'60 Minutes' leaves out half of the story on mine safety in Harlan County

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.shiftbreak.com/tools/qp.dwp?task=show_post&post_id=1497

'60 Minutes' leaves out half of the story on mine safety in Harlan County

Mar 12, 2007 - Miscellaneous
By Jonathan Tasini

I was sputtering last night (do you ever yell at your television?) and I still am this morning about the "60 Minutes" piece last night about the death and injuries to American mine workers. Not once in the entire program did correspondent Bob Simon utter the word "union"--not once--in explaining why unusually high numbers of mine workers are dying in mines--all of which, in the segment, are non-union mines.

Can I say that again? Not once did Simon talk about unions. I'm not sure if this has to do with some explicit anti-union bias or just plain laziness and stupidity on the part of Simon and his producers. Follow me here. And, if after you've read this, you believe "60 Minutes" blundered badly, call the program at 212-975-3247.

It is not a heavy lift to get this information. Even if you aren't a film buff (not to mention if you do not have a single brain cell that is reserved for union history), all it would require would be to go to Google and enter the words "Harlan County" and one of the first entries you get is one that references Barbara Kopple's 1976 Academy-Award winning film, "Harlan County, U.S.A." And you might, then, be lead to that great union analyst, Roger Ebert, who, years later at a tribute for the movie , gave a rave to Kopple's film as "the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives -- articulate, indominable, courageous." Ebert, then, says: "Kopple also shared the stage with Utah miners who are currently on strike; although the national average pay for coal miners is $15 to $16 an hour, these workers -- who are striking for a union contract -- are paid $7 for the backbreaking and dangerous work."

Now, if Simon or his producer had done that work--took me all of two minutes--they might, then, have thought, "huh, unions, strikes...maybe that's part of the story." And they could have done what I did--call the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and talk to Dennis O'Dell who is in the union's Safety and Health Department (O'Dell is not hard to find: His name and phone number are right there on the UMWA's website).

Admittedly, I knew exactly what O'Dell would have and what he could show in raw numbers: union mines are far safer than non-union mines. The reason disasters are happening at such a rapid pace is the growth of non-union plants and the continued indifference paid to miners' lives by the coal operators. Check out this information. I'm sorry if I'm boring you with a lot of data--but these are human lives we are dealing with, lives that could easily be saved if people had a union.

The first column is the total of underground fatalities (UG), the second column is the total of fatalities on the surface (S), and, then, the third column is the total for both. The first group of numbers to the left is the total overall, the second group below are totals for unionized facilities. The final group below are the totals for the non-union mines (with apologies for not making the numbers look all nice and aligned...)

FULL story at link.

[valerief]

1. I think the Patriot Act has outlawed the word "union." nt

[subterranean]

2. Thanks for posting this!

I just rented "Harlan County, USA." Haven't watched it yet, but I would also like to see that 60 Minutes report, which I wasn't aware of. I'll check it out online.