The rally, held on the steps of the state capitol building, coincided with hearings here on the new regulations. The hearings began in Pennsylvania and will continue in Illinois, Kentucky, Alabama, and Colorado.

Busloads of UMWA members—both active miners and retirees—came from coalfield areas of southern West Virginia, northern West Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania to the rally. Miners from Ohio and Kentucky also participated.

Among those in attendance were veterans of the strikes and mobilizations by miners and supporters more than 30 years ago through which the nation’s first black lung laws were won. Those struggles also opened the door to miners winning important advances in safety underground. Carloads and vanloads were organized by chapters of the Black Lung Association an organization that was formed through those struggles.

The rally was addressed by UMWA leaders and those who had been part of the fight against black lung. Donald Rasmussen, a medical doctor, congratulated participants. “For 35 years West Virginia miners have been agitating,” he said, adding that he believes they “will fight for what is necessary.” Rasmussen played an important role in getting out the facts about black lung and assisted the successful fight of miners in the late 1960s to win recognition of black lung as a job-related disease, pass laws to control coal dust, and establish black lung benefits.

At the hearings in Pennsylvania and West Virginia dozens of miners and black-lung activists spoke of the impact of the disease, describing how they had watched family members and friends die from black lung.

“You call yourself mine safety and health,” Pennsylvania miner Paul Clutter commented. “We would like to see you enforce mine safety and health.”

A West Virginia miner told the panel, “We remember the days of high dust. We are not willing to go back.”

Fine coal dust, when breathed into the lungs, can cause black lung, or coal miner’s pneumoconiosis. About 1,500 workers die each year from the disease, which can be prevented through the use of water sprays, scrubbers, and ventilation in the mines to bring down the dust levels and additional safety equipment for miners. In the 1969 Coal Mine Health and Safety act the legal limit of dust a miner can be exposed to was set at 2 mg per cubic meter of air.  
 
Dust levels will quadruple
At the heart of miners’ objections to the new rules is that they would allow dust levels to go up to four times over their present limit if the federal safety agency agreed with the mine operator that all “feasible” engineering controls to limit dust had been exhausted. At the maximum, dust levels would have to go well over 9 mg before MSHA would issue a citation.

Part of MSHA’s proposal is based on what the agency has dubbed the “protection factor.” MSHA officials claim this is provided by full-face “airstream” helmets, which blow filtered air to the miner’s face while on the job.

These helmets are currently used as additional protection in some coal mines that use longwall mining technology. This technology, introduced over the past three decades, has greatly increased the productivity and profits for the coal operators but also generates more coal dust that other mining methods.

Under the new regulations, instead of forcing the coal operators to take measures to reduce the levels of dust, MSHA will allow operators to mine with higher dust levels by forcing miners to wear these helmets—including in mines where the more dusty longwall technique is not employed.

At the hearings, several miners said the helmets “aren’t the answer,” they’re cumbersome, cause injuries, and they get dirty and limit vision.

Joe Main, UMWA international health and safety administrator, challenged the MSHA panel to clarify whether “dust levels could go up to 8 mg.”

“Am I wrong?” Main asked. “You’re right,” called many of the miners present.

An MSHA representative responded, “theoretically, yes.”

Main reported that the union and MSHA have visited mines where the coal dust had reached that level and where the operator claimed that controls had been exhausted. Calling MSHA a “weak-kneed agency,” Main said miners couldn’t trust them to look out for the workers’ interests.  
 
Spate of mine fires
Miners at the hearings pointed to another product of higher dust levels—increased danger of mine fires and explosions.

This year fires have already broken out at three longwall mines owned by Consol Energy: at the 84 mine in Pennsylvania in January; at the Loveridge mine in West Virginia in February—the second fire there in five years; and at the VP8 mine in Virginia in April. In September 2001 a methane explosion and fire in Jim Walters No. 5 mine, a longwall facility in Alabama, killed 13 miners.

In contrast to MSHA’s proposed rules that will raise dust levels and decrease testing for dust, many miners at the hearings pointed out they are for lower dust levels and more sampling.

While the level of black lung among miners has decreased in the last 30 years, the percentage of miners developing black lung over the last decade has leveled off. As Robert Cohen, a pulmonary specialist told the Charleston rally, “This is a disease that should be in the history books.” But miners are still getting black lung.

Larry Kuharcik from the Blacksville mine in northern West Virginia told the panel how 48 miners from his mine had been diagnosed with black lung in a nine-month period. The fact that black lung hasn’t been eradicated prompted the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health—the government agency known as NIOSH—to propose in 1995 that the coal dust limit should be halved to 1 mg per cubic meter of air.

The demand of miners for more rigorous inspections comes in the context of widespread fraud and manipulation of dust testing by the employers. Main explained that in the last decade, there has been 160 prosecutions of mining companies for falsifying dust tests. One miner related to the MSHA panel his recent experience with dust sampling. “In an insult to my intelligence,” he said, his work assignment had been changed each time to lessen dust levels when he was part of the dust sampling program.

At the Washington hearing, Mike Smith, a miner from the Emerald mine, described his experiences in southern West Virginia. He said that when he took steps to direct more air to his work area “The boss asked, ‘What you’re doing? You’d better get back to work if you want your job.’”

While the government proposes to take overall dust testing under the rules, the number of times a mine will be sampled every year will be drastically cut back—at most mines only three times a year. Dust inspections at mines by the MSHA have already been cut recently as the federal agency has claimed lack of personnel because of “budget cuts.”

While the MSHA claims it is acting in the interests of miners and wants to fight black lung, it ended its own Miner’s Choice X-ray program last year before many of the nation’s miners had been examined.  
 
Personal dust monitors
A prototype of a personal dust monitor, which is incorporated with the miner’s caplight and battery, was displayed at the hearings. Such machines provide for continuous dust monitoring, telling miners how much dust they will breathe on the shift. What is needed, miners argued, is that such machines be required by law. “These coal companies are not going to do one thing more than they are made to do,” said Rick Ryan, from the Hobet mine in southern West Virginia.

Another Hobet miner, James Lindbelle, spoke of the increasing pressure from the mine bosses and the government to sacrifice safety on the job for profits as the economy worsens. “I hope [MSHA] doesn’t see lives as less important than the economics of the country and companies,” he said.  
 
 
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