As the MSHA closes one mine for safety, Republicans
move to block the fight against black lung.
(LeRoy Woodson/Environmental Protection Agency)
Leading off, it's good news that no one was killed or trapped in Wednesday night's mine accident in Idaho, but when you consider that seven people were injured in that accident after two people had died in separate accidents at that mine this year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration's decision to close the mine while it investigates is a welcome one. Clearly, the earlier accidents and related citations had not been cause enough for the mine's owners to clean up their act:
In April, a roof collapse in a tunnel more than a mile underground trapped Larry Marek. Crews recovered his body nine days later.
Last month, Brandon Gray was buried in rubble after trying to dislodge a jammed rock bin. He died from his injuries two days later.
Shortly after Gray died, Mine Safety and Health Administration regulators criticized Hecla for safety failures that led to Marek's death. The mine received four citations and faces nearly $1 million in penalties, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., reported.
The Lucky Friday is a silver mine, but it's nonetheless telling that the same day as yet another mining accident, news broke that House Republicans are trying to block implementation of the End Black Lung campaign, an effort by the MSHA to save the lives of coal miners.
And more:
- Colt firearms has announced that it's opening a factory in Florida. Steve Cooper writes that this is "the first time that Colt has considered any U.S. operations outside of Connecticut." The timing is interesting, too, since the Connecticut workers' contract is just a few months from expiring.
- Raven Brooks rounds up four employment laws passed this year that improve the situation for workers in California. We covered two of them at least in passing, but it's good to see them together. Jerry Brown vetoed a couple of things that would have helped workers help themselves, but he also signed some important pro-worker bills.
- Steelworkers President Leo Gerard: Americans are greater together.
- Nurses at three New York hospitals may strike. They've been made to pay increasing shares of their health care costs even as top management gets huge bonuses and the hospitals hire consultants while nurse-to-patient ratios suffer.
- Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is supporting a
right to work free rider bill in his state.
Check below the fold for stories you may have missed at Daily Kos Labor.
- Port truck drivers asked protesters and media alike not to forget their struggle after Occupy-related port actions end.
- Military schools are outperforming public schools on key measures, including the black-white achievement gap, without union-busting or an overreliance on testing.
- The for-profit online education business is an ugly, ugly one, leeching funds from public schools while serving students very poorly. Profitable, though.
- Jury duty is a civic duty, but not necessarily an easy one for working people.
- Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship needs to stay gone.
- GOP Sen. Ron Johnson: 'When you're a good worker, you don't stay at minimum wage for long'
- When they say "school choice," it turns out they mean the choice of charter schools which students to accept and which to reject—86 percent of Florida's charter schools don't serve severely disabled students.
- Facing wage freezes, cutbacks, and a whole lot of insults, federal workers retired at unexpectedly high rates this year.
- Unemployment benefits recipients do more, not less to look for work than unemployed people who don't get benefits. And for the jobless workers who receive benefits, they're a lifeline.
- It turns out that the political views of the top 1 percent would just happen to benefit the top 1 percent.