Louisville's local paper has an article about Massey and how they appeal almost two-thirds of the fines they get.

I know there is a lot of pocket-lining in that industry, and "Appeal" is the norm for most lawsuits in any area, but hopefully things will change from this tragedy.

Hopefully, when the inspectors say you have problems, it will now be taken more seriously and these coal companies will have less power to tap-dance around it.

Here is a link to this good article from our paper: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/2...ginia+mine

Massey Coal was the first company to hire the Balwin-Felts Detective Agency as strong armed men to force coal miners to accept what the company wanted. Massey Coal was also involved in the Battle of Blair Mountain, with Balwin-Felts men at their side. The battle didn't last long, since the National Guard came in and disarmed both sides, doing the job for Massey that the Balwin-Felts people were unable to do for them. The miners got no concessions from the government either. They never have, which gives appeal and arbitration a nasty connotation to miners...

That's why most coal miners are anti-government. It's also why anyone trying to dismantle the UMW won't live long, no matter how well guarded they may be. The UMW is the only union that still stands for what it once did - the workers. Others have been coopted, undermined, or regulated into obscurity...

(04-11-2010 09:08 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Massey Coal was the first company to hire the Balwin-Felts Detective Agency as strong armed men to force coal miners to accept what the company wanted. Massey Coal was also involved in the Battle of Blair Mountain, with Balwin-Felts men at their side. The battle didn't last long, since the National Guard came in and disarmed both sides, doing the job for Massey that the Balwin-Felts people were unable to do for them. The miners got no concessions from the government either. They never have, which gives appeal and arbitration a nasty connotation to miners...

That's why most coal miners are anti-government. It's also why anyone trying to dismantle the UMW won't live long, no matter how well guarded they may be. The UMW is the only union that still stands for what it once did - the workers. Others have been coopted, undermined, or regulated into obscurity...

You learn something new every day. Never knew any of this.

When you grow up in West Virginia you either learn the history of coal mining in the state, or you move elsewhere...

Here's an interesting article. It shows how closely tied to coal West Virginians, and WVU remain. It is a legacy, burden, and curse on all Mountaineers. For some much more so than for others though, as this article will show...

HuntingtonNews.net Wrote:COMMENTARY: My Friend Sam Huff, the Coal Miner's Son
By Rene A. Henry

Seattle, WA (HNN) -– Sam Huff and I have been good friends since 1954. If he had not been a great football player, we would have never met. He was the first person in his family who did not work in the coal mines and who graduated from college. I am so glad he chose the career he did.

Had it not been for a football scholarship at West Virginia University, Sam Huff would not have been a consensus All-American and go on to be one of the greatest linebackers to ever play college or professional football. Or be inducted in both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame and numerous other halls of fame. Or become a successful businessman, sports broadcaster, and horse breeder. Among his scores of honors, his number was the first retired of any Mountaineer athlete.

Huff’s “hometown” was Jamison Mine No. 9 Coal Camp, a company town near Farmington, W. Va. He was one of six children. The family lived in a rowhouse with no shower, bathtub, toilet or running water. “My father would come home from work completely covered in black coal dust,” he said. “Every day my mother would boil water so he could bathe in hot water in an old laundry tub. The rowhouses, stores and everything in the town were owned by the Jamison Coal and Coke Company.”

Every time there is a mining disaster I think of Sam. November 13, 1954, I was the WVU Sports Information Director and with the football team, ranked 16th in the nation, just after a 20-6 win over William & Mary, where I had graduated a few months earlier. Our chartered DC-4 plane was ready to take off from the Newport News, Va. airport when William Dent “Bill” Evans, editor of The Fairmont Times, told Coach Art “Pappy” Lewis and me there had been an explosion in Jamison Mine No. 9. Evans had no other details. Coach Lewis then told Sam and said the pilots would be kept informed with any news on the flight home. If the explosion had happened one hour earlier, Sam would have been the only surviving male in his family. Fifteen miners were killed.

Fourteen years later, Consolidated Coal Co. owned the mine, known as Consol No. 9, when an explosion on November 20, 1968 took the lives of 78 miners. Sam lost five relatives. Tremors from the mine explosion were felt 12 miles away in Fairmont. The bodies of 19 miners who perished were never recovered and the mine was permanently sealed.

Whenever there is a mine disaster I think of my friend Sam. I called him when I heard the news about Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in Montcoal. “I love West Virginia,” he said. “But the theme song of our state should be ‘Sixteen Tons.’” He then sang: “You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go; I owe my soul to the company store.”

“If you don’t die in a mine, chances are black lung disease will kill you,” he told me. Black lung caused the death of his youngest brother when he was only 60.

The 1968 disaster at No. 9 was the catalyst for Congress to pass the 1969 Coal Mine Safety and Health Act to increase mine safety and inspections. The actual cause of was never determined, but contributing factors were inadequate ventilation and control of methane gas and coal dust. The cause of the deaths of the 29 miners in Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine last week has not yet been announced but the disaster must be a wakeup call for Congress to give more power to oversight and regulatory agencies to protect miners and insure that justice is swift for violators.

According to Steven Mufson of The Washington Post, Massey Energy has been cited frequently for safety violations including two citations just the day before the April 5 explosion, and 57 times in March, mainly for poor ventilation of dust and methane. The U.S. Mine safety and Health Administration cited the mine in the previous five years for 1,342 safety violations and proposed fines of $1.89 million. Massey has contested 422 of those violations and the fines.

I’m glad that Sam was determined to find another career other than mining and to get a college degree. Otherwise, he could have been a victim in one of the mine disasters instead of a four-year starter on the greatest football teams in Mountaineer history. After WVU, he played eight years with the New York Giants and six with the Washington Redskins, played in five Pro Bowls, named to the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team and is honored in the Redskins’ Ring of Fame. He was the first NFL player featured on the cover of Time magazine and in 1960, CBS broadcast a one-hour television special, “The Violent World of Sam Huff.”

Rene A. Henry is an author and writer who was born in Charleston. WV, and now lives in Seattle. He was Sports Information Director at West Virginia University from 1954-1956. Many of his commentaries are posted on his website at http://www.renehenry.com. His latest book is “Communicating In A Crisis.”