Thar’s gold in them thar hills, slums, and factories

Clearly, there’s a lot of gold (and other forms of money) to be had in the hills of Guatemala, the slums of Brazil, and the factories of the United States.

That’s why Goldcorp continues to operate its Marlin gold and silver mine in Guatemala.

Virtually every international human rights organization—from the ILO to the UN Special Rapporteur – has weighed in, urging Goldcorp and the Guatemalan government to suspend mine operations to ensure protection of the rights, health and livelihoods of the indigenous people. In mid-2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (IACHR) went one step further and issued precautionary measures ordering the Guatemalan government to suspend operations at the Marlin mine.

It’s also why Brazilian riot police have stormed the Pinheirinho favela in São José dos Campos.

Some 6,000 residents are being evicted from the eight-year-old settlement.

Around 2,000 police officers were involved in the operation to reclaim the private land, which had been occupied by landless workers and turned into a community.

And why business owners are increasingly using lockouts to impose Draconian contracts on workers.

“This is a sign of increased employer militancy,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University. “Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action — in the form of lockouts.”

The number of strikes has declined to just one-sixth the annual level of two decades ago. That is largely because labor unions’ ranks have declined and because many workers worry that if they strike they will lose pay and might also lose their jobs to permanent replacement workers.

Lockouts, on the other hand, have grown to represent a record percentage of the nation’s work stoppages, according to Bloomberg BNA, a Bloomberg subsidiary that provides information to lawyers and labor relations experts. Last year, at least 17 employers imposed lockouts, telling their workers not to show up until they were willing to accept management’s contract offer.

In the midst of the Second Great Depression, capital has become more militant in hills, slums, and factories around the world.

Of mines and roads

In updates to two stories I’ve been following (e.g., here and here): Massey Energy has been forced to pay more than $200 million for killing 29 miners, while Vermont has managed to rebuild the roads destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene.

Both are examples of the effects of a combination of collective organization and government assistance: the United Mine Workers and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, in the former case; local communities and state and federal government agencies, in the latter.

Protest of the day

Peruvians protest the Newmont Mining Corporation’s plans to expand Yanacocha, Latin America’s biggest gold mine.

“Butte, America”

My suggestion: rush out and find a copy of Butte, America [ht: mfa], a 2009 documentary film about the history of Butte, Montana as the site of what once was called both “the Richest Hill on Earth” and “the Gibraltar of Unionism.”

The film was created by Pamela Roberts, is narrated by Gabriel Byrne, and includes a mix of first-hand accounts, scholarly analysis (from John T. Shea, David Emmons, and Janet Finn), historical reenactment, rare archival footage, period stills, vintage political cartoons, and haunting family photographs.

Not only does Roberts provide an honest, sympathetic account of the history of copper miners’ struggles to create a life and to organize against corporate greed in Butte; she also establishes connections with the struggles of miners elsewhere in the world (from Chile to South Africa) and with contemporary attacks on workers and unions.

The most insightful comments during the course of the film come from former miners and descendants of miners. For example, Marie Cassidy, a miner’s daughter and now matriarch of a large Irish family, explains the love-hate relationship with the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which provided jobs and contributed a large amusement park but, as she makes clear, it alone decided when, where, and how workers would be hired and how the profits would be spent.

This is what became of Butte after Anaconda decided to leave:

Massey Energy killed the miners

It’s now official: the Massey Energy Company killed 29 miners on 5 April 2010.

The Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel, in a 120-page report [pdf] released yesterday, is absolutely clear about who was responsible for killing the miners in the Upper Big Branch mine:

Ultimately, the responsibility for the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine lies with the management of Massey Energy. The company broke faith with its workers by frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices while creating a public perception that its operations exceeded industry safety standards.

The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris. A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking. The April 5, 2010, explosion was not something that happened out of the blue, an event that could not have been anticipated or prevented. It was, to the contrary, a completely predictable result for a company that ignored basic safety standards and put too much faith in its own mythology.

The report is remarkable in being both comprehensive and honest. It sends chills up the spine, not only for the detailed account of the events leading up to the disaster but also for what has happened since. For example, Massey’s Chief Operating Officer was named to spearhead the implementation of the new owner’s safety program, while the U.S. Congress has failed to pass any new mine safety legislation since the miners were killed.

Unfortunately, the questions I posed more than a year ago—”What does it take to close down the Massey Energy Company? And why doesn’t the disaster even merit a mention, let alone extended discussion, on mainstream economics blogs?”—remain unanswered.

Mining disaster: “preventable”

The 5 April 2010 fire in Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine was preventable. Just like the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Investigators from the Mine Safety and Health Administration have informed the families of the 29 dead miners that they’ve completed their preliminary investigation and have strong evidence that the equipment was “out of compliance.” According to Ken Ward Jr.,

Kevin Stricklin, MSHA’s administrator for coal, told the families:

This was preventable.

Stricklin told families that if any number of preventative measures — working water sprays or required levels of rock dust, for example — the small methane ignition could have been extinguished in 10 to 15 seconds.

According to National Public Radio, other investigations are being conducted by the Justice Department, West Virginia’s mine safety agency, the United Mine Workers of America, and an independent team led by former MSHA official Davitt McAteer, who has investigated other mine disasters.

They can’t bring back the miners who died but they can certainly hold ex-CEO Don Blankenship and Massey Energy responsible for manslaughter and make recommendations to prevent future mining disasters.

Leaving the coal mines alive

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration has finally revised its pattern of violations system. As a result, it announced that 13 mines across the country received letters putting them on notice that each has a pattern of violations of mandatory health or safety standards.

Perhaps, now that that the MSHA is stepping up its efforts to enforce the federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, a repetition of the Upper Big Branch disaster can be avoided and more workers will leave the coal mines still alive.

Follow-up

After I wrote the above post, I learned that plans to rescue 29 workers  trapped in a New Zealand coal mine have been delayed by the presence of gas. Clearly, the problems of capitalist coal mining are not confined to Massey Energy or the United States.

Music v. King Coal

Lee Ballinger describes the “war going on for the soul of Appalachia, a war over coal and music.”

Other musical contributions include Kathy Mattea’s “Coal Tattoo” (and here’s Mattea on mountaintop removal), Dierk Bentley’s “Down in the Mine,” and Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus, Patti Loveless, and Kathy Mattea singing John Prine’s “Paradise” (from the Music Saves Mountains concert).

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

chorus
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Here’s hoping the music wins!

2010 mining disaster

The latest mining disaster leads me to post two questions: What does it take to close down the Massey Energy Company? And why doesn’t the disaster even merit a mention, let alone extended discussion, on mainstream economics blogs?

The immediate details are now well known: 25 miners have been killed, and 4 are still missing, in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine owned by Massey Energy. This is a company that has repeatedly been cited—but not closed down—for improperly venting methane gas, which caused the country’s deadliest underground disaster in a quarter century.

Is it because the company ranks among the nation’s top five coal producers and is among the industry’s most profitable? It has 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and Tennessee (including the Upper Big Branch surface mine), while having been fined more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch.

Is it because Massey Energy made $104 million last year, twice its 2008 profits, despite continued weak demand for coal?

The profits were largely gained through a vicious cost-cutting campaign, including the elimination of 700 jobs, shutting down of higher-cost mines and “significant wage and benefit reductions,” according to a report on the NASDAQ web site.

Is it because the company has repeatedly fended off organizing drives by the United Mine Workers of America? The union currently represents only 76 Massey employees, of total reported employment of 5,851 at the end of 2009.

Is it because Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship owns state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin—who, once elected, refused to recuse himself because of Blankenship’s support of him and to hear arguments anyway?

Is it because Blankenship blamed the miners themselves for the disaster?

There’s plenty of opportunities to make a mistake and when you’ve got thousands of people working underground everyday they become accustomed to what they’re doing and perhaps they become somewhat immune to the dangers.

Is it because the Bush administration cut back on investigating mine safety and on enforcing mining safety regulations? In 2002, Bush named former Massey Energy official Stanley Suboleski to the National Mine Health and Safety Academy review commission, which decides all legal matters under the Federal Mine Act.

Is it because, as Matthew Yglesias points out, the coal industry as a whole ruins the health and takes the lives of tens of thousands of miners, local residents, and citizens throughout the country?

What is it going to take to shut down Massey Energy and for mainstream economists to focus on capitalist mining disasters, above and below the surface?