Murder in the mines

By Tim Wheeler and Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the May 23, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

Mike South, 51, carries portable oxygen wherever he goes. After an 11-year stint in the coal mines of West Virginia, he became totally disabled with black lung disease 16 years ago.

South, president of the National Black Lung Association, was outraged when asked about a series of articles in the Louisville Courier-Journal exposing coal operators' falsification of coal dust samples in their mines - while miners get sick and die of the deadly disease.

"It's murder," South said. "It's murder when authorities know what's going on and no one tries to rectify it."

South said "there was no way" that air from a coal mine would contain as little as 0.1 milligrams of dust per cubic meter of air. "That's as pure as the air that comes out of my bottle or your living room. It should have been a red flag. After all, existing standards allow for two milligrams per cubic meter and it's probably higher in those non-union mines."

South said 1,500 former miners die from Black lung annually. "But it doesn't show on their death certificates - they always claim some other cause. Think about it: four former coal miners die every day from black lung - one every six hours."

South says part of the solution lies in implementing the 20 recommendations of the Dust Advisory Committee set up by Robert Reich when he was Secretary of Labor. "In the first place, that means legislation giving the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) control of the sampling process. That may reduce the incidence of black lung," he said.

"But I know this: Black lung will never be eradicated as long as the coal operators are in charge of sampling and enforcement."

Susie Davis, president of the 3,000 member Kentucky Black Lung Association joined South in expressing outrage over the Louisville Courier-Journal expose.

"My husband worked as a miner for 38 years," she told the World from her office in Salyersville, Kentucky. "But he has been denied black lung benefits. This is a dirty game played by the politicians and the coal operators. Ronald Reagan started this attack back in 1981 and it has continued ever since."

The Courier-Journal series titled "Dust, Deception and Death" reveals that coal operators have been deliberately flouting the 1972 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act which requires them to gather air samples in underground mines every two months.

The newspaper charged that the samples collected and sent to the MSHA were so low in coal dust levels that they must have been falsified. Among the suspicious samples were those gathered during the years 1975-78 at mines owned by Kentucky's current governor, Paul Patton. Patton sponsored legislation in 1996 drastically reducing workers compensation including black lung benefits.

"Back when we were fighting for passage of black lung compensation, Patton testified before the Ways and Means Committee that it was a 'gravy train for miners' and a 'Christmas tree ornament' for miners' widows," Davis told the World. "It is no gravy train. Coal miners are the backbone of this country. While miners are dying politicians like Patton play their games."

Rep. Greg Stumbo, Majority Leader of the Kentucky Legislature, is an attorney who has represented hundreds of miners seeking black lung benefits. Stumbo told the World, "There is no question that these fraudulent test practices have gone on for decades and they continue today," One trick, he said, is to place the monitoring devices near an intake shaft where clean air is pumped into the mine. The Courier Journal series implicted the biggest coal companies in the scam - including Peabody Coal and Shamrock Coal.

"They were able to convince the U.S. Congress and the legislatures of coal producing states that black lung has been eradicated because dust levels are so low. It is a fraud," he said. "If the charges are proven that fake dust samples were collected in Gov. Patton's mines, he should resign."

Stumbo led the unsuccessful fight to block Patton's 1996 rewrite of the state's workers' compensation law, which is so pro-company that only five of the 586 Kentucky miners who applied for black lung benefits since it was passed were approved.

Scores of angry miners, black lung victims and wives and widows of miners rallied in the rotunda of the Kentucky capitol building April 30 carrying signs that read, "Black lung kills" and "Patton betrayed me."

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, charged that non-union coal operators save so much money by cheating on health and safety issues they are pushing safer, unionized mine operators out of business. He called on miners in these pits to join the union.

"Gov. Patton and the legislature did not amend the black lung program in 1996," Roberts said. "They eliminated the black lung program in 1996."

Ron Cyrus, executive secretary treasurer of the Kentucky AFL-CIO, charged that Patton and his corporate backers "armed with half-truths and outright lies ... rammed through the worst workers' compensation laws in the nation."

Stumbo told the crowd he will spearhead a class action lawsuit similar to the suits filed against the tobacco corporations. "It's time to sue this industry. It's time to go to court. It's time to bring this industry into compliance with the law of the land," Stumbo said.

The protest had an immediate effect: Kentucky Attorney General Ben Chandler wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno asking the U.S. Justice Department to review why MSHA has accepted without question samples with such "unusually low" levels of dust.