Emery Mining Company had projected a helluva run at Wilberg with the aim of setting a longwall production record. MSHA helped their murderous course by authorizing the unsafe two-entry system and by ignoring blocked escape routes. Emery had crammed the 27 workers into the section because of their drive to set the record-only 12 would normally have been working in the section where the fatal fire occurred.
This was the worst disaster in U.S. coal mining since the Farmington disaster of 1968. It occurred during a time when unions in general, including the mineworkers, had been pushed back and surrendered much ground including on safety and other concessions.
Wilberg showed, like the rash of rail and airline accidents today, that when unions give ground to the employers, deadly accidents are likely to follow. The mine workers union has set an example on safety, transforming their union in the years following the Farmington disaster into an organization that could fight for workers safety. Following the Wilberg disaster, mineworkers had a sober discussion of how this occurred and what needed to be done about it. The Militant was part of these discussions.
Today, when workers once again face deteriorating safety conditions, we can be sure that mineworkers are once again looking for ways to press forward on the question. "How can we lead a movement to fight for safety and dignity on the job?"
David Salner
Morgantown, West Virginia
Involuntary servitude
Prior to my incarceration, I had many incorrect
preconceptions of what incarceration meant. For example, I
thought that there only a few geographic areas of the
country where prisoners were forced to labor in violation of
their 13th amendment rights. Since incarceration, I have
unfortunately learned the hard way that is not true.
Involuntary servitude exist even in New York state within
the correctional system of the country with the largest
prison population in the world. The D.O.C. requires work of
its prisoners.
In many states prisoners are required to labor though in Graves v. Watson, 909 Federal Reporter 2nd. p. 1549, the court held that prisoners who were not sentenced to hard labor retain their 13th amendment rights against involuntary servitude. Some may think that because a lot of prisoners collected disability benefits that in prison they are not required to work. I was classified by the Social Security Administration as disabled between 1981-97 and I am now required to work regardless of the facts of handicaps. Some may think that if one is a prisoner, and that prisoner has legal needs to access the courts, that prisoner can spend all day doing only their legal work in their cell. That is not correct. I have requested an exemption from work/mandatory programming on the grounds of a medical history of disability and legal access to the courts, which my restricted time does not permit.
A prisoner
Gouverneur, New York
The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.