In These Times
05-28-2011, 06:01 PM
New independent report on disaster offers scathing indictment of company practices
The new independent state report (http://www.nttc.edu/ubb/) on the horrific disaster at Massey Energy’s nonunion Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia on April 5, 2010, is a sober but searing indictment of the company’s merciless drive for profits at the expense of worker safety. Twenty-nine miners died (http://www.nttc.edu/programs&projects/minesafety/disasterinvestigations/upperbigbranch/UpperBigBranchReport.pdf).
Led by J. Davitt McAteer, former director of the federal Mine Health and Safety Administration, the investigation and report also traces how Massey became a corporation “too big to regulate” by politicians in small, impoverished states like West Virginia. The report shows in grotesque detail a corporate-dominated political system that enthroned Massey and the coal industry while systematically enfeebling federal and state regulators.
However, regulators had backed off from exercising the full extent of the limited powers that law provided, as the report details. “The disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine is proof positive that the [federal Mine Safety and Health Administration] failed its duty as the watchdog for coal miner,” the report states.
The most central finding of the McAteer report is straightforward:
More... (http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7360/new_report_damns_massey_on_29_mine_deaths_for_normalizing_deviancy/)
The new independent state report (http://www.nttc.edu/ubb/) on the horrific disaster at Massey Energy’s nonunion Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia on April 5, 2010, is a sober but searing indictment of the company’s merciless drive for profits at the expense of worker safety. Twenty-nine miners died (http://www.nttc.edu/programs&projects/minesafety/disasterinvestigations/upperbigbranch/UpperBigBranchReport.pdf).
Led by J. Davitt McAteer, former director of the federal Mine Health and Safety Administration, the investigation and report also traces how Massey became a corporation “too big to regulate” by politicians in small, impoverished states like West Virginia. The report shows in grotesque detail a corporate-dominated political system that enthroned Massey and the coal industry while systematically enfeebling federal and state regulators.
However, regulators had backed off from exercising the full extent of the limited powers that law provided, as the report details. “The disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine is proof positive that the [federal Mine Safety and Health Administration] failed its duty as the watchdog for coal miner,” the report states.
The most central finding of the McAteer report is straightforward:
More... (http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7360/new_report_damns_massey_on_29_mine_deaths_for_normalizing_deviancy/)