Letter from the Sago Miners [BlackDiamond]

 

Here is a really interesting perspective from the Sago miners, republished from Blackdiamond

 

Working at Sago

Miners well trained, focused on ensuring safety
By Craig Newsome, Jeremy Toler, Chester Runyon and Brian E. Curtis

We are the miners of the Sago coal mine that suffered the explosion on Jan. 2. We have experienced all the pain of the loss of our brothers, uncles, cousins and friends. We have watched with disgust as some news media reported us as poor, dumb coal miners who had to work in horrible conditions because we could not find work anywhere else. Well, let us tell you about our mine and the miners who work here.

We work at this mine because we choose to, not because we have to. We are proud of our mine and the miners we work with. These men are well trained and operate million-dollar pieces of equipment within the confines of the coal mine as easily as you do your riding lawn mower on your lawn. We are intelligent, skilled and are aware of our surroundings. None of us would ever allow any condition to exist that would injure one of our fellow workers on purpose. Every time any of us has become aware of any hazard and reported it to any member of the company, they have corrected it almost immediately. We feel that we have a safe mine or we would not work here.

The explosion we experienced occurred behind a set of seals in an abandoned area. We don’t know of any man alive who could have predicted such a thing. We have a greater interest than any others as to what occurred. We have a guess, but are willing to wait until the investigation is complete to know the real answer.

The current management of this company and our mine has been portrayed by the media as uncaring about our personal safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. This company has put a safety program in place that literally puts our safety in our own hands. They have responded to citations issued and try to correct them immediately. They discuss with us each violation and how we can prevent it from happening again. This is done to get our input, not as a disciplinary measure. There is even talk of developing a bonus plan that rewards us for being safe workers. It appears this plan will reward individuals for attendance and safety instead of for production.

You all seem to indicate that we have a dangerous mine because we received over 200 citations from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration over the past two years. But again, every time MSHA issued a Citation, we corrected it almost immediately. To tell you the truth, we did not do some things very well that we should have.

MSHA beat us up pretty good about cleanup, rock-dusting and maintaining the escapeway. They forced us to raise our standards. What no one realizes is that ICG’s standards meet or sometimes exceed those of MSHA or the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. The men at Sago soon began to believe that ICG was sincere with regard to our safety. As a result of the MSHA, state and ICG efforts, we did raise our standard and that saved 17 miners. You see, there was not one survivor of the explosion, but 17.

The “One Left” crew was in direct line of the explosion within 1,000 feet, but none of them was seriously injured by the blast. Why? Because the area of the mine was so well rock-dusted and maintained that the explosion did not propagate at all. When it ran out of methane, it stopped. Our 17 miners know how close they came to death and thank God, MSHA and the Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training for their efforts. We also thank the company for their corrective actions that stopped this explosion. Our miners exited the mine safely in the escapeway, which had recently been cleaned, roof bolted and screened.

We also want to thank the mine rescue teams that came to try to rescue our brothers. There were men from all over the country in a unified effort. A special thanks to the Consol UMW teams that came to our aid without any concern for union or nonunion. They only considered us miners. Those teams and individual men will always have a special place in our hearts. We know that they took some bad press from some of the family members, but we saw their efforts and admire them for it.

We do take offense at the leadership of the United Mine Workers of America for statements about our mine and the indications of how unsafe we are. Many of us have worked at UMW mines and would like to question why the UMW leadership made a big deal out of our 270 citations over a two-year period. They indicated that if we were a UMW signature mine, we would not have had so many. They stated that many of the conditions were so serious we should not have been allowed to operate.

Our question to the UMW is: Why did the UMW signature mine McElroy in northern West Virginia receive more than 1,830 citations in the same time frame and still be allowed to operate? Why did the Blackville No. 2 Mine in Morgantown receive 1,400 citations in the time frame and still be allowed to operate? Why do Shoemaker, Robinson Run No. 95 and many other UMW mines receive 500 to 1,000 per year and still be allowed to operate? Why, if the UMW provides such a good safety advantage, do these mines have such horrific violations records, (These numbers are public record on MSHA’s page on the Internet.)

We recognize that we owe a debt of gratitude to the UMW, as it helped the miner gain a good wage, health benefits and fought for safety. However, the current leadership has an agenda to advance at our expense, rather than try to help us. They have come to our mine and forced their way in because of the agenda. We do not want them to represent us. We have elected our own representatives from within our miners (by a margin of over 90 percent).

Why would we want a union to represent us whose members receive 10 to 20 times as many violations as we receive? We are reducing our citations and will succeed. We have cut the numbers of citations at this mine by almost 50 percent in the past quarter. We will welcome any advancement in technology that will help our miners communicate, be located, or extend their supply of oxygen. Buy those are all devices we never want to have to rely on. We first want to know what happened, where we failed (if we did), and what can be done to prevent any such thing from ever happening again.

We would also ask the UMW and its leadership about its contribution to the Sago Fund. As it now seems, ICG started the fund with a $2 million donation. Lots of companies and individuals have generously contributed to the fund as well, particularly $250,000 from A.T. Massey. To date, we have seen no mention of a UMW donation. If they have that much care and concern for us, they should show it to these families.

We just want to set the record straight. We are intelligent, skilled men who are working here because we want to. We have a brotherhood here that is close and will become closer when we are allowed to return to work. We will take this experience and learn from it and will never allow it to occur again. We all understand the risk we are exposed to, but also know that the mine is as safe as we make it.

This letter was sent to West Virginia newspapers by Newsome and Curtis, both of Buchannan, Toler of Canvas and Runyon of French Creek.

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