UMWA President Lays Recent Mining Deaths at the Feet of the Bush Administration.

And I certainly didn't hear this on the news. Big trouble for the Clown in this state...





By Kathy Still
The Bristol Herald Courier
Sunday 16 September 2007

UMWA president lays recent mining deaths at the feet of the Bush administration and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Castlewood, Virginia - Seventy-one miners died in the nation's coal mines over the past 20 months because the Bush administration and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration didn't do their jobs, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts said here Saturday.

Roberts called the deaths, starting with the disaster nearly two years ago in Sago, W.Va. and last month's tragedy in Utah, unnecessary.

He has been critical of MSHA for granting mining permits in what turned out to be deadly mining operations. He is also an outspoken critic of President Bush and his selections to head various regulatory agencies.

"Clearly, these deaths were preventable," Roberts said in an interview. The nation had 24 miners die on the job already this year, he said. Last year's total was 47.

"It is unacceptable," Roberts told hundreds of union miners and retirees during the 12th annual Freedom Fighter's Fish Fry at the Russell County Fairgrounds. "We shouldn't put up with it."

Roberts said the solution was simple.

"We're going to elect a president who cares about working people," he said.

Electing a Democrat, Roberts said, will change MSHA, which in turn, will protect miners.

Roberts was mum on which Democrat those gathered should support, since the national party is yet to select a candidate. However, bumper stickers and buttons touting senators Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama as well as former Sen. John Edwards were abundant at the union rally.

Roberts said a Democrat would take action to ensure the 47 million Americans who lack health insurance would be covered.

"It's not a privilege," Roberts said. "Every single person needs health care, and when we put a Democrat in the White House, we're going to get it."

Roberts also addressed a startling increase in the number of miners who contract black lung, a debilitating lung disease caused by inhaling high levels of coal and mining-related dust.

According to information released recently by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, black lung has doubled nationwide over the past five years. Roberts said the trend is disturbing and must be investigated.

"We are very concerned," he said when asked about the NIOSH report. "We can't have all these people with injuries and deaths and jump to the assumption that black lung is under control."

Black lung is preventable, he said. It was also supposed to be basically eradicated when the 1969 federal Mine Safety and Health Act was passed, he said. The act set a respirable dust standard that would be low enough to prevent lung disease.

The problem, Roberts said, is that miners who started work after the 1969 act are getting black lung. That means either MSHA is not enforcing the dust standard or the standard is too lax, he said. It is more likely both, he said.

"This is not supposed to be happening," he said. "The federal government needs to look at this."

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, touched on another black-lung issue at the rally. He said widows of black-lung victims must reapply for benefits when their spouse dies. He told the union he would work for change so the widows face no disruption of benefits.

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