’s lawyer, Albert Sebok, said the union should not participate because it is trying “to infiltrate the Sago Mine” and launch a “broad-based campaign against ICG, a 100 percent union-free company.” Several Sago workers and the families of two of the miners who were killed in the explosion had appointed the UMWA as their representative in the investigation.

The Sago explosion was the deadliest mine disaster in West Virginia in nearly 40 years. It was followed by the deaths of three other underground miners in the region at other nonunion mines: one in a roof collapse a week later in Kentucky and two in a mine fire January 19 at the Alma No. 1 mine here in Logan County, West Virginia. This string of deaths in nonunion mines has rekindled discussion among workers on the need to build the UMWA and extend unionization in the coalfields.

“If there had been a union in those mines these things would not have happened,” Ryan Webb, a blaster at a union surface mine in Wyoming County, West Virginia, told the Militant. “Those Massey mines are unsafe.” Many other miners interviewed in the region shared this sentiment. Massey Energy Company, which operates the Alma No. 1 mine, is the largest coal company in West Virginia. Most of its mine operations are nonunion.

Webb’s cousin, Danny Adkins, was one of the 13 miners killed in Massey-owned operations over the past five years. He died Jan. 2, 2002, in a roof fall at the Justice No. 1 Mine in Boone County. “The part of the mine he was working in had been cited for violations, but they sent him back in anyway,” Webb said.

William Chapman, who was an underground miner for 20 years, was on the scene at the Alma No. 1 mine along with four UMWA rescue teams from union mines in the region. Chapman noted that a lot of nonunion mines don’t have their own rescue teams, including Alma No. 1. “There’s been a decline in interest in the nonunion mines in keeping a rescue team on hand,” Chapman said.

Massey reportedly waited over two hours after the fire broke out to report it, delaying the arrival of the rescue teams.

“In my opinion, there should never be a belt line catching fire, not a major fire anyway,” Chapman said, referring to the cause of the fire at Alma No. 1. “There shouldn’t be intake air coming in on the belt line. That is not safe.” At that mine, the tunnel that the conveyor runs into also serves as an intake for fresh air. This causes smoke and fumes from any fire on the belt to be carried deeper into the mine or into possible escape routes.

The union has opposed this practice, which was illegal until the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rewrote federal rules in 2004 to allow widespread use of such ventilation plans. In the wake of the disaster, state government officials are now considering outlawing it.

“If there is a safety problem, you’re protected by the union if you speak up,” Justin Spradlin, 24, a member of UMWA Local 1113 at the Rockspring mine in East Lynn, West Virginia, told the Militant. “In nonunion mines you can be fired.”

“The bosses’ concern is the lump of coal,” added Kennedy Marcum, who has worked at Rockspring for 20 years. “Greed is all it is. Greed has killed a lot of people.”

A majority of the more than 250 workers at Rockspring voted in November 2003 to unionize. The regional labor board certified the election, but the company has appealed and the miners have been waiting now more than two years for a decision from the national board. “They know we won the election, so they are just stalling,” Spradlin said.

Dennis Adkins has worked at the Hobet Mine, a surface mine near Danville, West Virginia, for 21 years. He is the former chairman of the union committee in the mine. “It’s our safety and we have to have control over it. If we see something wrong we react,” Adkins said. “If the company doesn’t fix it we’ll point it out to the inspectors. You can’t let a bunch of bosses tell you what’s safe because they only think about production.”

The demand for coal has continued to keep prices very high, and coal operators are pushing to produce as much as possible.

“I think we’re going to have a big resurgence of union people over the next year or two,” Adkins said. According to 2004 figures provided by the federal Energy Information Administration, 41 percent of underground miners and 18 percent of surface miners are unionized in West Virginia, compared to the national figures of 34 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
 
 
Related articles:
Boss contempt for safety kills coal miner in Utah
Worker dies after blowout of coal face underground
Two more miners die in W. Virginia
Governor calls for ‘Mine Safety Stand Down’
Canada potash miners survive underground fire
Unionists support labor defense case
Miners, other workers snap up the ‘Militant’
Company greed killed coal miners in Utah
21 years since Wilberg mine disaster; how Emery Mining Corp. tried to hide facts
No ‘freak accidents’
Court dismisses Massey defamation suit  
 
 
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