I hope those miners come out okay, both for their own lives and the sake of their families.
Early evidence indicates that the situation might have been avoided.
A coal mine where 13 miners were trapped after an explosion Monday was cited 208 times for alleged safety violations in 2005, up from just 68 citations the year before.
Federal regulators’ allegations against the Sago Mine included failure to dilute coal dust, which can lead to explosions, and failure to properly operate and maintain machinery, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Ninety-six of the citations were considered “significant and substantial” by inspectors.
I hear a lot of people on the news asking why these men vhose to be miners and the response is always the same: mining is one of the very, very few decent-paying jobs in the state of West Virginia.
I feel for these men. I know some of their relatives and it’s Hell on them right now.
Maybe, just maybe when this is all done then we can have a brief discussion (given the short attention span of the national media) on how the other options to these men were mostly jobs that paid around the national minimum wage, which can sometimes just barely pay for your trip to work and the lunch you eat while there.
Orwellian (well named) would have us believe that the “solution” to this coal mining “problem” is to pay more money for every other job in the area. The actual worth of that work is irrelevant, you see, as is the relationship between the demand for coal for wages paid.
According to Orwell, we should have less, higher priced coal, and more, higher priced burgers at Burger King.
I suspect that that conversation will be mighty brief.
On a philosophical point, if I were a pro – abortionist (anti – lifer), I wouldn’t be risking any rescuers’ lives for miners that might be dead. You don’t give life in the womb the benefit of a doubt, why lives in a cave?
Mr. D,
Allow me to briefly list a few fallacies to your argument:
1.) You assume that the jobs that I’m speaking of are low-skill, know-nothing jobs like working at a fast food restaurant.
2.) You assume that with fewer human hands in the coal industry, the price of coal will go up, not down. With more machinery which costs less over the long term and fewer human souls endangered, your cost of harvesting drops dramatically.
3.) You decry the laws of supply and demand as “irrelevant” to the value of the commodity of coal.
4.) You seem to think that raising the minimum wage will inconvenience everyone. While I will readily grant that it causes short-term (and usually well within the ranges of FED control) inflation, it will at the same time put more spending funds into the hands of people who are most likely put it back into the economy, thus stimulating competition and keeping businesses in check. In other words, they pay their employees more, but so does EVERYONE else, so there’s more money coming into the businesses.
Your arguments follow a form of logic I employed years ago in high school and I find your last comment most disturbing. To equate my claim that a woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body to abandoning some full-grown, hard-working men in their hour of need is disgusting and I take offense.
If I knew you, this is the point where I would take a swing. I know coal miners. I sincerely doubt you do.
Would tread a little more lightly and not make the tragedy for coal miners a vehicle for left wing political bravo sierra (as you do terrorist attacks). We don’t know what caused the accident or whether the mine was safe to operate or not. The fact that there were 208 reports and ony about 1/3 were considered serious indicates there is some complexity to the issue. Nicht wahr?
Dugger, Another day older and deeper in debt
Interesting form of argument: physical threats. I guess you’re not a proponent of free speech, eh?
So if you didn’t know any miners, would your desire to see them rescued be any less? Of course not. So this point is meaningless to your argument.
So you don’t favor saving the half-grown and lazy? If you do, then these points are also meaningless to your argument.
So we’re left with saving those “in their hour of need.”
Frank, How stupid can one man be? Pro abortion = No respect for life? It’s too damned early in the morning for me to even consider formulating a response. But how does this have anything to do with this mining disaster? You must be the last of the one trick ponies.
Dugger;Waiting for lightning to hit stone tablets before proceeding.
Nobody’s exploiting anything. The mining industry has worked hard to avoid any sort of regulation, and as such is much riskier work for the sort of blue collar workers that the GOP purports to be on the side of.
Semant,
Just saying its a little early to be exploiting this tragedy. I’m not a coal miner or personally knowledgeable about the business, but it is my understanding that all mine operate with open issues and that this explosion was sparked by a lightening strike. By all means do all the safety stuff possible, but hold off on the easy, knee jerk moral judgements till we know a lot more.
Dugger
Pro abortion = No respect for life.
Yup.
I await anxiously the formulation of a reesponse. Seems to be you ought to be able to thnk of something, no matter how early it is.
Try pourinbg hot coffee in your eyes. That will wake you up.
Dugger;
I just don’t know what level of proof you need to proceed.
This is not connected in any way to ‘Bush Hate’ and therefore
no taint. The company who was cited in excess of 200 times
in 2005 sold it recently and left the new company holding the
bag. What would it take for Dugger to become incensed and
pursue any responsible for loss of life?
What would it take for Dugger to become incensed and
pursue any responsible for loss of life?
Ans: facts, not conjecture based on partial evidence
The time for blame will come eventually, regardless of the fate of the miners. I’m sure some of our guys have taken the mine industry’s dirty money also.
Worker safety shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Should it? Both sides should fight for effective regulation. One could argue that Republicans should care about mine safety even more because most mines are in red states, in red counties.
In this society, profits are usually put ahead of people, and that often results in disasters, like this one in West Virginia.
ORWELLIAN
As usual, Orwellian, I respond to long, drawn out, pseudo – intellectual arguments from top to bottom.
If I knew you, this is the point where I would take a swing. I know coal miners. I sincerely doubt you do.
I could eMail you my address, if taking a swing suits your fancy. I’m almost 60, but I’m not afraid of you.
I don’t know any coal miners, and yet I have managed to make it to this ripe old age. I hope you will, too, provided you don’t persist in the habit of “taking swings” at conservatives.
2. My point was that we don’t know if those miners are alive. Yet, we don’t give the same benefit to life in the womb. The fact that you “take offense” doesn’t mean a goddamed thing to me. Or are you winding up for another swing?
3. Your argument that raising the minimum wage puts more money in the economy is called the the “broken window argument” You can read the argument, and learn something, or try to answer this question: Where does the money to pay the minimum wage come from?
4) What I said was that you were ignoring the idea of supply and demand, by suggesting that removing men from coal mining wouldn’t raise the price of coal. And, also, since you made no mention of this “phantom machinery”, who pays for that? And how does one get around the super – powerful Miners’ Union, to lay off miners, and replace them with machines?
And, you started here: Allow me to briefly list a few fallacies to your argument:
You assume that the jobs that I m speaking of are low-skill, know-nothing jobs like working at a fast food restaurant
No, actually, you said it: mining is one of the very, very few decent-paying jobs in the state of West Virginia.
“Nobody s exploiting anything.”
Oh really? The way I read the rest of your comment is that you are doing just that. At least admit it.
I somehow expected solidarity on this thread. I was amazed that somebody found a way to bring the abortion debate into it until I saw who posted it.
Oliver isn’t Bush-bashing, he is in fact citing a currently Bush-run organization–the Dept. of Labor–and saying that the owners of this mine might be criminally negligent.
I don’t care if Sago Mine is owned by Howard Dean. Whoever owns it has some ’splainin to do.
Wow, what a coincidence, as a coal industry lobbyist, he fought against reforms
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/politics/09coal.html?ex=1249790400&en=f22d6df4cfba5caa&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
NY Times
Oh, looke here http://eatthestate.org/07-05/NaturePolitics.htm the official in charge of mine safety is a coal industry lobbyist. Color me surprised.
nursepam, you have to overlook Frank and his obsessions. You see, he was born with only one X chromosome, and as a result he feels this gives him the authority to make all child-bearing decisions for all women in the world, forever.
He will talk about it any chance he gets so don’t take it personal.
Thanks, factcheck.
Inconvenient little things aren’t they, those facts? Though what I was wondering was, 208 safety violations = how many $$ in campaign contribitions to continue operations without making any changes? Maybe Abramof will be able to give us some idea.
Sadie (put the rope down and come in have a drink),
208 “ALLEGED” safety violation citations. Not the same as 208 safety violations.
Is it just me, Sadie, or ” Inconvenient little things aren t they, those facts?”
Dugger
Frank,
Surely I should have already deducted your age from your previous posts. In retrospect, I can see the virtuous sense of superiority that comes with advanced age.
As for your “broken window” analogy which surpasses even your own age, to waste my time on its inadequacies is as ridiculous as the article itself. Suffice to say that the anology assumes that businesses best know what to do with the nation’s wealth, not the people. Most arguments against increasing the mimum wage have to do with either concentrating the funds of this great country in the hands of the corporations or the wealthiest 1-5%. The “Flat Tax,” the “Fair Tax,” ending the “Death Tax”…all these share that trait and one other: they are policies that are consistently proposed by the Republican majority. That is why I brought up first-hand experience with miners. Not to insult you, not to insinuate violence – though I profess weakness and I truly apologize – but rather to say that there is a problem, a BIG problem in this country.
Men and women cannot survive on what they are earning. Businesses are not willing to pay living wages because they are not being forced to. This new year marks the 9th consecutive year that the Federal Minimum wage has not budged one cent. Granted, many states have set theirs above this $5.15/hour. West Virginia, where I live now, has not. Unions are largely stripped of their powers, thanks to “activist judges” (to borrow a phrase) from Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Strikes are largely a thing of the past.
I asked if you knew miners for validity and context. Your statement about the awesome power of the “super-powerful” UMWA to prevent layoffs illustrates my point exactly. How many layoffs do you think there have been in the last 30 years? How many miners have lost their way of life forever? Your ignorance is showing, Frank. Mining in West Virginia is already becoming mechanized. It’s part of the reason the state is so desperately poor. Fewer mining jobs = Fewer people with mine money = less money going into other businesses = fewer businesses.
We aren’t going to fix that problem at its nexus; the mechanizing with continue and I don’t think we should stop that. The way to solve it is to have higher-paying jobs for those men to go into. THAT is what I mean.
The abortion discussion will receive no more of my attention because it is without merit and out of context.
Dugger;
When a traffic cop gives you a citation, you are guilty until proven
innocent.
The use of the word ‘alleged’ in the linked article was no doubt
added by an inexperienced editor who wished to be safe.
The fines paid by the company are similar to when you get busted for speeding; an admission of guilt.
from latimes;
“During 2005, the mine was cited for 181 federal violations, totaling $24,155 in fines. At least 96 of those citations were described as “significant and substantial.” Those figures were up substantially from the previous year, when the mine was cited 68 times and fined $9,515. Injuries grew over that period from eight to 14, though no fatalities had been reported at the mine in the last decade.”
What facts would you need?
Obviously the fines assessed for the alleged citations were stiff enough to serve as a powerful deterrent. Once again business proves it can regulate itself and the federal government does not need to intrude.
SadieB: You don’t even remember the last time I mentioned the subject of abortion; I know I don’t.
And we all need to be reminded from time to time that the problem with the abortion debate is that no one involved in the debate has been aborted.
12 miners are dead. Let’s save the conversation about regulatory misfeasance at least until their friends and families have finished weeping.
We can get back to the blamefest, say, tomorrow or Friday, OK?
Dugger; ok
Semant,
AS an Internet poster we can take all sorts of daring and controversial positions and it means nothing. But if we are talking the actual guilt or innocence of people involved in the death of other people, I would want to see the complete picture – not a bunch of random and (even you have to admit) conflicting news reports.
Having said that, I would not argue that the evidence on hand looks bad for the mine. And were I head honcho in charge of mines, I would be pursuing this hot and heavy. But that still does not warrant bypassing due process.
And I am confused. Still sipping my morning coffee, the (left wing) AJC has a feel-good headline that says that 12 miners are alive and only one dead. I need to find out more.
Dugger
Dugger, are you in Atlanta?
nawoods, yes