[Forgive me if this reads a bit choppy. It's difficult to cram as many ideas as I have into a 1,200-word essay. Hopefully I will have time to revise/expand this later here or in another diary.]
The deaths of 25 mine workers in West Virginia is only the latest of industrial accidents and incidents. And while many commentators insist on reminding us that this is why coal is dangerous, the issue goes far beyond just coal mining.
Only a day before the Upper Big Branch disaster, 5 people died in a Tesoro petroleum refinery explosion near Anacortes, Washington. In 1998, 6 people died at a neighboring Shell refinery.
In February, a worker at the Bear Creek Facility in Oak Ridge, TN (a nuclear waste processing plant) had his leg crushed because of an equipment failure. He required an amputation.
Energy-related industries are not the only dangerous places. In 2003, a dust fire at a pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina killed 6 people and injured 38.
The City Center Project in Las Vegas killed 12 construction workers in the span of 18 months, including a safety inspector who was a family friend. He fell from a high rise because his safety line was tied to an improperly installed anchor. OSHA's Nevada branch only stepped up oversight once the neglegence was exposed by the Las Vegas Sun.
One of the most common fatal accidents to people like pipe-layers and road workers is trench collapses, where a trench is dug too steeply or not shored up properly, and the wall falls on a worker and causes them to suffocate before they can be unburied.
According to OSHA, 5,071 people died on the job in 2008.
Most work is dangerous. While we can do much to mitigate the dangers faced by workers, and have, there are gaps. Often enough workers fall victim to their own oversights and negligence, and even our American way of life.
Almost all injuries and deaths are preventable. Almost all of the time, a rule, regulation or procedure is already in place. The reasons why they are not followed can happen anywhere on the chain of authority, from the worker to the CEO.
Clearly in the case of the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine, the fault lies with the company, for failing to address safety code violations. It is the fault of Massey Energy’s upper management for dismantling worker unions, which, if left in place, may have stood a better chance of forcing the company to improve the mine’s safety. Why were these issues not addressed? Why was the union dissolved? A lot of people are asking those questions.
Coal mining is a very profitable business. The US gets roughly half its electricity from coal, so demand is never in question. The majority of the workers are not well educated, and so they come cheap. Unions which demand higher worker standards, and the major improvements needed to comply with regulations, cost more to implement than paying the noncompliance fines. That’s all it is. It’s about the biggest possible bottom line.
There is one reason why preventable injuries and deaths happen: cutting corners. Needed improvements to facilities and equipment are not done because of the expense. Repairs are left undone either because no one has noticed the disrepair, the resources to fix it are not available, or the down time will cost too much money. Workers place themselves in danger through negligence, being overworked, or because the pressure to get the job done quickly overrides the extra time proper procedure would take. And they get away with it, most of the time.
But when they don’t, there is an outcry. Why did this happen, we wonder, when it didn’t have to? And yet we ourselves cut corners all the time. We don’t come to a full stop at that stop sign. We let ourselves be sleep-deprived. We don’t wash our hands or make sure someone’s holding the ladder. We don’t turn off and unplug. It just takes too much time, we say. We don’t have that much of it anymore, we’re always busy. The kids have to get to soccer practice. That project needs to be finished by Friday. And I’ll pick up something for dinner at the drive-through.
It is not just about being mindful. It is about our priorities. What are we willing to risk to save ourselves time or money? What are we willing to sacrifice to gain more? Companies ask themselves these questions just as we do in our personal lives. Sometimes their actions are blatantly immoral and illegal, openly contemptible, evil. But often there is a justification, an argument, that if seen from a certain angle makes perfect sense. It’s just a small risk, cutting that corner. No big deal, nothing will actually happen, I know better than to mess up anyway.
Time and money. Time costs money. There is an old adage in my profession: "money now is worth more than money in the future." It means both that the (economic) value of things decreases over time and that we need to hurry to get the most bang for our buck. We need to use what is available for cheap, whether or not it can sustain us in the long run.
So we eschew sleep and work long hours for that bonus pay. We hurry through our jobs because there is pressure to save the company money. The company wants to save money so that its consumer prices stay low and tempting to those consumers that feel they need the product. The company wants to bump its profit margin to please stockholders, who will invest in future growth.
We drive to work from our suburban homes so we can have both that domestic bliss and a reasonable commute, but along the way we pollute and consume more.
Everything has a balance to it. Everything is connected. And I say this not as some tofu-eating new age hippie, but as a scientist and engineer. If we want safer workplaces, we must accept that it means we must slow down, that it will cost more money and the products we buy will cost more money. If we want to protect the unfortunate among us, we must accept that it will require us paying more into the system than we will get back. Instead of worrying whether that environmentally-safe dish soap has a competitive price with the petroleum-derived one, we need to worry about its life-cycle sustainability and environmental impact. As a country, we consume too much: electricity, fossil fuel, food, you name it. We are the land of excess. We are the land of "what’s good for me?" We’ve come to expect it.
People don’t like being told to slow down, to expect to pay more. We want the quick, easy solution, not the difficult-to-accept logical, methodical one. As Americans I think we have been made to believe that we are capable of anything and all things. It’s a wonderful dream, but the reality is that everything has a limit, a kind of natural regulation that when not followed means a decline in health and/or happiness. We can choose this, and many of us do, but what good does it bring us? The risk that something bad will happen. Global warming. Water pollution. Workplace injuries. Resource depletion and shortages. The further the push, the greater the chances.
If we come to understand this balance, to accept that we can still live full lives with less, to be patient, we will make this a better world for workers, for ourselves, and for the next generation. It’s a ground-up movement, and it needs to get going. The next time you make a decision about where to live, how big a yard you want, what car to drive, whether you really need that new TV, or even when to go to bed, think about how those actions reflect on the rest of the world.
Teach your children, and yourself, well. I know I still have a long way to go.
Here’s a good place to start: http://www.sustainability.org/