Vol. 74/No. 23      June 14, 2010

Since 2001 there have been 69 deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions in the offshore oil industry in the Gulf alone. Like the Massey coal bosses responsible for the recent deaths of 29 miners, the BP oil barons portray offshore drilling as inherently dangerous. They defend their safety records. They want us to accept the lie that some workers have to die.

The bosses always seek to conceal their drive for profit as the source of industrial “accidents” that kill or maim workers and ravage the environment. They blame workers, technology, “acts of god,” bad luck—whatever they can sell. But facts show BP cut corners—knowing the risks involved—in order to save time and money. The company encountered little resistance from government agencies responsible for maintaining safety conditions. BP never had a plan to deal with the real possibility of an uncontrolled blowout, nor did the government require it.

The many reports now coming out of the dangerous conditions on the BP oil rig prior to the explosion show how crucial the fight for safety on the job has become. It is inseparable from social and political struggles the union movement must take the lead on to combat the capitalists’ contamination of the food we eat, shoddy and dangerous manufacture of goods we need, and fouling of the earth, waters, and skies.

The BP disaster is another costly reminder of why the working class must organize to take political power away from the exploiters. Workers power and the transfer of the means of production into the collective hands of the working class opens the way to overturning the destructive social order that today dominates the earth. It opens the way to building a socialist world that operates to meet the needs of humanity, not reap profits for a few.
 
 
Related articles:
Unsafe practices by BP led to Gulf oil disaster
Massey coal mine where 29 died was ‘ticking time bomb’  
 
 
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