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For the first time in a decade, the US coal mining industry has seen three workplace deaths in three days.
The United Mine Workers (UMW) union says the government shutdown on October 1 may have had some impact on safety regulation.
Following the shutdown, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) sent home more than half its 2,355 person workforce in charge of enforcing safety rules.
“It is extremely troubling that within a week after the federal government shutdown caused the normal system of mine safety inspection and enforcement to come to a halt, three miners are dead,” the UMW International President Cecil E. Roberts wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
“The government’s watchdog isn’t watching.”
Union representatives told the Charleston Gazette that their safety officers will increase inspection efforts, but unions are concerned about non-unionised mines.
The MSHA says it will prioritize inspections at mines with a history of safety problems.
Under Federal law, MSHA must complete four inspections per year at every underground coal mine and two at every surface mine, the Gazette writes.
The three miners perished in West Virginia, Illinois and Wyoming.
According to Wyoming Public Media, MSHA had compelted a safety inspection of the Wyoming mine in September and had found nine violations.
5 Comments
Chas Holman
The truth takes few words.. The GOP is insane.
Only ONE party has the ability to open Government this minute if they WANT TO. And it isn’t the Democrats.
Pride goeth before a fall, too bad they will drag us all down with them, and others who once called themselves patriots, will cheer the self inflicted Republican wound to the nation…
RBF
This just shows the ignorance of the UMW if they think that MSHA (or unions for that matter) know the first thing about mining safely.
JH
Quite a pathetic news report actually. The Inspectors come on average once EVERY three months. That means 89-90 days in a row they don’t come.
Now this idiot is claiming that the inspector who did not come once in 90 days is the reason., or once every six months for surface mines, is the reason. Get real!
RB
Everything is relative: since the October 1 government “shutdown”…700 people have died, and untold injuries have resulted, from automobile accidents in the USA.
700 vs. 3……. Based on these numbers, government should stay shut down to help the workers in the coal mining industry!
Irredeemable Gary
This is a silly notion. To assume that government safety engineers on site prevent deaths is the most absurd piece of writing to date.
Injuries, illnesses and deaths occur because the individuals executing the work do not take personal ownership of their safety. If the absence of the safety engineers truly allow people to violate safety regulations, then it is clear the onsite safety program is an abject failure. Those safety engineers should find another job.