No miner has to die, in Russia or US!

The following statement was issued March 1 by Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president.

No miner has to die! That’s the response workers should give to the claim by Russian officials that the death of 36 coal miners in Vorkuta last weekend was a “natural disaster.” It’s the same lie we’ve heard time and again from the mine bosses and their government mouthpieces around the world — from Soma, Turkey, where more than 300 died in the Eynez mine in 2014, to coalfields across the United States.

Statements by relatives of Vorkuta miners and independent union leaders that the coal bosses tampered with methane detectors and pressured them to work in spite of high levels of the deadly gas are all too familiar. In their drive for profits, the mine owners put production ahead of human life, cutting corners on safety for the sake of their bottom line. And the same thing is true at construction sites, in steel mills, oil refineries, on the railroad and in other jobs where working people face speedup and the bosses’ disdain for our life and limb.

As a longtime member of the United Mine Workers of America, having worked in mines in Alabama, Colorado, Utah and West Virginia, I know firsthand that the fight for stronger unions is a life-and-death question. We need to organize, unionize and fight for workers’ control of safety on the job — including exercising the right to stop work whenever we face unsafe conditions.

On behalf of the Socialist Workers Party, I extend a hand of solidarity to our brothers and sisters in Vorkuta. Your fight is our fight. What happens in one country affects the conditions we all face.

Sharpening competition among the mine bosses and other capitalists, a result of the international crisis of trade and production, guarantees they will press harder in their offensive against the working class. Conditions in the mines, in Russia and worldwide, will continue to deteriorate unless our class organizes to stop them.

The disaster in Vorkuta, and the Russian government’s cover-up for the bosses’ profit drive, highlight the need for workers power. As we organize independent working-class struggles to defend ourselves, we can gain the experience, confidence and class-consciousness needed to lead the fight to overturn the dictatorship of capital and open the road to build a society based on human solidarity — where no worker has to die on the job.

Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party: Defend right to abortion!
SWP candidates join March 2 protests
Socialist Workers Party campaign statement: Defend abortion rights!
SWP candidate Eleanor García joins warehouse workers’ fight

Related articles:
Two years after Maidan revolt Ukraine rulers target workers
Mine blast in Russia highlights unsafe conditions

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home