Twelve Miners Die in the Sago Mine
WANTED FOR MURDER :
BILLIONAIRE BOSS WILBUR ROSS
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“Hey Wilbur, there’s blood on your bottom line!”
Was the death of twelve miners in the pit called the Sago Mine just an “accident”? Or was it the predictable result of billionaire capitalist Wilbur Ross’ cut-it-to-the-bone-and-milk-it-for-all-its-worth management style??
The latter is symptomatic of how the U.S. ruling class must attack workers in a period when its need to control oil supplies drives it into imperialist wars in the Middle East, killing tens of thousands of Iraqi workers there while sending miners here to an early grave.
Under capitalism’s profit system, even well-run mines are frightening places. The average Appalachian mine is less than five feet high, with some less than three feet.
Generally, coal mines are characterized by aged safety equipment and lax enforcement of feeble federal and state “safety” rules. Some miners say they must accept unsafe working conditions or become jobless.
Miners continue to die not just instant death from roof falls, electrocutions and explosions, but black lung disease too, which still slowly kills 1,000 miners annually, even though the technology to prevent it has been available for one hundred years. Bruce Watzman, a National Mining Association VP, explained the association’s failure to develop new safety equipment: “We’re not in the self-rescuer manufacturing business.” (NY Times, 1/10/06)
What’s the record of the Sago Mine? Horizon Natural Resources (HNR) had owned several mines, including Sago. HNR had been in bankruptcy so in September 2004 a federal bankruptcy judge allowed it to terminate its collective bargaining agreement with the United Mine Workers union.
Ross’s International Coal Group (ICG) took over the mine in November, 2005. Prior to the purchase, an ICG member had been on Horizon’s board of directors.
An-eleven week safety review of the Sago Mine, ending 12/22/05, revealed 46 violations of federal health and safety rules. These included failures to safeguard against roof falls and to control methane. Fines were set at $250 per violation. At that price, fines were cheaper than compliance and blood was part of the bottom line equation.
Ross makes his millions by finding bankrupt industries where workers’ benefits like health coverage and pensions can be shed via bankruptcy courts. Before concentrating on the coal fields, Ross made untold millions off the backs of steel workers. His ISG bought
As Bruce Raynor (of the UNITE-HERE union and the “Change to Win Coalition”) says, “I really think the future of domestic manufacturing is people like Wilbur Ross.” (NY Magazine)
On January 3, the tabloids ran front-page headlines stating the miners were “found alive.” Just as company flunkies spread the lie to miners’ families in
Murderous conditions will exist in the mines and other workplaces as long as capitalists like Ross run society. Loss of pensions, health coverage and union pay rates is sweeping the
The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) calls for a different path — Communist Revolution! We will build a workers’ society where the “bottom line” will always be the health, development and well-being of every worker worldwide, and racism and sexism will be outlawed.