Speedup drive kills Utah miners

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the fire. Such safety chambers, which we refer to as barricades, are not a standard feature of the coal mines in the United States. We are taught that if escape is cut off, we are to build a barricade with the materials at hand.

Barricades are generally viewed as a place to write a will. Desperate measures like barricades or heroic efforts of rescue teams are not the answer to disasters like the one in Utah.

Federal inspectors waver

Three weeks before the fatal fire, Emery Mining Corp., the owner of the Kate Curry is a coal miner in West Virginia and an active member of the UMWA. Wilberg mine, was cited for 26 violations of federal mining laws—including problems with firefighting equipment and electrical problems. Frank O'Gorman of the Federal Mining, Safety, and Health Administration (MSHA) defended Emery's owners by pointing out that it is not unusual to find 26 violations in an underground mine.

Six violations were labeled "significant and substantive" ("s-and-s"). The downgrading of certain violations of the mining laws to "non-s-and-s" was a part of the Reagan administration's deregulation of the industry and has been consistently opposed by the United Mineworkers of America.

Wilberg has been fined $22,987 for 264 safety violations since 1982. The accident rate was 27.1 per 200,000 man hours worked in 1982, compared to a national average of 12.21. In 1984, the rate was 11.48 at Wilberg and 10.6 nationally.

The Wilberg mine was one of 13 to 20 mines in this Western region-many before unionization, and Eaton's insists that promotion will continue to be tied to "appearance."

Eighty percent of the striking Eaton's workers are women. Two-thirds of the employees are part-time. So this is a key fight in labor's struggle against low wages, poor benefits, and discrimination aimed at the most vulnerable and exploited sectors of the working class. victims couldn't find the oxygen packs? MSHA was not ready to release this information.

The coal operators pass down through their underground foremen the unofficial word not to nit-pick over these safety details. They say that a drop in profits will mean layoffs. In an industry hard hit with layoffs and mine closings, many miners have been confused by such talk. Fifty percent of District 31 in Northern West Virginia is laid off, and the West Virginia unemployment rate is the highest in the country.

But 280 members of local union 2176 in District 22 in Utah can tell you that a lack of safety in their mine has resulted in more layoffs-and the deaths of 27 co-workers and foremen.

It is hoped that the boycott and beefed-up picket lines will affect Eaton's where it hurts the most—in the cash register.

Already the successes in unionization and the strike-support campaign for the Eaton's workers have served notice on the bosses that department-store workers are not going to take this capitalist economic crisis lying down.