The legislation has been so effective that only 16 coal miners have qualified for benefits since 1996. Total benefits paid amount to less than $80,000 a year and the compensation fund has run up a surplus of $17 million while miners die without receiving assistance.

"Governor Patton and the legislature did not amend the black lung program in 1996," said United Mine Workers of America president Cecil Roberts. "They eliminated the black lung program." The National Black Lung Association (NBLA) estimates that 1,500 miners die in the United States each year from the disease.

Patton, himself a former coal boss, now admits he "wronged the coal miners of Kentucky." Hearings and a vote on the new bill are scheduled later this session. In 2000, Republican senator Kate Stine, who is chairperson of the Senate Labor Committee, refused to hear and take a vote on a reformed workers' compensation bill.

Before Patton became governor he made a name for himself as an enemy of the black lung compensation program. In fact, he testified at a Congressional hearing that black lung had been eliminated in "America's small coal mines," according to the Louis ville Courier-Journal. At another point he referred to black lung compensation as a "gravy train" for coal miners.

The governor's about-face has gained national media coverage, with articles in the New York Times and national radio reports. Since the bill was enacted Patton has come under increasing pressure from miners and the labor movement to revise the law because it partially ties receiving benefits to job training.

Black lung, or coal miners pneumo-coniosis, is a preventable disease caused by the inhalation of coal dust. Recognition that coal dust causes black lung, rules controlling the level of coal dust in mines, and the benefit program are all gains that came out of an epic struggle by miners in West Virginia in 1969, part of a struggle whereby rank-and-file miners and their interests gained sway in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

Since that victory, benefits for those that contract black lung have been under attack. Federal benefits were drastically cut in the early 1980s. Only 7 percent of those that file for benefits are eventually able to qualify, and for half of these miners, the process takes a protected legal battle. Last year new federal rules governing these benefits were introduced despite a legal battle and sustained opposition by the coal bosses. Union and government officials say the new regulations are projected to only increase the number of successful claims to around 12 percent.  
 
Profits for coal bosses
The attacks on workers' compensation in Kentucky have allowed funds that were originally to be spent on aid to disabled coal miners to go into the coffers of the coal bosses instead.

In 1996 when the cuts were introduced, the bill's proponents said the goal was to cut annual costs from $100 million to $8 million. The actual amount spent ended up only being a small percentage of the lowest projection. The current bill is projected to cost the coal bosses only $6 million for benefits.

Under the 1996 law not only did the number of claims filed by miners drop, but the percentage of successful claims plummeted. The year before the 1996 law went into effect almost 80 percent of the 5,604 miners who filed received benefits. That number fell to around 2 percent of the 800-plus miners who have filed since 1996.

In their drive to gut workers' compensation benefits, Patton and his supporters argued that coal bosses needed relief, given the slump in coal prices. Today, coal prices are way up, with spot prices ranging from the high $30s to the low $50s. Patton said that the proposed black lung benefits would require a tax of 3 cents a ton on coal. At $30 a ton for coal, the tax represents one-tenth of one percent of the market price.

Coal bosses and their backers are attacking a provision in the new legislation that would provide benefits to a miner with 15 years of experience in the mines and where that miner has evidence of either black lung or impaired breathing.

Senator Stine asked if the law is "something that is going to compensate injured workers for injuries on the job, or is it going to be an entitlement program. When you get into making those assumptions, it comes awful close to an entitlement program."

In a similar vein, the mine bosses "contend that the governor's proposal will mean a return to abuses in which miners could too easily receive lump settlements on the basis of early black lung symptoms," reported the New York Times. Or as Kentucky Coal Association president Bill Caylor cynically put it: "Pretty good deals, enough for a bass boat and a pickup truck."

Miners have a different take on what the bosses call "abuses." They call them "just due" and "what's mine by right." The fight to be compensated for black lung has been seen as a right by coal miners and was the main impulse behind their mass mobilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The 15-year threshold is one glaring weakness in the reform bill. In the early battles around black lung, miners fought for a much shorter period of eligibility. In one state, eligibility was granted after two or more years of continuous occupational exposure. In dusty working conditions, which is the norm in the majority of mines today, especially in Kentucky, miners will and are getting black lung much sooner.

Mike South, the former head of National Black Lung Association, worked in the mines for only 11 years before contracting black lung. South, who died last year, spent the better part of his last years having to breathe from an oxygen tank.  
 
'Retraining' proposal
Despite the media focus, the main axis of Patton's proposed reform has to do with a retraining scheme for coal miners, not providing an entitlement program for those who develop black lung. In a National Public Radio interview, Patton explained that "we have got to get him [the miner] out of the mines...into another occupation before they have this disease that disables them," echoing the axis of the 1996 law.

The wife of a coal miner with black lung pointed out to the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal that retraining is not what disabled miners need. She said that according to the 1996 law, her husband, who worked for 19 years in coal mines in eastern Kentucky and is 43 years old, "had to go to school. This man can't hold down a desk job. He can't even draw his breath."

Another miner interviewed by the Courier-Journal would only get benefits if he enrolled in an accredited vocational course. But this miner can't read and his medical condition gives him limited mobility, the paper reported. His only option is to qualify for a cash settlement that pays out $95 a week. A UMWA representative said that the retraining demand "does not exist for workers in any other field. Why should a coal miner have to attend vocational school to get compensation?"

Retraining, as well as denying miners the benefits they deserve, also takes the heat off the coal bosses, many coal miners explain. Instead of taking the steps available to prevent the disease, such as through the use of water sprays, scrubbers, air ventilation, respirators, and dust collectors, many coal bosses are covering up high dust levels with fake tests.

One series in the Courier-Journal reported on the fraudulent practices at Patton's coal mines. One boss, who worked under Patton for six years, said, "He cheated every test he took." One miner stated that "ventilation curtains were hung only when a federal mine inspector showed up" and that he "couldn't even see the miner [machine] when he loaded." Another miner said of the company fraud, "We ate more dust in one day than them sampling machines took in 16 years."  
 
Long history in Kentucky
The fight between coal miners seeking to defend their health and safety interests, and coal bosses and their political benefactors determined to grab as much from miners as possible, has been a central fight in Kentucky. Once the largest coal-producing state, Kentucky now ranks third, but still has the most mines with over 500 and more than 13,000 miners. It is an area where the boom in coal has seen not only a rise in coal prices but a growth in the number of miners. In the past year the number of miners has increased by more than 1,000 and the majority are new inexperienced miners. But today only 4 percent of Kentucky's miners are represented by the UMWA.

The conflict has come to the surface in the state in various ways. Two years ago, 4,000 unionists marched and rallied at the state capital in Frankfort in support of collective bargaining rights for public employees and to strengthen workers' compensation laws. The action was organized by the state AFL-CIO.

At the rally, Patton pledged to "refine and improve" workers' compensation. Miners refused to march behind Patton and some in the crowd booed him. Miners interviewed at the protests by the Courier-Journal were skeptical of Patton's pledges. "He'll end up doing a bunch of cosmetic things and we'll be back here in two years," said Jackie Clayton of Madisonville.

Two extensive series in the Courier-Journal have highlighted aspects of the coal bosses' attacks on miners. Articles in 1998 titled "Dust, Deception and Death" exposed "widespread cheating" in coal-dust tests and found that "hundreds of coal miners nationwide die each year" because of this fraud. The series has been distributed by the miners union and activists in the black lung fight. In its wake, the state held hearings in the coalfields where both union and nonunion miners spoke out against the practices of coal operators.

Patton has also felt heat over the inadequate state oversight of coal miners' safety. A three-part series in the Courier-Journal in 2000 revealed that the state mining safety board had a disciplinary system that ignores scores of violators, excuses others, and imposes harsh penalties on only a few. Little had been done to stop operators and supervisors who had broken mine-safety laws from working in the state. The board never took action over federal criminal cases involving nearly 100 coal companies and supervisors and never revoked a company's mining license.

In 2001 Patton abolished the Kentucky mining board, created a new board in its place, and ordered an overhaul of the system for disciplining coal companies and miners who violate state safety laws. In the last eight years, Kentucky has ranked second in the number of mine fatalities with almost 100 killed. It ranks fourth in the number of coal miners injured on the job.

Tony Lane is a member of United Mine Workers of America Local 1248 in southwestern Pennsylvania.  
 
 
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