The state mine safety office reported that James Thornsbury Sr., 72, was killed January 23 at Sassy Coal Company’s No. 4 underground mine in Pike County while operating a coal truck. Thornsbury was found in the roadway and had reportedly been run over by the rear wheels. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the office “reclassified” Thornsbury’s death as work-related after determining it was not caused by a heart attack or other health problems.

This is the second death in a mine here this year, the center of coal production in eastern Kentucky. Both occurred at nonunion mines, which make up the bulk of mining operations in this part of the state. Less than 1 percent of underground miners and 3 percent of surface miners in the region are unionized.

“I think the union should be in all of them,” a young miner, who asked that his name not be used to avoid victimization by the boss, told the Militant February 6 as he was leaving the Excel No. 3 mine near Pikeville, Kentucky. Safety conditions in that mine are bad, he said. They include the bosses sometimes forcing miners to work in spite of higher-than- legal methane gas levels.

On February 1, two miners died in two mines in Boone County, West Virginia. Paul Moss, 58, was killed after his bulldozer struck a natural gas line at Massey Energy’s Black Castle surface mine. Edmund Vance, 46, was killed when part of the mine wall collapsed on him at Long Branch Energy’s No. 18 tunnel, the first mine fatality this year in a union-organized mine.

Vance’s cousin, Steve White, spoke to Militant reporters about the conditions in nonunion mines. “I worked for Massey’s Shumate mine,” White said. Massey is the largest coal company in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Most of its operations are nonunion. “They used to have a slogan, ‘S1’ for Safety First. But many of the men would say ‘P1’ was the real slogan—Production First. Some of the fellas would keep a book to record safety violations so they would have a record to report in case something happened to them. I about got killed in an accident on the mantrip in that mine,” White said, referring to the vehicle that transports miners around the mine. He suffered serious head injuries, he said, and the company was forced to pay a settlement. “They told me it would have been easier for them if I had died and they had just had to pay my wife.”

Following the most recent deaths, West Virginia governor Joseph Manchin called for a statewide “Mine Safety Stand Down” on February 1. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration then followed with a similar nationwide call for February 6. Much of the media initially said the stand down meant production would be shut down temporarily. In most cases, however, the coal companies simply turned it into a brief lecture on safety by the bosses, who then told workers to get back on the job quickly.

“It was an hour at most and then we were back at work,” a miner at the Rockspring mine in East Lynn, West Virginia, told the Militant. He asked that his name not be used to avoid being fired by the boss. “I told my co-workers that they would never shut down production. The governor couldn’t keep his job and shut down the mines.” This mine is owned by Foundation Coal Corporation and is nonunion. Miners there have been fighting to organize into the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). A majority of the workers voted for the UMWA in 2003, but the company appealed the results to the National Labor Relations Board, which has yet to rule on the case.

“A ‘stand down’ is up to the company,” said William Chapman, an underground miner for 20 years in eastern Kentucky. “The union safety committee is one of the best things to prevent deaths and injuries. In a union mine, the union representative goes with the mine inspector during inspections. In a nonunion mine it’s usually a boss. And I would say that most mine inspectors are past coal bosses.”

A number of miners said that as the percentage of unionized mines has dropped, the coal bosses have increased the hiring of contract labor to divide the workforce, drive down wages, and deflect liability for safety and discriminatory hiring practices. Several workers said there is a need to organize everyone into the union, contractors and full-time miners. According to the Charleston Gazette, on any given day there are 12,000 contractors in West Virginia mines, about the same number as full-time miners employed directly by coal companies.

“In the mines you operate on the buddy system,” said Bethel Purkey, who worked for 28 years at underground mines owned by Pittston Mining company and served as a local union president and head of the safety committee during that time. “You always need to know where the other miner is. That is key to safety. Having the same miners work together, who know the mines, who know the escape ways. Now the mine bosses are sending in contractors who are totally new to the mine. They might work one place one day and another place another. This is dangerous.

“When you don’t have the union, you don’t have miners’ reps that can shut that mine down,” Purkey continued. “We never had to ask to shut the mine down if we felt it was unsafe.”
 
 
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