Mine Collapse as embodiment of a bigger problem

I want to talk about my impressions from the AFL-CIO Presidential forum last night, but right now I'm going to talk about an event that is a clear and perfect example of the importance of electing a real pro-union President and Congress.

The Utah mine tragedy has captivated the nation, with near-constant mainstream media coverage. And they've been eating up the bizarre, gruff speeches of the President and CEO of Murray Energy, Bob Murray. While some of his mines are unionized, this one wasn't. And that definitely wasn't because his workers didn't want representation, it would seem:

He called Sen. Hillary Clinton "anti-American" in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto after the senator said America needs a president who will defend workers' rights.

And he bashed politicians who, after mine disasters in West Virginia last year, called for new safety measures.

"I resent these politicians playing politics with my employees' safety," he said in an article in the Columbus Dispatch. "I resent them because I take the safety of my miners to bed with me every night."

But safety at some of his mines was suspect. Only a few months' data is available for the Crandall Canyon mine under his ownership, but at several other mines owned by Murray, the accident rate was well above the national average, in some years several times the rate for comparable mines.

And in 2003, KenAmerican Resources, a company owned by Murray, was convicted of violating mine safety laws at a Kentucky mine and the company was fined $306,000.

It's simple. Unionized mine workers fight for top worker safety conditions in one of the most dangerous professions in America. Workers who don't have the right to organize and bargain -- well, they're left at the whim of their employer. And the employer's bottom line doesn't often jibe with ensuring worker safety. No coincidence, the Sago mine in WV, site of last year's mine disaster, was also not unionized.

But it goes deeper than that. Even non-unionized mines have to pass safety inspections, or face fines. Kind of.

The bituminous coal mine ran up a record of more than 300 safety violations, of which 118 were considered to be serious enough to cause injury or death, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration.

But apparently, the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration didn't think that was too big a deal.

The mine has been inspected six times this year. The latest inspection, which took place July 5, is still open. During that episode, inspectors cited the mine for 11 violations for various safety infractions. A subsequent administration report showed 12 citations were later issued, of which six were considered serious enough to cause injury or death.

One violation was for failing to adequately provide at least two escape routes inside the sprawling mine. No details were provided, but government inspectors did not think the violation was serious enough to recommend a fine.

Three of the serious violations were for failing to dispose or store flammable materials. Again, no fine was recommended.

Honestly, who needs escape routes? I mean, when would those ever be useful? Seriously, they'd be totally useless, especially in a mine that operates like this:

The mining technique used in Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, where six miners are trapped, involved collapsing the roof of the mine -- a method that dislodges such tremendous volume of earth with such force that it causes quake activity.

"It's the most dangerous type of mining that there is," said Tony Oppegard, a mining lawyer and former federal mine safety official.

In June, U.S. regulators approved a roof control plan for the "room and pillar" technique, also known as retreat mining, at Crandall Canyon.

It's a delicate endeavor: Columns of coal are left in place to hold up the roof of the mine while the vein is tapped. Once the reserves have been extracted, the miners harvest the last of the coal on the way out, cutting carefully into the pillars and scrambling out of the way as the roof caves in.

The final column to be slashed is known among miners as the "suicide pillar."

But once again, there was the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, given the lethal combo a thumbs up. What could possibly motivate them?

Murray backs his political beliefs with his pocketbook. He contributed more than $213,000 to Republican candidates over the last decade. Three political action committees tied to Murray's businesses have given $724,500 to Republican candidates and causes, including $4,000 to Rep. Chris Cannon.

He made use of his political ties to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is married to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and oversees MSHA, to get back at a safety regulator who had crossed him, according to the Lexington Herald-Journal. In the meeting, Murray shouted that "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss."

Murray denied he referred to McConnell and Chao sleeping together. Tim Thompson, the MSHA manager who was the target of Murray's wrath, was reassigned and later retired.

The level of incestuous collusion between big business (and this is the 12th biggest coal company in the US) and government, especially the Department of Labor, is beyond disgusting. The Department of Labor, created to protect worker, has become the number one pawn of a pure ideological hatred towards workers. It's not the laws of the Congress, or the agenda set forth by the President that do the most damage; that would be too obvious. So this under the radar bureaucracy, headed by a Presidential Cabinet appointee, does the dirty work.

And this is why last night's debate was so unbelievably important. The President appoints the Secretary of Labor. Appoints the NLRB, another under the radar bureaucracy that literally holds the fate of tens of millions of workers who want to organize, who want fair treatment, who want what was agreed to in their contracts.

When you have people like the pure evil ones you have in office now, who turn a blind eye to union busting and safety infractions, this is the end result. Much like how we are paying the horrible cost for ignoring our crumbling infrastructure for years and years, we are suffering from years of a wink wink blind eye, or oftentimes blatantly anti-work aggressive, political infrastructure that doesn't give two gold cuff links about the hard workers they are supposed to protect and guarantee fairness.

So, we can have political leaders issue condolences and platitudes about feeling for the families of the trapped workers and bridge collapse victims, about how we must get to them ASAP, but it's all absolutely meaningless when the next day those leaders go to Washington and approve of a crooked Labor Secretary, vote down funding for the DOL, vote against funding infrastructure, and vote against the Employee Free Choice Act and other worker protections. Otherwise, it's just politicians being politicians, and working Americans (and, as we saw from the bridge collapse) and oftentimes every single American, suffers.