Vol. 77/No. 44      December 9, 2013

As of Nov. 22, 37 have been killed on the job — already one more than all of last year. And black lung disease, the main debilitating injury inflicted on miners, is on the rise. At the same time medical treatment for tens of thousands of these workers, tossed aside like an obsolete piece of machinery, is practically nonexistent, as bosses — in collusion with lawyers, insurance giants and “doctors” — scheme to minimize company costs.

Incidents of black lung, once considered a dwindling problem of an earlier era, is “increasingly affecting younger miners and taking a new, more aggressive form,” according to a recent report by the Center for Public Integrity.

Between 1968 and 2007, 75,000 miners nationwide died of black lung, a preventable disease resulting from exposure to coal dust. It’s irreversible, debilitating and very often fatal.

A three-week militant strike in 1969 by tens of thousands of members of the United Mine Workers of America in West Virginia was a key factor in winning the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which set up a benefits program for workers afflicted with black lung and established stricter standards for coal dust exposure.

With the strengthening of the miners’ union and its safety committees, diagnosed incidents of black lung plunged more than 90 percent. While the laws didn’t change, with the subsequent weakening of the union this trend reversed in the mid-1990s and by the 2000s had almost reached the levels of the 1970s. Between 2000 and 2010, 26,632 miners officially died from black lung, according to the government National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

According to the Labor Department, fewer than 10 percent of coal miners who apply for paltry black lung benefits, which range from $600 to $1,250 a month, receive anything. When miners are rewarded benefits, coal companies appeal almost every claim, often gridlocking them in legal limbo for decades.

Law firm Jackson Kelly PLLC has a long record of shielding medical evidence and defiance of court orders in its nearly two-century service helping coal bosses squash miners’ claims for benefits and health care, the report states.

For 40 years a small unit of radiologists at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore have been among the main readers of chest X-rays on behalf of coal companies seeking to defeat miners’ claims. In more than 1,500 cases decided since 2000, Dr. Paul Wheeler, who leads the team, didn’t report a single case of complicated black lung. More than 800 miners lost their case in which other doctors saw black lung, but Wheeler disputed it, including 160 cases of the advanced fatal form of the disease.

Following the report, Johns Hopkins announced Nov. 8 it was suspending its black lung program, pending a review.

“I hope justice is brought to bear on the doctors and lawyers responsible,” Phil Smith, communications director with the United Mine Workers, said in a phone interview Nov. 19. “But the damage they have done to miners can’t be undone.”

In 2012, National Public Radio reported that the Mine Health and Safety Administration issued less than 2,400 coal dust violations, despite its own data showing 53,000 samples of dust levels exceeding government limits. Mining companies are often allowed to do their own sampling and reporting, which can be done while production is at half capacity. Sampling is required only eight hours a day, despite longer workdays.

A proposed law issued by MSHA more than three years ago that would reduce coal dust limits was still “going through the process,” in Congress and in the Labor Department, MSHA head Joe Main told the Charleston Gazette in October 2012.

On Nov. 17, Nick Cappano, 34, and Rick Williams, 59, were killed from carbon monoxide poisoning while working underground in the Revenue Virginius Mine in Colorado. Twenty other miners were injured. The mine, with 100 employees, is owned by Star Mine LLC and received a state permit Feb. 5 to mine silver, gold and sulfides.

The 37th miner killed on the altar of profit this year died Nov. 22 from injuries sustained four days earlier at the Cumberland River Quarry in Kentucky. Of the 37 killed, 19 are coal miners.

Only one-third of miners today are in unions, according to Smith.