Since nuclear weapons development began during World War II as part of Washington's drive to build and use a lethal arsenal aimed at the toiling masses around the world, thousands of miners and other workers and their families, workers in uniform, and entire communities have been exposed to nuclear radiation from weapons production and testing and nuclear power plants, as well as radioactive waste.

Washington and the employers consistently covered up the danger nuclear weapons and energy production posed to the health and safety of working people. It is an example of what the rulers are willing to do to safeguard their profits.

The article in this week's issue describing how the mine owners never informed the miners and their families of the dangers inherent in handling and working around uranium echoes revelations last year, forced out in the open by workers' lawsuits, of how employees and their families at a federal uranium processing plant in Kentucky operated by Lockheed Martin and Martin Marietta were unknowingly exposed for decades to large amounts of uranium-contaminated smoke and air. The land and water around the plant were also contaminated.

The entire labor movement and its allies need to support the fight being waged by uranium miners for full benefit payments. That same solidarity needs to be extended to coal miners fighting for black lung benefits, and to those fighting for safe conditions on the job, whether in the mines, packinghouses, or on the farm. The logic of the these struggles is the demand for guaranteed lifetime government-funded medical care, adequate social security pensions, disability insurance, and other social entitlements for all.

The workers movement must also oppose the imperialists' drive to militarily dominate the workers and farmers of the world, which is the main reason so much uranium is mined and processed. We must call for eliminating Washington's entire war machine and the shutting down all nuclear power plants now. Capitalism's course toward nuclear war, environmental destruction, and abuse of workers' health and safety poses the need for a revolutionary alliance of workers and farmers, the only social force capable of taking power and stopping the capitalist rulers' drive toward war.  
 
 
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