Taylor, who has worked underground for 15 years, spoke to the Militant yesterday outside a funeral home in Evarts, a town in Harlan County, Kentucky. Gov. Ernest Fletcher was there that afternoon to meet with the families of five miners who died underground after an early-morning explosion on May 20 shook the Darby Mine No. 1 here, owned by Kentucky Darby LLC.

Paris Thomas Jr., 53, a coal miner for 31 years, was one of those killed. The others were Amon Brock, 51; Jimmy Lee, 33; Roy Middleton, 35; and George Petra, 49. A sixth miner, Paul Ledford, survived.

Another coal miner, Steven Bryant, 23, was killed on the job May 23 at the Risner Branch No. 2 mine in Rousseau, Breathitt County. That mine, also in eastern Kentucky, is owned by Miller Brothers Coal LLC. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Bryant’s water truck, with which he sprinkled the coal-haul roads to keep the dust down, overturned and fatally crushed him. He was the 11th coal miner to die on the job in Kentucky this year.

These deaths brought the toll at U.S. coal mines this year to 32, compared to 22 for all of 2005.

State officials are trying to attribute the mounting toll to the nature of the industry. “Coal mining is a hazardous job for the many men and women who choose it as their livelihood,” Fletcher said in a statement after Bryant’s death.

Many of the miners interviewed by the Militant see it differently.

“Production and profits come first for the company, not our safety,” said a worker at the Darby No. 1 mine, who asked that his name not be used for fear of victimization by the company. “It should be the other way around.

“We need a union, now,” he added.

“All they want to do is make money,” said Willard Taylor, who runs a motorcycle shop in Clarksville, Tennessee. “It’s all about profits and keeping their pocketbook happy,” he said, referring to Kentucky Darby and other coal companies in the area. “They don’t care if you have kids. They don’t care about safety.”

His brother Russell Taylor agreed. “Many of the mines here used to be union,” he said. “We had more control of working conditions then. The mines were safer.”

Today none of the mines in Harlan County, where much of the state’s coal production is concentrated, are unionized, he and other miners pointed out.

In fact, most of Kentucky’s mines are nonunion. The state is third in coal production in the country after Wyoming and West Virginia, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. That agency’s statistics indicate that only 813 of more than 14,000 miners in the state’s 608 coal mines were members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in 2004. The number of union members has since declined, after one of the larger organized mines in western Kentucky shut down, said UMWA communications director Phil Smith.  
 
What led to deaths at Darby mine
Since the Darby mine began operations in 2001, 10 injuries had occurred there before the May 20 explosion, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). During those five years MSHA issued 265 citations for safety violations at the mine, the federal agency’s statistics show, 83 of which were for excessive levels of coal dust and methane, a highly flammable gas released from coal as it is mined.

MSHA fined the mine $27,651 for all these infractions. The company paid $23,270.

“State and federal inspectors knew all about these violations,” Bill Adams, a retired miner who worked 31 years underground, said in an interview. “Why didn’t they ever shut it down until the company fixed the problems?”

Methane gas that may have leaked through seals from a closed-off section of the mine, mixed with high levels of coal dust, could have led to the powerful blast, current and former federal mine inspectors told the press. The explosion likely originated in the sealed portion of the mine, several miners said.

“This is a gassy mine,” Ronnie Farley, 21, told the Militant May 23, referring to the buildup of methane. Farley and his friend Mack Williams, 22, said they worked as roof bolters at the Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1 until two months ago, when they were laid off.

“The mine inspectors often overlook unsafe conditions,” Williams said.

The company did not return phone calls from the Militant.

The blast was felt more than 5,000 feet from its estimated point of origin, knocking people on the mine surface off their feet and spewing rocks and other debris above ground, said Clark Cusick, a miner at Kentucky Darby. Cusick, who has worked at the mine for a year and a half, said he got off second shift at 12:45 a.m., about half an hour before the explosion. He said the sealed portion of the mine was closed off with Omega Block, a fiberglass-type substance. While the material is approved by MSHA, it is less resistant than concrete block.

In addition, mine safety inspectors said May 23, the company used a sealant to hold the blocks together made of a plastic foam-type substance that is more prone to leaks than concrete.

“The seals need to be replaced. They should use only concrete, which is more costly but safer,” Cusick said.

The UMWA has the same position, said Phil Smith. “In a union mine, workers can use the safety committee to shut the mine down until safety violations are fixed without fear of losing their jobs,” he said. “Many nonunion companies intimidate people by threatening to fire them if they report safety problems.”

Cusick said he agreed with other miners that at least three of his co-workers who perished after being trapped by the blast some 3,000 feet underground could have survived if they had more oxygen in their self-rescuers. Miners carry these oxygen-supply devices in case of emergency.

Harlan County coroner Philip Bianchi told the press that two of the miners died from the impact of the explosion and three from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Following the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia, where 12 miners were trapped underground after a blast and died after running out of oxygen, MSHA issued emergency regulations requiring companies to provide self-rescuers with two hours of oxygen rather than one hour as currently required, said Smith. “But MSHA has allowed the operators to go for months without implementing the new rule, saying they need time to order new devices,” the UMWA official said.

Miners have reported that even the current devices often don’t work properly. Jeff Ledford said in an interview published in the May 21 Lexington Herald-Leader that his brother Paul, who survived the Kentucky Darby blast, told him that his self-rescuer lasted only five minutes, not one hour. Paul Ledford reportedly passed out twice while crawling toward the mine’s entrance.

A team of workers from the nearby Lone Mountain coal mine, the first on the scene, rescued the worker some three hours after the blast, Bill Blevitz, 19, a miner at Lone Mountain, told the Militant. Ledford was treated for injuries and later released from the hospital.

In a May 22 statement, acting MSHA administrator David Dye said the air pack of the miner who survived had worked properly. But Jeff Ledford told the press his brother stood by his description of events.

“I don’t agree with MSHA,” stated Cusick. “Paul Ledford is not lying.”

“There should be a station in every mine fully equipped with food, water, blankets, and air, where miners can go until they are rescued,” Ronnie Farley said.

Kentucky senator Mitchell McConnell told the press May 23 that the U.S. Senate is moving to pass new federal regulations requiring two hours of oxygen in self-rescuers.  
 
Deteriorating conditions
Working conditions have worsened so much in the midst of the current boom in demand and higher coal prices that “many of us are terrified to see our loved ones going into the mines,” said Brenda Greene, a retired worker who came to the area May 23 for the wake of her relative, Paris Thomas. When she divorced her husband, a miner, a few years ago, she took her two kids and moved from Harlan County to Georgia, “so my children wouldn’t become miners,” she said. “I don’t see what else can be done.”

“The spotters often don’t work,” said a miner at the Ligett No. 2 mine in Harlan County who asked that his name not be used. He was referring to the devices on mine equipment that warn for high levels of methane. “Today inspectors shut the mine because of a methane leak through the Omega seals,” he said. Unlike Greene, this miner said organizing the mine would improve job conditions. “I’d like to see the union in,” he said.

Some of the other workers interviewed agreed. “I am a union woman,” said Bobbi Short, 72, who took part in a 1981 union march to demand compensation for miners who suffer from black lung disease. “Miners are getting killed today because they have no union to protect them.”

“The UMWA is the only solution to get safety in the mines,” said Bob Davis. “Those miners’ deaths boil down to greed. There’s a coal boom and the companies are offering big bonuses to get the coal out of the mines.”

Davis said he was among 32 UMWA supporters who were fired during a campaign in the 1970s to organize mines at the nearby Brookside and Highsplint facilities.

Bill Adams, another retired miner, said he too was a veteran of that struggle, which is depicted in the well-known documentary Harlan County, U.S.A. “We helped the Brookside workers,” said Adams, who worked at another mine.

Harlan County, U.S.A. documents the coal miners’ strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Company in 1973. Eastover’s refusal to sign a contract, after the majority of the miners voted for the union, led to a walkout that lasted more than a year. During that struggle, picketing workers and their allies stood up to gun-toting company goons and scabs. A new screening of the film was recently released. The Brookside mine is now closed.

“We lost the union here,” Adams said. “But the younger miners can bring it back. It’s the only solution.”

Ved Dookhun, Dave Ferguson, and Sam Manuel contributed to this article.
 
 
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Trapped underground for 14 days, Australia gold miners are rescued
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