Updates

The latest news in some stories we've covered previously.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the federal agency charged with making our nation's mines safe, has issued fines for the Sago Mine disaster in which 12 miners died. Only one died as a result of the lightning strike said to have started the fire; the other 11 died subsequently. They were each wearing self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs); there were numerous code violations in these, and obviously they failed. The MSHA issued a fine of $60 to the mine operator. Yes, $60. 12 deaths, divided by $60, that's $5 per death.

In the wake of the resignation of Boston College women's ice hockey coach Tom Mutch for an inappropriate relationship with a player, one incoming freshman has chosen another school, and a freshman was released from her scholarship. Neither is the player reportedly involved with the coach. In similar news, the women's golf coach at the University of Georgia, Todd McCorkle, resigned May 7th after being accused of sexually harassing his players. He showed them the Paris Hilton sex tape, talked about their bras and underwear, and touched them inappropriately. Like Mutch, McCorkle is married to a former player, Jenna Daniels, who is now on the LPGA Tour. But he met her while he was her golf coach at the University of Arizona, when she was 18 and he was 36. Warning bells!

Don Imus is suing CBS Radio for $120 million. Did he have a clause in his contract saying that he got to stay if advertisers bailed? I'm sure he'll donate whatever he gets to charity.

When Rudy Giuliani reported his finances this week, we learned a weird fact: He has Judi Nathan on the payroll, to the tune of $125,000 per year. So those campaign contributors are putting their money right into the Giuliani/Nathan kitty. It's all about the Benjamins.

Congressman Jim McGovern's Food Stamp Challenge made the front page of the Boston Globe yesterday.

Sago Mine Disaster: The Untold Story

I was reading dailykos this morning and came upon this long, detailed article about coal mining and how the Sago Mine Disaster probably happened:

Underground Mining, Sago, and Death by Greed

The conclusion:

So why didn't ICG keep Sago safe? Because these guys are vultures. Outfits like this exploit corporate bankruptcy laws to take over mines that are on the ropes, then squeeze their bones for every last cent. In the case of Sago, ICG's corporate shell game managed to avoid safety and environmental citations, to escape black lung payments, and break a union contract. Then they got to sell coal into the highest priced market ever. How nice for them, huh?

What killed those men at Sago? Stupid corporate laws that make corporations into "super citizens" and allow shell companies to come and go at will -- companies that squeeze out union support and ignore safety to make another dime. An MSHA that has been gutted and weakened (the mine where I use to work had an MSHA inspector on site ever single day, and sometimes as many as six). And they were killed by men like this:

Wilbur Ross, the New York financier and Palm Beach socialite who swallowed up the company, has been seen squirming before the cameras in the aftermath of the Sago disaster. Maybe he should have gotten his ass down there to rescue the Sago miners -- they're his workers. Well, OK, maybe he shouldn't have. But like other mine owners, he and his company didn't want the expense of keeping a rescue squad on the scene, which some speculate is why it took almost a full day to get the effort going. In any event, the Sago mine, like many others, had numerous citations for safety violations.

That's right. Sago Mine had no rescue team, a fact so astounding, I still have a hard time grasping it. But hey, if it saves Wilbur another dime...

The story of how Wilbur Ross and other corporate vultures are fleecing and destroying the American middle class is from the Village Voice:

Vulture in a Coal Mine
Rescuing dying mine companies? Wilbur Ross is your man. Rescuing dying miners? Well, er, uh..

Here's Ross's MO: He buys a company that is in bankruptcy proceedings. He gets a federal bankruptcy judge (most have been appointed by Republicans) to approve screwing the workers by

1. Busting the union. No union, no union benefits, no union safety voice.

2. Eliminating retirees health insurance.

3. Eliminating retirees pensions.

4. Making millions for himself personally in the process.

He's done it, according to the article, to the Coulterville, Illinois mine (250 miners), which as well as five other union mines in Illinois lost their union jobs, health insurance, and pensions:

After the sale, six union operations previously owned by Horizon were shut down. The nonunion mines remained open.

Under the bankruptcy and reorganization plan, U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Judge William Howard in August agreed that Horizon should not be responsible for $800 million in health insurance contractual obligations to more than 3,000 active and retired United Mine Workers of America union members.

The judge threw out the contract and voided the collective bargaining agreement to make the sale of the mines more appealing to Ross and his partners.

Zeigler No. 11 was the last UMWA-operated mine in Southern Illinois. … The union tried to prevent the judge from allowing Horizon to sever its contract with the union and void its obligations to union retirees. But under federal bankruptcy guidelines, the move is legal.

The 2300 retired union members who lost their health insurance were especially hard hit. Many are less than 60 years old and not eligible for Medicare yet. So many of them are essentially bankrupt (although they probably can't actually declare bankruptcy and void those bills under the new, draconian bankruptcy bill).

Wilbur Ross? He turned around and sold the now non-union mines to a Netherlands-based conglomerate and made, between 267 and 300 MILLION DOLLARS on the deal.

He's also made money by eliminating health benefits and pensions for the retirees of Bethlehem Steel:

Approximately 90,000 widows and retirees of defunct Bethlehem Steel, for example, collectively lost $380 million in health-care benefits between March 31, 2003, when those benefits were terminated by Judge Burton Lifland of U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and October 25, 2004, when Ross sold the former Bethlehem assets to Mittal [the conglomerate].

Of course, we the taxpayers end up paying the medical costs of people whose retiree health care is stolen by corporate raiders like Ross.

In back-of-the-envelope terms, these Americans, plus a government agency and, indirectly thousands of U.S. businesses, absorbed roughly $1.2 billion in losses coming from Wilbur Ross's "rescue" of the bankrupt steel companies.

And he couldn't be bothered to have a rescue squad on hand at the Sago Mine.

Wilbur Ross. Now there's a man who should be in jail.

Army Corps of Engineers/Orleans Levee District Death Toll: 588 Dead

From Knight-Ridder:

Majority of New Orleans deaths tied to floodwalls' collapse

NEW ORLEANS - Nearly 600 people who died because of Hurricane Katrina might have survived had floodwalls on two New Orleans canals not collapsed, a Knight Ridder analysis of where bodies were found after the storm indicates.

The bodies of at least 588 people were recovered in neighborhoods that engineers say would have remained largely dry had the walls of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals not given way - probably because of poor design, shoddy construction or improper maintenance - after the height of the storm.

In contrast, 286 bodies were recovered in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans East and neighboring St. Bernard Parish, where Katrina's storm surge poured over levees and flooded neighborhoods.

The role of the 17th Street and London Avenue canal floodwalls in the destruction of New Orleans has been hotly debated in the four months since the storm. Engineers who are investigating their collapse think that floodwaters generated by Katrina never rose high enough to pour over the walls, and they blame flawed design, construction or maintenance for the walls' failure and the flooding that followed.

Today Big Media is agog about the Sago mine disaster. In three months it will be forgotten by the MSM, as it has forgotten and ignored the aftermath of the much greater American disaster, Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the New Orleans levees. Pay no attention to the pious pronunciations by blow-dried anchors that they will follow this story in the days and weeks ahead. There will be another missing white woman, another fake war (War on Easter? War on Valentine's Day? War with Iran?), another White House press statement to be delivered verbatim, without questioning or analysis.

Look for coverage of the flawed levee story on TV. I dare you. You won't find it.

The Final Insult

Twelve Found Dead in W.Va. Coal Mine

SAGO, W.Va., Jan. 4 -- Great joy turned suddenly to deep sorrow Wednesday morning when stunned family members were told that 12 of the 13 miners trapped 13,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were dead rather than alive, as they, and the world, had been told hours earlier.

The first announcement, of a "miracle," was the result of a "miscommunication," a company official said.

The new announcement came at roughly 3 a.m., interrupting and then silencing celebratory church bells in this small town and leaving relatives of the miners in shock, grief and anger.

Sago Mine Disaster: By The Numbers

2 years

273 safety Violations

$24,000 in penalties ("corporate pocket change")

1 dead, 12 missing

Safety Violations Have Piled Up at Coal Mine

Time and again over the past four years, federal mining inspectors documented the same litany of problems at central West Virginia's Sago Mine: mine roofs that tended to collapse without warning. Faulty or inadequate tunnel supports. A dangerous buildup of flammable coal dust.

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In the past two years, the mine was cited 273 times for safety violations, of which about a third were classified as "significant and substantial," according to documents compiled by the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Many were for problems that could contribute to accidental explosions or the collapse of mine tunnels, records show.

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Other inspection reports over the past two years fault the mine for "combustibles," including a buildup of flammable coal dust and a failure to adequately insulate electric wires. Sparks from electrical equipment can ignite coal dust and methane gas, triggering fires and explosions.

The mine is contesting some of the violations, while agreeing to pay more than $24,000 in penalties to settle others.

The Republicans have decimated OSHA. I'd get a bigger fine for speeding on the Massachusetts turnpike than a coal company would get from OSHA for endangering the lives of its workers. Shame.