Occupational health and safety regulations in parts of Canada require the construction of underground 'safe' rooms to provide a refuge for miners in an emergency.
Saskatchewan labor regulations require the construction and use of ‘safe rooms’ underground where miners can find shelter in the event of fire, flood or collapse. These regulations saved the lives of over 70 Saskatchewan miners in 2006. Saskatchewan leads the nation in occupational health and safety regulations and the results of that are indisputable.
However; American miners work in an environment where the unfettered free market has tolerated conditions where worker safety is not in any way a priority.
"Well, yesterday we have 72 miners in Canada saved after a mine fire because Canadian laws require rescue chambers, where miners have 36 hours of breathable air. They have water, they have lights and they have supplies. And every one of those miners came out of a deep mine where there was a fire and every one came out alive." [...] "We kept hearing about how we couldn't do that." [...] 'How can they do it in Canada and we can't do it here?'"
Senator Ted Kennedy
U.S. Senate
As long as measures that ensure the safety of underground miners is considered a drain on profit margins, American miners will continue to die on the job so that the mine owners can make more money.
At some point, the American people, armed with the knowledge that these deaths are totally unnecessary, should speak out and demand that their lawmakers protect the lives of working men and women.
More directly, when miners themselves organize into a union, they have further protections by acting in unison against unsafe work requests from owners and management.
Responsibility for the lives of those who work underground will be safer when governments implement adequate safety regulations that the mines must operate under and when workers themselves organize to protect their very lives.
No miner has to die! - The Militant