Libertarian Solutions to Mine Safety.

While the distance between myself and my libertarian friends and fellow scholars of the Marshall University Libertarians is too far to travel for our weekly meetings, a circumstance that makes me feel somewhat guilty of negligence, being I am the Vice-President, they have not been absent from my thoughts.  The debates left unfinished have continued in my head in the quiet time one finds before sleep. Among these debates and discussions of economic policy and moral or ethical standards of society and government is that of mine safety.  The topic of mine safety hit closer to home when an explosion occurred at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia on April 5. 2010, killing twenty-nine coalminers and even closer still when reading our local small town newspaper on May 21, 2010 which stated that another mining accident had claimed the life of Robie Erwin, a dear friends uncle, who passed away from complications following an accident at Ruby Energy Coal located in Delbarton, West Virginia.  While what discussions we had have been brief and never resulted in any form of action on behalf of our group, I no doubt learned from these conversations and continue with my research of mine regulation history and the responses of the workers who provide half of the United States’ power.(1)

There have always been regulations on business as long as there has been a government able to impose those regulations. Mine regulation has been applied under the name of protecting the people who work in the dangerous conditions. The U.S Congress passed the first federal legislation concerning mine safety in 1891.(2) This regulation set a standard for ventilation systems in working mines and an age requirement of 12 years old to be a employee of any mine. While the social stigma of children working is not a problem in today’s U.S society, ventilation systems are still cause for concern in the mining world and are suspected to be the cause of the recent Upper Big Branch mine explosion in April of 2010. The benchmarks set by politicians are not doing the job for which they were created. In fact, they are doing the exact opposite. According to data presented by the medical community, Coalworker’s Pneumoconiosis, also known as black lung, is on the rise.(3)

Behind ventilation system problems or other safety concerns in one of America’s most dangerous jobs, there lies an even bigger problem. That problem is the evil of blind regulation of legislators in Washington and in every state where elected officials decide the rules and benchmarks of what is considered a “safe” mining environment.  The rules made for these working conditions are often found to be nearly impossible for constant operation according to employees, and in this humble, son of a coal miner’s opinion, as well as many other coal miners I have interviewed in gaining consensus for this article, contribute to the unsafe work environment by creating safety goals that are too high to maintain and thus contributes to complacency and an attitude of “if the goal legislation has set cannot be met, then we workers and mine owners will have to establish our own standards”. This attitude is in part due to fear of job loss or repercussions from the mine boss or mine owner if coal production should slow or come to a halt or the fear from the company owners that productivity will decrease and layoffs become necessary.  This is however a dangerous attitude because it invalidates the job of a mine inspector, who, according to MSHA guidelines, only inspects certain aspects of a mine at any given time for only 60% of a working shift during which the mine can operate at a rate as low as 60% capacity. On some guidelines, like respirable dust, an inspection must only be done as few times as once a quarter or four times a year.(4) This means that often times what is passed for an inspection is really a dog and pony show. Workers know this, inspectors know this and mine owners know this.  The only people who do not not seem to know this is the legislators.  They continue to pass stricter laws yet remain baffled by black lung rates, persistent explosions, and fatal accidents. This is a vicious cycle that can and has ended in death and blame, leaving those involved looking to place the blame on someone other than themselves, which only results in the root of the problem never being addressed.

It is not enough to merely point fingers and shoulder blame. Whether that blame be placed there by general opinion or by the words of judges. Whether it falls upon the owners of the mines, the inspectors, the law makers, or the workers themselves, mere convictions and fines will not suffice. What must happen is the people must decide they will stand up to corrupt practices no matter if it takes place in or on the mountain, office or committee meeting. What must take place is the old familiar hero of morality and economic freedom: free market.

It is important that the free market be loosed and the endless cycle of strangling legislation be put to a stop. However, how can a region so dependent on coal to fuel their economy begin to take the risks involved to bring about the needed change? How can a market begin to rule in a region like southern WV where so many of the careers rely on coal and more and more the companies are beginning to fold into one another as buyouts occur and companies get larger. Furthermore, the most important question of all is how can the mining community do all this and maintain safe working environments and even obtain higher safety standards?

To often people are quick to pass judgment on the CEOs of these large companies and call them greedy and unconcerned for the safety of the men and women working for them. If this is indeed true, and I am not completely convinced it is, and all the companies care about is money, then it seems safety would be their most important thing and those who have been quick to judge the cause of the mining accidents as company negligence have had it backwards. Think about it, if you were the CEO of a company and all you want to do is make money, then the last thing you want is a lost time accident. Even less desirable would be the death of a trained employee whose death for which you may have to compensate the family for a long time coming out to huge sums of money. Does this sound like something a money hungry, greedy company would want? No. They would want the coal to run 24/7 and 365 days a year without an accident or injury, because injuries cost money. There is a balance and equilibrium between safety and profit; the two are mutually inclusive. So related are they that there can not be one without the other. If profit is chased too much at the cost of safety and lives there will be no mines to operate and no miners to work it as it becomes a business so dangerous and costly that it would go bankrupt. If safety is pursued to the point that no one can do the job in an efficient manner then it will also be unable to maintain money income as the cost for keeping up with legislation that requires constant purchasing and renewal of technology skyrockets the price the companies must charge for their product. So how can we achieve this balance of profit and safety so that we can make a great economy that pays our coalminers and keeps them safe?

The answer lies in a communal admission of guilt on behalf of all those involved the mining industry. The ongoing dog and pony shows of inspection must stop and people must pronounce the standards unjust, unreasonable, and impossible to maintain. They must work with each other to change the law and establish safety benchmarks that can be achievable. No more can we suffer through the stifling regulation of our officials, elected or appointed that bring our economy down and put the safety of our miners in jeopardy.

1.) http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/

2.) http://www.msha.gov/mshainfo/mshainf2.htm

3.)http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126083871040391327.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126021059

4.) http://www.msha.gov/planverification/chapter-1%28revised-feb112003%29.pdf

Other sites of interest:

http://www.msha.gov/stats/charts/coaldaily.asp

http://www.msha.gov/

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/

Interview with Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources concerning people warning him about the unsafe environment at Upper Big Branch mine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbzThYIxOTA