HUMOUR:

ALL THE POLITICIAN THAT MONEY CAN BUY:

HUMOUR:

THE WAY IT GOES:

Another winner from the pen of Stephanie McMillan.

AMERICAN LABOUR CALIFORNIA:

WHAT IS A LIFE WORTH ?:

The following appeal is from the American United Farm Workers, and it's about the excessively lenient sentence for the contractor responsible for the death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. This case has been mentioned before here at Molly's Blog. The basic fact is that this young woman was killed by the heat while forced to work in adverse conditions as an agricultural labourer in California. Reports say that the contractor responsible will be let go with a suspended sentence and a minimal fine. The UFW feels that this is totally out of line with the magnitude of the crime. It certainly is as the penalty for a traffic accident causing death would be far harsher in almost every jurisdiction. And this was not an "accident". Here's the story and appeal.

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DA plea deal reduces manslaughter to community service
Less than 5 days left to fight this travesty

Time is running out and we need you to take action. March 9th is the hearing for the sentencing of the two people responsible for the heat death of 17-year old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. Maria died of heat stroke in 2008 while laboring in the scorching grape vineyards near Stockton. Her body temperature reached 108.

News reports state the district attorney is going with a plea deal that would let the accused go without even jail time, possibly with just community service. Can you believe it?

3 years probation and 40 hours community service for the owner of the labor contractor company and 400 hours of community service and a $1000 file for the company's "Safety Coordinator," instead of the original involuntary manslaughter charge?

The family and the UFW have met with the DA to no avail. The DA has told the family he is proud of setting precedent in California by convicting a labor contractor of a felony .

Is that an even exchange for the life of a young girl? What does it matter if the system calls it a "felony," if justice is not served?

I'm sure you will join us in saying “No. That is not enough!” There were laws in place to protect farm workers from heat stroke and the labor contractor and her safety supervisor had the responsibility to ensure they were followed. It's simple. They didn't. Not even the most basic heat laws were followed.

This was not a one time occurrence for this employer. In 2006, Merced Farm Labor was fined for failure to have a written heat stress prevention plan and heat stress training for workers, as required by law. But they did not care. They never even paid the fine.

Please send an e-mail immediately and tell the District Attorney, James Willett, not to set a precedent that farm workers' lives are unimportant. There must be serious consequences. Tell him that jail time is a must and nothing short of that will satisfy the family or the public.


http://action.ufw.org/pleadeal2

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THE LETTER:

Please go to the highlighted link above to send the following letter to the Disrict Attorney in charge of this case.

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Please do not go ahead with your planned plea bargain in the tragic heat death of 17-year old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.

California’s 650,000 farm workers face a daily risk of death and illness from toiling in stifling summer heat. They are at the mercy of agricultural employers and farm labor contractors who many times fail to live up to their constitutional and statutory duties to protect the safety of farm workers. Farm workers are literally dying because of the state’s broken system, which is designed in a way that ensures inadequate enforcement of the law. The laws in the books are not the laws in the fields. You have the opportunity to change this and ensure there a real consequences for breaking the law.

You have the unique opportunity to set a precedent that will make agricultural employers think twice about not following the laws of California and putting at risk the life of a human being. This will only happen if there are real consequences to farm employers breaking the law. The word "felony" is not enough.

The case of Maria Isabel Vazquez Jimenez is hard to accept, because it didn't need to happen. There is no difference between a driver killing someone while breaking our traffic laws and a labor contractor breaking the law and killing this beautiful young woman.

Maria's family and the public ask that you do everything in your power to ensure that these farm labor contractors are sentenced to the fullest extent of the law. Fines and community service hours aren't enough. Anything less than jail time is a desecration of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez' death.

Thank you.

CANADIAN LABOUR ONTARIO:

CRIMINAL CHARGES A0GAINST NEGLIGENT COMPANY FOR WORKER DEATH IN ONTARIO:

The following news item about charges of criminal negligence causing death being filed against an Ontario contractor who caused the death of a municipal worker in Sault St. Marie Ontario come from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the union that the killed person was a member of. A few things should be noted about what follows. One is the actual rarity of such charges under Canadian law. Since 2004 only 4 such cases have been filed. Is this because Canadian employers are exceptionally cautious and follow best practices ? Very doubtful. The workplace death rate in the EU is 2.5/100,000 employees. The USA tops this with a rate of 4.0/100,000. Canada, however, comes in a a whopping 6.8/100,000. The only European country that tops this is Portugal at 7.6/100,000. Canada's workplace deaths are not inevitable, nor accidental. Pretty well all developed countries (and many underdeveloped ones as well) have lower rates. The obvious conclusion...criminal negligence causing death at the workplace in Canada is far more common than the legal cases would indicate. If things happen that others can easily avoid that is "negligence" from at least Molly's definition. Anyways, here's the story.

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Private company facing criminal negligence charges following city worker fatality

A private company is facing criminal charges over an incident that caused the death of a CUPE member.

Millennium Crane Rentals Ltd., the crane operator and the crane owner each face charges of criminal negligence causing death. They are scheduled to be in court in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, November 30 and December 6.

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, this is one of just four cases in which a company has been charged under the Criminal Code since Bill C-45 (criminal liability of organizations) became law in 2004.

The bill sets out rules on criminal liability for organizations and their representatives. It establishes that everyone with authority to direct another person’s work has a responsibility, within reason, to prevent bodily harm to those they direct.

“We’re pleased to see the Sault Ste. Marie police and the Ministry of Labour have taken the time to thoroughly investigate the incident, and we’ll be paying close attention to this case” said CUPE National President Paul Moist.

“We’re hopeful that regardless of the outcome, employers will get the message that all levels of management bear a responsibility in making sure workers are protected on the jobsite, so that we can avoid terrible tragedies like this.”

The criminal charges stem from the April 16, 2009 death of municipal worker James Vecchio, who was crushed when a crane fell into an excavated hole he was working in at the Fifth Line Landfill.

Reports in the Sault Star suggest that the crane, which was loading concrete into the hole where Vecchio and another municipal employee were doing sewer work, was repositioning and backed up too far, falling into the hole and pinning Vecchio.

Vecchio, a 34-year old father of two, was rushed to hospital after firefighters extracted him, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The other worker was unharmed.

Millennium Crane Rentals, who were under contract with the city, also faces five charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act related to the condition of the crane and the qualifications of the operator. A court date for those charges is set for January 10, 2011.

CANADIAN LABOUR ONTARIO:

MIGRANT WORKERS WILDCAT FOR UNPAID WAGES:

Speaking of wildcat strikes, here's another one, this time from Ontario. According to the Justice For Migrant Workers site ( see also their Facebook page )migrant farm workers in Ontario have gone on a wildcat strike to demand unpaid wages. Like true criminals the employers have invoked the law to deport the workers rather than paying what is owed. Here's the story.

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Simcoe, ON-Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages: Employer responds with deportation

November 23, 2010

(Simcoe, Ontario) Over a 100 migrant farm workers employed at Ghesquiere Plants Ltd. are facing imminent repatriation (deportation) after staging a wildcat strike to demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.

The migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados came together across racial, linguistic and ethnic lines to organize this wild cat strike and strengthen their collective power. The workers employed by this farm described numerous rights violations and complaints about their living conditions including the following:

• Workers are each owed from $1000 to $6000 in unpaid wages
• Workers are to be evicted and will be homeless as of Thursday, November 25th, 2010
• Most of the Mexican and Trinidadian workers will be repatriated by this Thursday. All Jamaican
workers have been repatriated.
• Electricity and heat has been cut off in one bunk
• Deplorable and very crowed living conditions

Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a grassroots advocacy migrant rights organization, calls for the immediate payment of all wages owing to workers. Migrant workers employed at Ghesquiere Plant Ltd. are being forced to return home and cannot provide for their families. Repatriation denies them access to pursue legal avenues under federal and provincial laws, basic protections accorded to permanent residents in Canada thus J4MW calls on both levels of government to intervene to protect migrants and prosecute employers who denied these workers basic rights. J4MW stresses that Temporary Foreign Worker Programs such as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program denies migrant workers the ability to exert their rights and are in need of an urgent and complete overhaul.

J4MW Contacts

Chris Ramsaroop 1-647-834-4932 or ramsaroopchris@gmail.com
Carolina Alvarado Zuniga 1-647-296-6753

Justicia for Migrant Workers
c/o Workers’ Action Centre
720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223
Toronto ON M5S 2T9
www.justicia4migrantworkers.org
www.twitter.com/j4mw

SPORTS:
AN EVEN DARKER SIDE OF THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES:


By now a good chunk of the planet's population has been treated to pictures of the shambles that are the athletes quarters in New Delhi which have been more of less "built" for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. You can see a montage of these "glowing jewels" in this article from the Australian Mercury. Some are quite "impressive", even outdoing some of the rat traps that Molly lived in when she was younger. No doubt, however, the living conditions of the labourers who have been exploited during the construction would make these dumps look like paradise.


That's a point that shouldn't be lost in the flurry that has developed about who is going to send their athletes to the Games and who is not, and the "megapolitics" of the Games as described in this article from The Nation. Here's an article from the Street News Service (the news service of the International Network of Street Papers) about the conditions that workers at the project and poor residents of New Delhi have had to endure in this corrupt bid for glory and profit.
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Commonwealth Games: Establishing national prestige at the expense of India’s poor
Street Speech (USA) 06 September 2010
Rajeev Ravisankar looks at the impact of the 2010 Commonwealth Games on India’s capital New Delhi. He uncovers the exploitation, hazardous living and working conditions and the violation of labour rights that accompany the world’s largest multi-sport events. (920 Words) - By Rajeev Ravisankar

In India's capital New Delhi, laborers continue working day and night as the city prepares to play host to athletes from 71 countries for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which begins in early October. The event, the world's third largest multi-sport event, mainly involves countries that were colonized by the British and was initially called the British Empire Games.

The upcoming Commonwealth Games is not only an athletic competition, but a spectacle for India to project global power. Recently, the President of India's ruling Congress Party Sonia Gandhi said "The success of the Games is that of our country, not of any party or of any individual…The prestige of the nation is involved."

Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the Commonwealth Games organizing committee, has repeatedly asserted that this will be "the best Games ever" and hopes that this will be a stepping stone to fulfilling India's future ambitions to host the Olympics. Also, he has stated his desire to establish New Delhi as a "world class city."

However, a number of problems have emerged throughout the implementation process from soaring costs and corruption to labour exploitation and other human rights abuses. The initial budget estimates put costs at $407 million, but now the official figure has jumped to $2.3 billion and independent estimates suggest the cost could be as much as $6.4 billion. Also, according to the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, $150 million in funds allocated for marginalized communities have been illegally diverted to cover expenses related to the Games.

In order to meet deadlines, construction labourers are being overworked in 12 hour shifts, seven days a week and are paid less than the minimum wage, which ranges from $3.00 and $6.70 a day depending on hours worked and type of labor. Women are paid less than men for the same work, and reports point to the use of child labour at some sites. The workers toil in intense heat of 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit, the average in New Delhi during the summer months.

According to the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), an Indian human rights organization, workers are not provided safety equipment such as helmets, safety belts or even shoes. Also, their living conditions are substandard. Many are migrant workers from other states in India and have set up temporary shelters on or adjacent to construction sites. A report by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) indicates the situation is not much better for workers who are provided temporary housing. "Six to eight labourers share 10 feet by 10 feet brick huts…There is no electricity, ventilation or place to cook." There are also not enough toilets for the number of workers living in these camps.

These hazardous working and living conditions have contributed to the deaths of a number of workers. At least 49 workers have died on construction sites for the Games. An Outlook magazine article published in April of this year stated that "70 deaths have taken place during construction work and due to diseases caused by the unhealthy conditions prevailing at the living quarters of the labourers.

Aside from labour rights violations, people living in urban poverty have been forced into a more desperate situation. Efforts to "beautify" Delhi have led to evictions, demolition of settlements and slum clusters, and large scale displacement affecting thousands of people. Realizing that it is not possible to remove all the slums before the games, authorities have decided to put up bamboo screens to hide remaining slums. Also, street vendors, small shopkeepers, and rickshaw pullers have lost their livelihoods due to restrictions.

So-called "beggars" or panhandlers are being targeted vigorously by authorities. New Delhi's Social Welfare Minister Mangat Ram Singhal summed up the government's intentions: "We Indians are used to beggars but Westerners are not and so we need to clean up. We'll catch them all." According to an article in Frontline magazine, the city government has established "zero-tolerance zones" and created teams to round up people who are panhandling. Officials have increased the number of mobile courts to prosecute these people.

Unfortunately, other parts of the world have experienced similar issues when preparing to host large scale events. For example, in the lead up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, construction workers went on strike for a wage dispute. Riot police fired teargas and rubber bullets to break up a protest by security guards over low pay. In addition, thousands of people were evicted during construction for the World Cup. Many did not receive compensation or alternative residence, and those who were resettled lived in terrible conditions.

Before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, 1.5 million people were displaced according to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). Closer to home, thousands of public housing units were destroyed before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and 30,000 residents were pushed out due to gentrification.

These are just a few recent examples that show the social and human costs inflicted when cities and countries host games. Clearly, Indian government officials and private sector interests have not learned from these experiences, as they have pursued national prestige at the expense of the poor.

CANADIAN LABOUR BRITISH COLUMBIA:

CHARGES FINALLY LAID TWO YEARS LATER AFTER MUSHROOM FARM DEATHS:

No one can accuse the "justice" system of being in undue haste over this one. Two years after 3 workers were killed and two others injured at an industrial accident on a Langley BC mushroom farm charges against the companies involved and their officers have finally been laid. Here's a statement form the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) on the charges.

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Charges laid in deaths of mushroom farm workers
Two companies and four corporate officials face a total of 29 charges for failure to protect the safety of employees.

Vancouver (1 Sept. 2010) - Charges have finally been laid after two years in the deaths of three mushroom farm workers at a Langley, B.C. mushroom farm. Two others were seriously hurt.

The Crown says the two companies, A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd. and H.V. Truong Ltd., are charged as employers, while the four individuals are charged as either directors or officers of the companies or workplaces. They face a total of 29 charges.

The offenses all fall under the province’s worker safety laws and can result in fines of up to $619,721 and six months in jail. The charges allege failure to protect workers from “reasonably foreseeable health or safety hazards.”

The workers were overcome by gas in an enclosed space at the mushroom farm and composting plant on Sept. 5, 2008.

Donna Freeman of WorkSafe BC said at the time that it was one of the most complex investigations the agency had conducted, with more than 25 investigators on the file.

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Here's a larger overview of the case from the Vancouver Sun.

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29 charges laid in 2008 mushroom farm deaths
Three men were killed, two suffered brain damage at Langley facility
By Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun August 31, 2010

Relatives of three men who died and two others who were severely disabled in a gas leak two years ago on a Langley mushroom farm are pleased that charges have been laid in the case -- but said even the maximum penalty of six months against the farm operators wouldn't be enough to end the pain caused by the tragedy.

Family members thanked government for proceeding with charges under the Workers' Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, but during brief comments at a news conference broke down as they told of the outrage and loss they continue to endure.

Tracey Phan, a 14-year-old student at Winston Churchill Secondary, said it's heartbreaking for her and her sister to visit their father Michael Phan, who suffered irreversible brain damage and remains in hospital.

'It's hard on us. We don't know if he recognizes us or not. Or if he understands what we are trying to tell him. I would like to get justice back."

A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd. and H.V. Troung Ltd., along with four individual employers and supervisors, could face a range of penalties, up to a maximum fine of $619,271 for a first offence and six months in jail.

For Phan and other relatives who spoke, the maximum penalties aren't enough.

"I know that the law says that under that charge six months is the maximum. But I feel that six months is not enough because people that you love will never be given back to you. And six months sitting in that jail cell will never return any of the ones who you loved or cared about."

The charges laid Monday stem from a 20-month investigation by WorkSafeBC into what went wrong at the mushroom composting facility at 23751 16th Avenue in Langley.

"We are pleased that the charges are proceeding," said WorkSafeBC spokeswoman Donna Freeman. "This was a very serious incident in which three people lost their lives, two others were severely injured and the lives of all the family members were changed forever."

Freeman described the agency's probe as the "most complex investigation in WorkSafeBC's history."

Twenty-nine counts have been filed, including several alleging that the companies and their officials failed to ensure the health and safety of its workers and failed to remedy hazardous workplace conditions.

Freeman said the investigation report included tens of thousands of pages of documentation. She said the mushroom composting operation ceased after the accident but that the mushroom farm still operates at the same location.

The probe was delayed initially because of the presence of hazardous materials in the composting operation for seven months following the tragedy, she added.

Ut Tran, Jimmy Chan and Ham Pham died in the incident. Their colleagues, Phan and Thang Tchen, suffered irreversible brain damage after breathing in hydrogen sulphide and ammonia.

In addition to A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd. and H.V. Truong Ltd., Ha Qua Truong, Vy Tri Truong, Van Thi Truong and Thinh Huu Doan were charged in the information sworn in Provincial Court in Surrey.

B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said he hopes the charges will force other farm operations to fix unsafe conditions.

"Perhaps these charges will result in some other employers understanding that unsafe work conditions are not acceptable in B.C.," said Sinclair.

The B.C. Fed president said that inspections on farm sites need to be stiffened to stop fatal accidents before they happen.

"The problem is that people think they can get away with this," he added.

Labour Minister Murray Coell said he hopes the charges in the case will lead to an appropriate resolution, especially for the families of those who died.

"I understand how the families feel. I've met with them," Coell told reporters in Victoria.

"I think what we want to see is to make sure that due process and justice is done and that's best done through the courts," he added. "I think due process is now moving forward."

dward@vancouversun.com with files from Jonathan Fowlie
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/charges+laid+2008+mushroom+farm+deaths/3463095/story.html#ixzz0yKXBogSh

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And here is how the BC Federation of Labour views these charges.

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Long-awaited charges positive news in mushroom farm deaths but questions remain
September 1, 2010
The BC Federation of Labour is welcoming news that charges have finally been laid against two companies and four individuals in the deaths of three workers at a mushroom farm in Langley on September 5, 2008.

"The families of the men who were killed and injured have waited a long time for news that charges have been laid," says Jim Sinclair, President of the B.C. Federation of Labour. "This is a step in the right direction and sends a message to employers that they face potential jail time if they fail to provide safe workplaces."

The owners of the mushroom farm are facing sweeping charges that include failure to provide adequate training, supervision, safety programs, identification of hazards and confined space precautions.

"We hope that justice will be done, but given the fact that three men were killed and two grievously injured, and the sweeping nature of the 29 charges laid by the Crown, we must question why criminal charges were not laid in this case," Sinclair says.

The Federation also questions the length of time it took for the WCB to complete its investigation and the laying of charges.

"It has taken two full years for charges to be laid and it is entirely possible that this case will not go to court for many more months. This is far too long in a situation where lives have been lost and other farmworkers lives could be at risk. These investigations and prosecutions need to be completed faster in order to make workplaces safer."

The Federation is also calling for the release of the WCB investigation report into the mushroom farm incident. The WCB is withholding the report until the prosecution is complete.

"The families of the men killed and injured at this mushroom farm are entitled to see the WCB report. They should not have to wait months or years to find out what happened that day," Sinclair says.

"These charges attest to the fact that too many farmworkers face unsafe working conditions every day in our province," Sinclair added. "We need a full public inquiry into working conditions in the agricultural sector to ensure that farmworkers aren't treated like second class citizens."

For more information: Evan Stewart Director of Communications (604) 430-1421.

HUMOUR:

FUNNIES FROM THE CORPORATIONS:

CANADIAN LABOUR BRITISH COLUMBIA:

SLAVE LABOUR IN BC:

This might be filed under the "and you thought your boss was bad" category. The following story from the Globe & Mail tells of the horrifying conditions that were found at a tree planting camp out in BC. Seems the owners of the camp lured new immigrants to Canada, most of them originally from Africa, out there with promises of high wages. The reality was quite different. Here's the story>>>>

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Provincially-contracted company accused of depriving workers of food and water

Deprived of food, water and toilets, 30 workers, most recent immigrants, have been rescued from a remote forestry camp in Golden, B.C. The "nightmare" has the BC Federation of Labour calling on the government to step up monitoring and enforcement of safety standards.

Workers say they endured 15-hour work days, death threats and food shortages and were forced to sleep in unventilated shipping containers
Vancouver

Published on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010 9:33PM EDT
Last updated on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 1:45AM EDT

When Edour Nabulizi immigrated to Canada from Zimbabwe in 2005, he expected a paradise – but a summer at a B.C. forestry camp revealed a disturbing reality.

“What do you know, there’s no paradise on this Earth,” said the 16-year-old from Winnipeg, who was enticed to British Columbia by the promise of long hours and high wages.

Deprived of food, water and toilets, Mr. Nabulizi was one of 30 employees who say they were rescued from a remote forestry camp near Golden, B.C. last month. They say they endured 15-hour work days, death threats and food shortages and were forced to sleep in unventilated shipping containers.

To top it off, the employees say they have still not been fully paid for the brush-clearing work they performed.

The “nightmare” has the B.C. Federation of Labour calling on the province to investigate. “Under government money, funded by the public, these people were allowed to be treated like third-class citizens in a Third World country,” said labour federation president Jim Sinclair. “The only way to stop that is to investigate why no one enforced any of the rules.”

The labour watchdog also wants the company banned from working in B.C., back pay for employees and accurate employment records issued.

The forestry camp was run by Khaira Enterprises Ltd., a tree-planting company that held a $280,000 contract with the government’s BC Timber Sales.

“The conditions described are completely unacceptable for employees,” Minister of Labour Murray Coell said in a statement.

The ministry helped the employees leave the site, put them up in a hotel and provided them with bus tickets home on July 21. Now, WorkSafeBC and the Employment Standards Branch are investigating and will work to ensure all workers are paid, Mr. Coell said.

The Forests Ministry pulled the company’s contract on July 23 after a camp inspection revealed the conditions.

Safety in forestry camps – including safe food, water and sanitary conditions – is the responsibility of the contract holder, who must get a permit from the local health authority, according to Forests Ministry spokesman Robert Pauliszyn.

The ministry inspects the camps once they are open, and inspected the Khaira site on July 21. Khaira Enterprises did not have a health permit, according to Mr. Pauliszyn.

The company is also banned from bidding on timber contracts in the region for a year.

Khalid Bajwa, manager of the company, denied the employees’ allegations about work conditions, saying construction was not complete on the camp. Mr. Bajwa also said he has the bank records to prove he issued cheques, although he refused to provide them to The Globe and Mail.

“They know they don’t have enough hours and they can’t get EI, so they are complaining,” he said.

But Christine Barker, a single mother from Quesnel, says she has not been paid what she is owed. “We have no way of feeding our families,” she said.

Ms. Barker and her fellow employees demanded their pay on July 17, but she says the employer refused to drive them into Golden to cash pay cheques. The employees responded with a work stoppage. “We felt as though we were held as hostages,” Ms. Barker said.

They finally got out on when they started to burn garbage illegally, which was noticed by recreational fishermen and reported to the Forests Ministry.

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Now one might say that Khaira Enterprises is a particularily bad apple, and that would be true but.... Employers such as these only get away with what they do because of the connivance of government. Across Canada governments deliberately exclude immigrant farm labour from labour standards. To make matters worse they throw up all possible barriers to the one thing that could improve the lot of such workers...unionization. Should an employer be caught in an especially flagrant violation of not just labour laws but human rights the penalties are minor. In the case of Khaira Enterprises the BC government has cancelled this one contract for tree planting and suspended the company from bidding on any further government contracts for the "astoundingly long" period of one year. The malefactors are undoubtedly trembling in their boots. The BC Federation of Labour has called for the company to be shut down and for an independent investigation. The government has so far resisted both demands. Here's the story from the BC Fed>>>>>

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Federation investigation uncovers nightmare in the woods
August 10, 2010
The B.C. Federation of Labour is calling on the provincial government to shut down and launch an independent investigation into Surrey-based Khaira Enterprises following allegations of widespread abuse of silviculture workers.

A Khaira Enterprises workcamp at Bluewater Creek, 40 kilometres west of Golden, was shut down on July 21st when it was discovered by a Conservation Officer and Ministry of Forests worker who were investigating reports of illegal burning. Company owners and about 28 workers were found at the squalid camp. The workers had no money, no transportation and were unable to leave the remote site. The RCMP was also called in to investigate.

"We have met with about a dozen people who worked at Khaira Enterprises this spring and summer and the stories they tell are absolutely shocking," says Jim Sinclair. "We have pieced together a story that seems from another century."

The former Khaira employees report:
• no safe drinking water at camp, workers told to drink from a nearby creek;
• no toilet facilities at the camp;
• daily shortage of food and malnourished workers, breakfast consisted of bread, jam and peanut butter, no lunch provided;
• improper food handling, unrefrigerated chicken served most nights;
• unsafe transportation of workers in overloaded and unsafe vehicles;
• underpayment and non-payment of wages including cheques returned by banks due to insufficient funds;
• Employment Standards violations including the misrepresentation of hours worked;
• physical and verbal abuse of workers;
• workplace racism;
• death threats to workers;
• refusal of adequate medical treatment for injured workers; and
• failure to report workplace injuries to WCB.

Most of the Khaira workers are Canadian citizens or permanent residents originally from Burundi and the Republic of Congo.

"This camp was only discovered and shut down because of reports of an illegal fire during a fire ban. We need an independent investigation to explain how these working conditions were allowed to continue in British Columbia in this day and age so we can prevent it from happening again," says Sinclair. "While this investigation is underway, Khaira needs to be shut down to prevent further abuse."

"These workers are owed thousands of dollars in salary from Khaira. They need immediate financial assistance from the government in the event that Khaira's owners continue to refuse to pay the wages or if they are unable to pay them," Sinclair added.

For more information, or to arrange interviews with the workers: Evan Stewart, Director of Communications (604) 220-3095.

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Before moving on to the final story from the online magazine The Tyee Molly would like to give out the following information. Commentators on the following story have noted that this company will probably simply fold up and reopen under a different name. The company website is now "blank". I was, however, able to dig up the following contact details:

Khaira Enterprises

13011 96A Ave.

Surrey BC

V3T 5N3

(604)-951-2835

I'm sure they would appeciate hearing from you about how they treat their workers.

One reason the government may be hestitant about a full inquiry is that Khaira Enterprises has been a long standing supplier of labour to the province. According to the Power Profiles site they have been in business for 10-20 years with total sales of $2,000,000. As far back as 1999 they were listed as being paid $219,288 by the province. Even more astoundingly in March 2009 they were certified as 'Safe Certified' by BC Forest Safety. The latter is a quanga set up of mainly industry and government representatives but also with a nominal union representation.

So, unless you believe that Khaira Enterprises suddenly "went rogue" during the past year then you have to conclude that this sort of thing has been going on under the noses of the government boards that are supposed to prevent such things for over a decade. Now that might be the subject of an independent inquiry. How many other Khairas are there in BC ?

On to the Tyee story>>>>

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Call to Investigate Forest Camp 'Nightmare'
Workers tell of ordeal as BC Fed demands probe into why protections weren't enforced.

By Ryan Elias, Today, TheTyee.ca

On July 21, 28 workers from a forestry camp near Golden were rescued from brutal working conditions.

Now the B.C. Federation of Labour is calling for an investigation into how the camp's conditions managed to escape detection. Surrey-based Khaira Enterprises operated the camp under a government contract with a safety certificate through B.C. Timber Sales.

"It's clear that these people were not protected, it's clear that enforcement failed," Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said. "Now we have to find the answer of how to fix that so that no other worker has to go through this experience."

Since the camp seems to have operated entirely under the radar, Sinclair said, there's no way to be certain how long these conditions had existed in Khaira Enterprises' camps, nor if there are others out there with similar conditions.

"It was sanctioned by the government because there was no enforcement to change it, and it went on for years," Sinclair said after the press conference. "Now we have a chance to change it and shame on us if we don't. Shame on this government and shame on British Columbia if we don't now find out how this happened and stop it from happening again."

The camp, located on Bluewater Creek about 40 kilometres from Golden, had no drinking water or toilet facilities. The workers slept in a pair of shipping containers and cleared brush seven days a week for ten to 14 hours, plus hours of travel time, with minimal breaks.

'We felt as though we were held hostage'

"We were very lucky to run into creeks in some of our blocks," said one worker, 24-year-old Christine Barker, a single mother. "It was a relief for us because we were not allowed to leave the block, the workplace. . . We'd literally sip from the creek so we'd have at least water."

Workers were given breakfasts of peanut butter and jam and dinners of unrefrigerated chicken and rice, with no meals in between. Much of the food they did receive was spoiled, said another worker, Jean-Claude Nabulizi of Winnipeg.

"The food itself was not sufficient," Nabulizi said. "But when we complained that we were not satisfied, the boss said 'there's nothing else I can do, let's call it a day, we're gonna see about tomorrow.' You can't complain that much because if they kick you out of the camp you're on your own. You've got nowhere to go."

Khaira Enterprises charged them a daily $25 camp fee. Barker said the camp's boss and supervisors lived separately and had their own cook.

"I've never heard of anything like it. To be honest with you, I've never heard these kind of outright gross working conditions anywhere. And in a camp funded by the government," Sinclair said.


Where workers slept: mats crammed into box-like quarters. Photo: BC Fed.
The workers, most of whom are citizens or permanent residents from Burundi or the Republic of Congo, say they were mostly or in some cases entirely unpaid. When they were issued partial paycheques on July 17, they were refused transportation from the site to cash them. And when they stopped working to protest their treatment, they were denied food.

"We felt as though we were being held as hostages," said Barker.

RCMP failed to connect: worker

Another worker contacted the RCMP, said Barker, but the officer he spoke to misheard him when he gave their location. The camp's on-site manager simply didn't answer his phone when the police called him, she said.

Barker walked into town to call for help, but it was a group of recreational fishers who ultimately drew the authorities to the camp. The fishers contacted the Ministry of Forests on July 21 when they saw that the camp was burning garbage, and the workers were moved out shortly thereafter.

The rescued workers were fed by a church in Golden and lodged in a local motel before traveling home on bus tickets provided by the province. Without that help, Barker said, many of them wouldn't have had the money to get home.

Ban firm from province says BC Fed

The ministry has taken away Khaira Enterprises' license for a year, but the Federation of Labour is demanding that the company be permanently banned from operating in British Columbia. Sinclair said that they are also asking for full back-pay for the workers, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars overall. He said that if Khaira Enterprises can't pay, the province should step up.

"They were working for British Columbians, in their forests, under a government contract," Sinclair said.

Khaira Enterprises has also filed records of employment that indicate that the workers quit, which Sinclair said must be amended so that the workers will qualify for unemployment insurance.

At present, most of the workers are broke. Barker said she has about $40 to her name and is looking into social assistance to help her family.

Though the Tyee attempted them to contact them, Khaira Enterprises had not returned a request for comment by press time.

PERSONAL:

MOLLY GETS HACKED:

I'm impressed. I'm really and truly impressed. For a long time now I've had "visitors" who are not exactly the curious average citizen. They are basically of two types. One is the various government agencies, usually Canadian but sometimes American, who are "news gathering" in general. They will drop by concerning a particular issue, person or organization, and its understandable that they have to pretend to be working their office staff. In the end I expect that they gather so much trivia and repeated posts from the internet that their activities are pretty well useless. But isn't that something of a part of the definition of "bureaucracy" ? It's actually been a long time since either the RCMP or the Defense Research Establishment has dropped by here, and I sort of miss the buggers. Maybe, just maybe, after an extended period they finally got the idea that nothing sensitive is ever discussed here. Maybe, just maybe, the lightbulb finally went on in their heads and they realized that I have always been opposed to the sort of "sensitivity" that they publicly always oppose themselves but privately promote in certain instances. Ah well, I'm sure they have enough 'fake work' to occupy themselves without dropping by here.

Then there is the other category...private enterprise. I suppose it is simply good corporate policy (if that is not an oxymoron) for a business to keep a beady eye on how it is portrayed in the media, even in tiny little blogs. I've certainly seen dozens upon dozens of these corporate checks over the years. There are even supposed internet "services" who offer businesses info on how they are being portrayed on the internet, and I suspect that they are a great shell for doing nothing but a google search 99 times out of 100. Who am I to say how a corporation should waste its money on this sort of thing or on the innumerable "management consultant" scams ? If they didn't waste it here they'd waste it elsewhere.

The latest incident, however, is over and beyond the usual. It began with the previous article on the CAW's demonstration against the plant closure of Siemens in Hamilton. Fairly standard. I've probably written hundreds of similar articles on labour issues. These quite often attract the attention of the corporation concerned. This, however, is the first and only time that the corporation has gone to the extent of breaking into my private email. They even went so far as to look into the emails that I have sent to others. There are actually very few of these which I hadn't previously deleted, and I'm sure that none of them were of any use to the company. God only knows how they did this. In any case I have done my best to block future access.

The original break in occurred via a 'Suddenlink' IP 74.198.28. this was forwarded via email to a Rogers IP 99.247.178 in Pickering Ontario. There are multiple links to Siemens in Pickering. Now, as I said I've seen corporations snooping before, and it hardly bothers me. At its low level it has resulted in the owners of some smaller business owners getting drunk and firing an angry email back to the blog. I think, however, that Siemens is the largest outfit that I have ever pissed off. They rank #40 in the world according to the Fortune 500. I don't think I have pissed off any of the top 39 yet. Give me time. Comparing their revenues to that of 'countries' they make more money than the GDP of 137 countries across the world. They are also very much the definition of a "conglomerate" with their fingers in more pies than I have fingers and toes. Some of their interests are, of course, in IT. Hence their ability to track critics. One also has to say that as a German company that one has to "admire" their Teutonic thoroughness bordering on obsession. Nobody else goes to such lengths.

I'm uncertain if Siemens has broken any laws by their actions, but I am quite certain that it would be impossible to make a legal case against them even if they have. This whole entry then is just a cautionary tale of the depths that corporations sink to probably regularly.

AMERICAN LABOUR:

FIRE BLANKENSHIP:

Since the deaths of 29 West Virginia coal miners last month long standing extreme right wing activist Don Blankenship has continued on as the CEO of Massey Energy, the company whose lax safety measures led to the deaths. Next Tuesday various groups will converging at the annual shareholders' meeting of Massey in hopes of ousting him. Here's the story from the American Rights At Work group, along with an online petition that you can sign in support of the campaigners.

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FIRE DON BLANKENSHIP
Last month, 29 miners died in a tragedy that was completely preventable.

That should have been reason enough to fire CEO Don Blankenship immediately. But he's still at the helm of Massey Energy, and every day he stays on, he continues to endanger his workers.

So this Tuesday, at Massey's annual shareholder meeting, mineworkers, union leaders, and community leaders will be protesting Don Blankenship's callous disregard for human life.

We've put together a petition to send a strong message to Massey Energy shareholders and corporate leaders when they meet Tuesday. Can you help us collect at least 10,000 signatures by MIDNIGHT MONDAY?

Sign now: Tell Massey shareholders to fire Don Blankenship!

Don Blankenship's track record includes: ignoring safety regulations, intimidating workers, and spending millions to elect judges who will protect his interests. And he even helps lead the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its anti-worker campaigns!1,2

He clearly put profits before safety. That should have been reason enough for Massey's board to find a new CEO.

But since the blood of 29 miners wasn't enough for Massey's board to take immediate action to fire him, hopefully the 30% drop in Massey's stock will give them another reason. That's right – Massey's stock is down more than 30% since the Upper Big Branch disaster, and Blankenship is still CEO.

That's why – in addition to hundreds of mine workers, union leaders, and allies – big institutional shareholders are speaking up, too. Will you add your voice?

Tell Massey shareholders: Do the right thing and fire Don Blankenship!

While firing Blankenship won't give even a measure of justice to the families who lost loved ones in this horrific tragedy, every day he stays as CEO is a slap in the face – a painful reminder of the human cost of corporate greed.

We can hold him accountable. Tell Massey Energy: Blankenship has to go!



Thanks so much for all you do for workers' rights.
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THE PETITION:
Please go to this link to add your name to the petition for the firing of Don Blankenship.
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The deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch South Mine in Montcoal, WV, which took the lives of 29 coal miners and injured several others, was a preventable tragedy. It's time for Massey Energy shareholders to fire CEO Don Blankenship and replace him with a CEO who cares about workers' rights. In addition, the three Massey board members up for re-election should be defeated.

HOLIDAYS:

WHY I WILL IGNORE EARTH DAY:

This Thursday April 22 will be the now traditional Earth Day. While there is some small competition from people who hold that the day of the Spring Equinox should be the date the powers that be have pretty well made this artificial holiday into a worldwide event. As seems usual for this sort of thing the child has grown and grown, and now we have 'Earth Week'. For those who are interested, in addition to the Wikipedia article highlighted above you can find more information on the USA Earth Day site and the Earth Day Canada site. No doubt other countries have their own pretenders to the title of "official site". For myself, however, I really don't care. Why ? Read on.

Now, I have no objections to people taking the opportunity to have a big party. I'm rather pleased by it as a matter of fact. I could only wish, however, that it wasn't mixed up with a gigantic, almost Roman clerical, dose of hypocrisy...the pretense that the participants are actually doing something that will accomplish the nebulous goal of "saving the Earth".

That's what it is - pretense. It's all very "nice" to send the yard apes out to pick up trash

from the local parks for instance, but whatever this has to do with changing to a more "sustainable" economy escapes me entirely. Similarly I have no desire to mindlessly consume "green bric-a-brac". I have plenty of green shirts already thank you very much, and once more the point escapes me. Except to observe that such consumption is the precise opposite of the sort of simplification that might actually make our societies more ecologically sustainable.

Neither do I have much interest in listening to the barely disguised advertisements for corporate and government sponsors as they tout their 'green credentials'. To me it smells of scam, and yes I have more than my fill of advertising every day as well. I'd prefer new green shirts. If the reader is interested in one of tens of thousands of examples of how business hopes to expand into this lucrative market then check out this salivating call to prosper. Think I'm wrong about the snake oil aspect of the whole thing ? Consider what sort of business Canada's reigning King of Con Rahim Jaffer was involved in. That's right. 'Green Technology'.

I think the key word in all the above is the term "expand". I have no doubt that certain important reforms can be accomplished even in our present political and economic system. Still, if we are to lead a life that is both sustainable and also humanly fulfilling I cannot see how this can be done when we are burdened with an economic system whose very nature demands continual expansion. Neither can I see how this can be done when this drive is mirrored and quite often exceeded by centralized government and its planning. Both the corporations and government presuppose the division of society into order givers and order takers. Any reforms that might come about by their efforts will see the costs borne chiefly by the order takers and the benefits reaped disproportionately by the order givers. That's the way it will be.

I see little to celebrate about such a skillful piece of fraud, unless, of course, you wish to admire its sheer larcenous beauty in a purely intellectual fashion, like admiring the work of a safe cracker. I wish everyone a good party, but it'll be an ordinary workday for me. Now if organizers of such events would borrow a page from the month before and promote green beer as part of their anti-consumption consumption well then I might at least stop off for a drink.

AMERICAN LABOUR - WEST VIRGINIA:

MINE COMPANIES AND OTHER CORPORATE CRIMINALS:








Back on the 9th Molly presented several articles about the recent West Virginia coal mine disaster. Here are a couple more commentaries, these more radical than the first. leading off is an item from the Trial by Fire blog. This came Molly's way via the Anarkismo website.
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25 Dead in West Virginia Mining Disaster
by John E Jacobsen
For the original article, and for further coverage, please visit: http://www.thetbf.wordpress.com/

This week, 25 miners lost their lives in a mine explosion at the Performance Coal Co. in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The explosion was the worst mining disaster in over two decades, if you don’t count the 10,000 who have died from black lung in the past decade.

Rescue workers are still working around the clock to find an additional 4 miners who are still missing.

The news comes only days after five workers died at an oil refinery in Anacortes, Washington.

Massey Energy Co., the company which owns the mine, is no stranger to mining disasters. The company has been cited for hundreds of mine safety violations in recent years, and last month, they were fined three times for ventilation problems which may have led to this disaster.

In March alone, the Mine Safety and Health Administration cited the company’s Upper Big Branch mine, where the disaster took place, for 53 safety violations.

These violations have come at a high price for the workers. In 2008, one of Massey’s subsidiary companies paid the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry. They plead guilty to safety violations that killed two miners in a fire, who suffocated and died partly as a result of the company removing needed ventilation controls.

At the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, conditions were far worse. In an interview with the New York Times, miners told reporters that in the two months preceding the disaster, workers had been evacuated three times because of dangerously high methane levels.

Andrew Tyler, an electrician who worked at the Upper Big Branch said “no one will say this who works at that mine, but everyone knows that it has been dangerous for years.”

Although it is still unclear what exactly led to the explosion, Kevin Stricklin of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said of the disaster: “something went very wrong here. All explosions are preventable. It’s just making sure you have things in place to keep one from occurring.”

Regulation of the Mines:

It was long known by regulators and workers alike that the conditions of the UBB mine were hazardous. Hundreds upon hundreds of violations had been found by inspectors, and workers were being evacuated monthly because of dangerously high methane levels.

As it turned out, the company’s chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, was writing memo’s to his staff to ignore the warnings. A 2005 memo which has resurfaced as a result of the disaster appears to encourage his deep mine superintendents to “run coal” at any cost:

“If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal.”

Indeed, the Mining Industry, in particular Massey Energy Co., has done everything in its power to flaunt safety, environmental and health regulations.

To do so, mining companies have joined together in an effort to appeal as many violations as they can,as fast as they can. In so doing, they are, as Representative George Miller of California said, “[rendering] the federal efforts to hold mine operators accountable meaningless.”

Their strategy is simply to overwhelm regulators with appeals.

The strategy is working. One in four citations issued against coal mines are now appealed. The result is an overflow of 18,000 appeals waiting to be reviewed and $210 million in contested penalties.

But simply overwhelming regulators isn’t their only tactic. Mr. Blankenship also spent millions of dollars in a campaign to elect Chief Justice Brent D. Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court. In return, the Chief Justice twice helped throw out $50 million cases against Massey Co., leading the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that from now on, judges must dismiss themselves from cases involving people who have spent large amounts of cash in their elections.

Further inquiries have been launched into a series of photographs released in 2008 showing Mr. Blankenship dining on the French Riviera with another court justice. The photographs were taken while several other cases were being heard by the judge, all involving Massey Co.

According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Mr. Blankenship has also contributed more than $100,000 to political campaigns in West Virginia. Associates of the company, as well as its political action committee, have spent an additional $307,000 on federal candidates.

Conclusions:
It’s a simple fact of life in our economy that to own and run a successful business, you have to prioritize profit. That priority, however, is going to have different effects on different industries.

To the Barista in the downtown coffee shop, it’s going to mean precarious scheduling.

To the farm laborer, it’s going to mean more ICE raids.

And to the coal miner, it’s going to mean increased safety risks.

Business owners must prioritize profit. Mr. Blankenship, the owner of Massey Co., demonstrates for us with great clarity the kind of sociopath that the business world sometimes creates – a man so consumed with the desire to “run more coal,” that he will sacrifice 25 lives.

Large business owners like Blankenship, moreover, are more than capable of taking on both the courts and the regulators. He quite literally owns the judges who oversee his cases, and his political contributions all but guarantee tolerable legislation.

Blankenship, far from being an exception in the business world, is one of many business owners with a callous disregard for the lives of their workers.

So long as we operate in an economy based on profit instead of on human needs, we will continue to suffer these disasters, like the miners, from one generation to the next.

Hazel Dickens put it better than I could when she sang:

“How can God forgive you, you do know what you’ve done?

You’ve killed my husband now you want my son.”

Related Link: http://thetbf.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/safety-at-work/
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Here's another point of view from Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society. Carson makes an excellent point from the anarchist perspective that such tragedies cannot be avoided by more and more government regulation, a point of view all too common on the "left".
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Corporate Welfare Queen Kills 25
By Kevin Carson
Watching recent news on CEO Don Blankenship of Massey Energy — renowned for falling spectacularly short of industry safety standards which are themselves almost nonexistent, and most lately for hosting the site of the worst mining disaster in decades — I got the feeling I’d heard of this guy before.

Sure enough, several months ago Alternet listed Blankenship and Massey in a rogue’s gallery of corporate malefactors. Massey’s mountaintop removal operation was fined $50 million by West Virginia courts for polluting its neighbors. But hey, if you can afford to spend $3 million replacing an unfriendly justice with your own stooge, running attack ads (he “released sexual deviants”) that would make Lee Atwater or Karl Rove proud, those pesky fines are easy enough to deal with. (Blankenship was spotted in Monte Carlo a few months later partying with yet another buddy on the Supreme Court.) $3 million to buy a Supreme Court justice, to overturn a $50 million fine from a lower court — that’s what I call a pretty good return on your money. It reminds me of all those colorful stories about railroads buying legislators and Congressmen wholesale back in the Gilded Age.

Blankenship also opined, by the way, that it’s perfectly OK for elementary school kids to inhale coal dust from his operations while playing on school grounds. You see, Massey “already pays millions of dollars in taxes each year.” Ever see that episode of The Simpsons where a young Monty Burns ran down workers in the street for the sheer joy of crippling them, and then tossed money out the window?

Blankenship, it seems, is also a major corporate Tea Party sponsor, appearing at last year’s Labor Day Tea Party with the charming duo of Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent.

Blankenship also seems to collect unpaid fines for unsafe working conditions the way some people collect parking tickets in their glove box.

Interestingly, an Alternet commentator on the Tea Party story wrote: “I’m sure those people cheering every insane thing he said at that rally will blame the government for failing to stop him, thus proving once again that it can’t do anything right.”

Well, yeah. The mine safety and anti-pollution regulations, in this case, are a good illustration of why the corporate state replaced traditional tort liability standards under the common law with a regulatory state in the first place.

Mountaintop removal is just what the name implies. It involves clearing areas of thousands of acres, in the process filling nearby valleys and stream beds with debris and destroying entire watersheds. It also involves showering surrounding areas with coal dust from silos — you know, the dust Blankenship’s taxes pay the schoolkids to breathe. And then there’s the multi-billion gallon sludge ponds full of coal mine waste. The dam enclosing one such Massey pond gave way several years ago, with its contents wound up in the Big Sandy River. A number of towns lie in the flood path of other such ponds, should they give way.

Now, you’d think tort liability for the full damages of wholesale devastation of the entire countryside, the poisoned water and coal dust, the deaths from gross negligence, and all the rest of it, would seriously undermine the profitability of mountaintop removal. And you’d be right.

That’s exactly what the regulatory state was created to avoid. Let’s look at a little history. I can’t recommend strongly enough “The Transformation of American Law,” by Morton Horwitz. According to Horwitz, the common law of tort liability was radically altered by state courts in the early to mid-19th century to make it more business-friendly. Under the traditional standard of liability, an actor was responsible for harm that resulted from his actions — period. Negligence was beside the point. Courts added stricter standards of negligence and intent, in order to protect business from costly lawsuits for externalities they might impose on their neighbors. The regulatory state subsequently imposed far weaker standards than the traditional common law; the main practical effect was to preempt what remained of tort liability. A regulatory standard amounts to a license to commit torts below the threshold of that standard, and lawsuits against polluters and other malfeasors can be met with the defense that “we are fully in compliance with regulatory standards.” In some cases, as with food libel laws or product disparagement laws, even voluntarily meeting a more stringent standard may be construed as disparagement of products that merely meet the regulatory standard. For example, Monsanto has had mixed success in some jurisdictions suppressing the commercial free speech of those who advertise their milk as free from rBGH; and conventional beef producers have similarly managed in some cases to prevent competitors from testing for mad cow disease more frequently than the law mandates.

So a class action suit against a coal mining company for the public nuisance created by mountaintop removal could be thwarted by simply demonstrating that the operation met EPA regulatory standards, even if such operations caused serious harm to the property rights and quality of life of the surrounding community.

I think it’s fair to say that Mr. Blankenship is one of the most loathsome pigs ever to contaminate the Earth with his presence. And the dumbed-down regulatory state — by offering wrist-slap fines worth a tiny fraction of the harm caused by his terrorism, as a substitute for free juries of his neighbors nailing his scrotum to the wall for his crimes — has played a key role in enabling him.


C4SS Research Associate Kevin Carson is a contemporary mutualist author and individualist anarchist whose written work includes Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective, both of which are freely available online. Carson has also written for a variety of internet-based journals and blogs, including Just Things, The Art of the Possible, the P2P Foundation and his own Mutualist Blog.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-BANGLADESH:

BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS STILL AT RISK:

The garment industry in Bangladesh has an unenviable record of unsafe workplaces. Death follows death, often at the 'wholesale level'. Here's a story from the Maquila Solidarity Network about the continuing situation.

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Five years after the Spectrum disaster, why are Bangladeshi workers still at risk?
April 11, 2010

April 11 marks the fifth anniversary of the collapse of the Spectrum/Shahriyar Sweater factory in Bangladesh, which killed 64 workers and injured 80, 54 of them seriously. The collapse focused global attention on the chronic safety problems in the Bangladesh garment industry.

The 2005 Spectrum factory collapse was not a natural disaster; the deaths and injuries were entirely preventable. The factory owners had blatantly violated building code and health and safety regulations, the Bangladeshi government had failed to enforce those regulations, and European retailers sourcing from the factory had failed to detect the serious problems at the factory.

Five years later, the February 25, 2010 fire at the Garib & Garib Sweater Ltd. factory in Bangladesh, which took the lives of 21 workers and injured another 50, is a brutal reminder that more effective and proactive action is needed to ensure that garment workers in Bangladesh can go to work without fearing for their lives. Within weeks of the recent Garib & Garib fire, another worker lost her life at the Matrix Sweater factory.


Between 2005 and 2010, close to 200 garment workers have died at work in Bangladesh while producing clothes for well-known international brands.

More should have been done to prevent these disasters from occurring. More needs to be done to ensure further disasters are prevented.

To mark the anniversary of the Spectrum collapse, the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) are calling upon all buyers sourcing garments in Bangladesh to take proactive, sustained, and coordinated measures to help eliminate systemic health and safety problems in their Bangladesh supply factories.

In consultation with unions and other stakeholders in Bangladesh and the US-based Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), and incorporating proposals developed earlier by the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF), we have compiled a list of actions that companies sourcing garments from Bangladesh should take within their own supply chain to prevent future tragedies.

We are also asking that companies collectively press the Government of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) to take specific actions to address these problems industry-wide in Bangladesh.

•See the letter we've sent to international brands
•Read more about the health and safety dangers in Bangladesh in MSN's April 2010 Update

CANADIAN LABOUR-ALBERTA:

END THE HARVEST OF DEATH:

It has been only 14 months since the workplace death of Kevan Chandler in Alberta, but in that short time there have been 13 other farm worker deaths in that province. Across the country there have been 59 such deaths. This carnage must stop. Here's a story and appeal from the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) who are campaigning to have Alberta apply the simple minimum protection that other workers enjoy to farm workers in that province.

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Premier Stelmach: End the Harvest of Death!
Premier Ed Stelmach: 14 months and
13 deaths later and still no action
It’s been 14 months since Justice Peter Barley told Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach that farm workers in Alberta should be granted the same health and safety rights as everyone else.

Despite asking Justice Barley for his advice, the Premier doesn’t want to hear it, and farm workers are paying the price.

After being asked by the Premier to investigate the workplace death of farm worker Kevan Chandler, Justice Barley found that farm workers must be included in Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to prevent future workplace injuries and deaths.

To date, Premier Stelmach has ignored that advice, and since then 13 more people have been killed on Alberta farms in work-related accidents.

Since Kevan Chandler died at work on Father’s Day nearly four years ago, an additional 59 people have been killed in agriculture-related accidents.

As the leader of a majority government, Premier Stelmach is the “decider”. He has the power to save lives with stroke of a pen by granting basic health and safety rights to farm workers – they’re the same rights that most of us already have.

Tell Premier Stelmach to do the right thing by ending the deadly discrimination against Alberta farm workers.

Click here to tell Premier Stelmach: End the Harvest of Death!

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Please go to this link from the online labour solidarity site Labour Start to send the following message in support of Alberta farmworkers to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach.

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Dear Premier Stelmach:

I am writing to you to express my displeasure over your government’s inaction in providing farm workers in Alberta coverage under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.A. 2000 CH.0-2.

In the Public Fatality Inquiry into the death of farm worker Kevan Chandler, Judge Peter Barley recommended that farm workers be covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Mr. Premier the death of one farm worker is one too many, yet Alberta has averaged nineteen farm worker deaths per year since 1997. I urge you and your government to take a proactive role in preventing further industry deaths and join the national consensus by immediately implementing the recommendation of Judge Barley and give Occupational Health and Safety coverage to the farm workers of Alberta.

AMERICAN LABOUR-WEST VIRGINIA:

MASSEY MINE A REPEAT OFFENDER:

Coal mining has acquired a well deserved reputation as perhaps the most dangerous peace time way to earn a living. It seems, however, that the Massey Mine in Montcoal West Virginia has a particularly egregious record when in comes to safety violations. See the amazing story following below from the AFL-CIO Blog. The mine's owner, Massey Energy Company is apparently one amazing piece of work in terms of not just safety but also in terms of the environment, labour relations and general right wing politics. See the wikipedia article on Massey. Here's the story.

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Massey Mine Cited for 450+ Safety Violations Before Deadly Blast
by Mike Hall, Apr 6, 2010


The Massey Energy Co. mine, where 25 coal miners were killed and four remain unaccounted following an explosion yesterday, was assessed nearly $1 million in fines for safety violations last year, including violations concerning escape routes and ventilation, according to federal records and news reports.

The mine is owned by Massey and operated by its subsidiary, Performance Coal Co.

Early indications indicate the blast was caused by highly explosive methane gas leaking from sealed-off areas of the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va.—the same cause of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster that killed 12 miners. New federal mine safety rules enacted after the Sago disaster included tougher new requirements for sealing off worked-out areas.

CNN reports that in 2009, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) proposed nearly $1 million in fines for more than 450 safety violations at the nonunion Upper Big Branch Mine, including penalties for

more than 50 “unwarrantable failure” violations, which are among the most serious findings an inspector can issue. Among those were citations for escape routes for miners and air quality ventilation.


According to ABC News, Massey was fighting the MSHA fines, including those for

57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow the ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch Mine….They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them.

MSHA records also show that in at least six of the past 10 years, the Massey mine’s injury rate has been worse than the national average for similar operations.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a former Mine Workers (UMWA) president and third generation coal miner, says, “The thoughts and prayers of America’s workers are with the families” of those killed and for the safety of the “courageous” rescue teams. He adds:

However, this incident isn’t just a matter of happenstance, but rather the inevitable result of a profit-driven system and reckless corporate conduct. Many mining companies have given too little attention to safety over the years and too much to the bottom line.

In 2006, a fire at Massey’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine, also in West Virginia, killed two miners. Ultimately, Massey’s Aracoma Coal Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty to 10 criminal mine safety violations and paid $2.5 million in fines related to that fatal fire. According to ABC, the two miners “suffocated as they looked for a way to escape.”

Aracoma later admitted in a plea agreement that two permanent ventilation controls had been removed in 2005 and not replaced, according to published reports. The two widows of the miners killed in Aracoma were unsatisfied by the plea agreement, telling the judge they believed the company cared more about profits then safety.

Tony Oppegard, a lawyer and mine safety advocate from Kentucky, told The New York Times, “Massey’s commitment to safety has long been questioned in the coalfields.” The Times notes a 2006 internal memo from Massey CEO Donald Blankenship.

In the memo, Mr. Blankenship instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first.

“This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he wrote.

Last night, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), whose district includes the Upper Big Branch Mine, told reporters:

This is the second major disaster at a Massey site in recent years, and something needs to be done.

Meanwhile, the Charleston Gazette reports safety officials are looking at methane that built up inside a sealed-off area or leaked through the seals as the cause of the blast. In 2006, methane from sealed-off areas caused the explosions at a Sago, W.Va., mine that killed 12 miners and also at the Darby Mine in Kentucky where two coal miners were killed.

The new mine safety rules passed after the Sago and Darby disasters called for increased monitoring of air quality in active and sealed sections of the mines to avoid methane build up. The new regulations also required mine operators to install stronger barriers between active and nonactive sections of mines.

But, as Oppegard told the Gazette, “Seals can be deadly if they are not maintained and monitored properly.”

In a statement today on the explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, Rahall says:

We will scrutinize the health and safety violations at this mine to see whether the law was circumvented and miner’s precious lives were willfully put at risk, and there will be accountability.

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If you want to help the community or keep informed of developments (such as the continued search for four miners still missing) here is an instructive article from the Take Part site.

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West Virginia Mine Disaster:

How to Help Families and Victims

At least 25 miners died Monday in an explosion deep inside a West Virginia coal mine—the accident is being called the nation's worst mining disaster in a quarter century. Rescuers are continuing to search for four additional miners who may still be trapped underground, and federal officials have launched an investigation into the explosion at the Upper Big Branch South Mine in Whitesville, W. Va. Two miners remain hospitalized.

Various relief organizations are on the ground in West Virginia to support the victims' families and rescue workers. Here's how you can get involved with the rescue and recovery effort:

•American Red Cross volunteers are providing food, comfort and emotional support to the victims' families and rescue workers. Click here to make a donation to the Red Cross's general disaster relief fund. The organization is not accepting gifts specifically for the West Virginia miners' families at this time. (NB- Molly )
•The Salvation Army has already provided food and water to victims' families and rescue workers. You can click here to make an area-specific donation to the organization.
•The West Virginia Council of Churches has set up the Montcoal Mining Disaster Fund. Click here to support the Council's efforts.
For updates about the mine disaster and latest news, several news organizations, agencies, and non-governmental organizations are on the ground in Whitesville:

•The Charleston Gazette's "Coal Tattoo" blog is one of the most comprehensive sources of news on the coal mining industry. Its lead reporter, Ken Ward, Jr, is a nationally-recognized expert on the issue.
•Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been providing regular updates to the media. His office has also ordered flags at half-mast throughout the state in honor of the victims.
•Massey Energy Co., the owner of the coal mine, has also been regularly providing briefings to the media and updates about their efforts to support the victims' families.
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Meanwhile it seems that the Obama Administration has known for some time about the fiddles of mining companies such as Massey Energy and, true to bureaucratic form, has done essentially nothing. Here's a story from the Huffington Post about the delay and thumb twiddling amongst officialdom.
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Obama Administration Missed Chance To Get Tougher On Unsafe Mines

Long before the explosion that killed at least 25 coal miners inside Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine on Monday, Obama administration mine safety officials were aware of a major loophole that allowed companies like Massey to avoid stricter enforcement despite alarming safety records.

Mining safety regulations were tightened in 2007, following an explosion the previous year that killed 12 miners at the Sago Mine, also in West Virginia. But mining companies immediately began gaming the new system.

Mines that are designated as having a "pattern of violations" are subject to a greater level of oversight. But Massey and others ducked that designation simply by lodging formal appeals against the major violations issued against them.

It turns out that, according to current rules, contested violations can't be taken into consideration when assessing whether a pattern of violations exists.

Contesting those violations also allowed Massey and other companies to delay paying the fines levied against them -- thwarting a key enforcement mechanism.

And all the appeals overwhelmed the commission charged with adjudicating them, creating a massive backlog that effectively allowed the companies to flaunt the rules indefinitely.

Joe Main, a former United Mine Worker of America official, took over the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA, pronounced em-sha) in October. He told a congressional hearing in February that the backlog has effectively prevented MSHA from applying the stepped-up enforcement mechanisms to mines with a pattern of serious violations.

"And I think the consequence there is that mines have the ability to continue that pattern unabated," he said. His conclusion: "[W]e must diminish the incentives for operators who appear to be developing a pattern of significant and substantial safety violations to contest, simply to delay enforcement."

But that was in February -- at a hearing called by a concerned chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.).

And according to Celeste Monforton, a George Washington University public health professor and former MSHA official, Obama administration officials had known of the problem for more than a year by then.

"I feel very confident that when the presidential transition teams in December and January were meeting with the senior career people in the agency," she said, "they heard that, one, there's a huge backlog in the review commission and, two, this is neutering, or making impotent, the pattern of violations provision of the Mine Act."

So, Monforton told HuffPost, "The question is: 'What did you do, knowing on January 21st that they're gaming the system? What did you do?'

"It doesn't look like they did anything."

Actually, the Obama administration did add four administrative law judges to the panel of 10 charged with ruling on the contested violations, in an attempt to somewhat reduce the backlog. And they've now requested four more.

But the basic rule that the companies are exploiting remained unchanged.

Officials from MSHA and its parent agency, the Department of Labor, could not be reached for comment by HuffPost on Friday, but MSHA deputy Greg Wagner spoke at some length on Thursday to Ken Ward Jr., the award-winning mine reporter and blogger for the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette.

Wagner told Ward that MSHA reviewed the Upper Big Branch Mine for a potential pattern of violations as recently as October, but concluded it did not meet the criteria, despite an astonishingly high number of serious safety violations.

Wagner, Ward wrote "was not able to explain that decision."

"I don't know the answer to that, but I will get that to you as soon as I can," Wagner told Ward.

There's more:

Wagner said that the new leaders at MSHA under the Obama administration hope to rewrite the pattern-of-violations rules, which date back to 1990. But he conceded that MSHA did not include such a proposal on regulatory agendas issued in May or in December...

In describing MSHA's policing of the Upper Big Branch Mine, Wagner said, "I think we feel that we used the tools that we have available."

But Wagner said he did not know if MSHA ever sought increased fines from the Upper Big Branch Mine for "flagrant violations," as allowed under the 2006 MINER Act.

And he said MSHA did not use its long-standing legal authority to seek a federal court order against any condition at the mine that created "a continuing hazard to the health or safety of miners."

"We did not use that section of the act, no," Wagner said. "I'm really trying to get an opinion from our lawyers to explain to me really what constraints they felt really existed to keep us from going .... I don't think that's ever been used, and I think there's some reason that people haven't and I need to find that out."


The Upper Big Branch mine's abysmal safety record, and its passage through the mining bureaucracy has, by now, been extensively chronicled.

Ward wrote that parts or all of the mine "were ordered closed more than 60 times in 2009 and 2010, and the mine was repeatedly cited in recent months for allowing potentially explosive coal dust to accumulate, according to newly released government documents."

The New York Times reported Friday that the mine was warned in December 2007 that it had been issued 204 serious violations over the previous two years, a rate nearly twice the national average, and would soon be designated as having a pattern of violations. But in the ensuing three months, the mine was able to reduce its rate to just above the national average -- enough to avoid the designation.

MSHA in March 2008 praised Massey and six other violators for "successfully and dramatically" reducing their "significant and substantial (S&S) violation rates -- on average -- by 50 percent during the 90-day review period."

But according to the Washington Post, Massey's mine "met the legal criteria" to avoid the designation "in part because contested violations had not been resolved. Massey is still contesting 352 alleged violations at the Upper Big Branch mine, some dating to 2007."

USA Today reported on Friday that coal mine operators generally have used appeals to avoid paying all but $8 million of the $113 million in major penalties assessed against them since April 2007.

Upper Big Branch in particular "has paid just one major fine since 2007, which cost $10,750. It has appealed or is delinquent on 21 major fines worth $505,000, records show."

The Associated Press reported that the mine "was cited for violating two federal safety rules on the day of the blast."

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil E. Roberts said in a statement released on Thursday that 20 people had been killed at mines operated by Massey, its subsidiaries or subcontractors in the last decade -- prior to Monday's explosion.

"Every year, like clockwork, at least one person has been killed since 2000 on the property of Massey or one of its subsidiaries," Roberts said. "With those already known to be dead at Upper Big Branch, it's now up to 45 people in the past 11 years, and four more missing at this point. No other coal operator even comes close to that fatality rate during that time frame. This demands a serious and immediate investigation by MSHA and by Congress."

West Virginia's senior senator, Democrat Robert Byrd, released a statement on Friday:

Once we learn the cause of this disaster and investigations are completed whether it is wrongdoing by Massey, lack of enforcement by MSHA, or inadequacies with the mine health and safety laws, including the MINER Act of 2006, action will need to be taken...

[T]he more I learn about the extent of these violations by Massey at the Upper Big Branch Mine alone, the angrier I get. 57 citations in the month of March alone! Closed over 60 times during the past two years to correct problems!

To me, one thing is clear -- for a company that has had this number of violations at just one coal mine -- one must seriously begin to question the practices and procedures of this particular coal company and it needs the most serious scrutiny from the Congress and the federal regulators.


Meanwhile, Republican West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito made it clear in her statement that the Obama administration's conduct should also be in question:

In 2009, MSHA cited 515 violations and ordered the mine closed 29 times. Upper Big Branch Mine has had 124 violations in 2010 already. In fact, MSHA faulted the Upper Big Branch Mine on the day of the explosion for inadequate maps of escape routes and an improper splice of electrical cable on a piece of equipment. It falls on both the mining company and the regulatory agency to make sure that a mine is safe and in this instance both failed.

I ask that as we move forward, we take a long hard look at the relationship of mine operators and MSHA and how we could have prevented this disaster.


At the congressional hearing in February, Rep. George Miller angrily declared that "delays from growing appeals are undermining MSHA's ability to impose tougher sanctions on the repeat violators... If cases are stuck for months or years in the review commission, MSHA cannot impose stronger penalties on the worst mine operators. As a result, miners' lives are in the cross hairs."

But the committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, defended the companies, arguing that "it appears mine operators are simply adapting to a punitive new regulatory environment that favors litigation and conflict over collaboration."

He expressed his view that "legislation and regulation may actually be the cause rather than the solution to the problem."

Matt Madia, who focuses on federal regulatory policy at the good-government group OMB Watch, sees MSHA's limitations as the result of a systemic problem.

"What's happening is you've got a relatively small agency with too few dollars, with too few inspectors, responsible for policing a huge industry with a huge lobbying presence in Washington. So who do you think's going to win that battle?

"It's easy to blame the bureaucrats after the fact, but the public and Congress and the administration are often not paying attention to these issues before tragedy strikes," he said.

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Do you know more about the circumstances that could have prevented this disaster? How about factors that may have contributed - or could lead to - such mining tragedies elsewhere? Are you aware of situations in which people have been harmed, or where unsafe conditions persist, despite reforms and regulation that should have made those situations safer?
HELP THE HUFFPOST INVESTIGATIVE FUND INVESTIGATE

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Government regulation is, of course, a highly indirect way to address such problems as work safety, and the mining industry is hardly the only field where such regulation has delivered far less than it promised. A more direct way to ensure safe working conditions is organization on the job. Here's a final story from the Digital Journal about the efforts that Massey Energy has put into preventing their workers from exercising their democratic right to unionize...and what this means in terms of workplace safety.

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Union-busting associated with Massey's coal mine disaster
By Carol Forsloff.
Brian Stansberry


Massey forced the unions out, and now non-union coal miners have died in a coal mine cited for 600 violations in the past 18 months, so does the lack of a union contribute to safety concerns?


Some people believe lack of unions is the problem of coal mine safety with respect to Massey and the recent tragedy of 25 miners who died in a West Virginia coal mine and 4 now stranded, left possibly to die because rescuers can't get near them.


A letter to the editor in the Dallas Morning News poses that very important issue that the writer declares people should consider each time they flip a switch and turn on the electric lights.


What's the skinny on Massey and the unions? Is that an important variable in the mine disaster? Is unionism designed to protect the workers in instances like this, and what happens when unions aren't involved?


In 2009 the National Labor Relations Board agreed with a decision that Massey Energy rehire 85 coal miners who said they had been discriminated against because they were union members. Union members have declared Don Blankenship, the manager of the corporation, to have an antipathy for unions.


Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey, is a Republican and has given large sums of money to various Republican candidates in West Virginia. CBS examined his tweets and found him against environmentalists and making fun of global warming and climate change as well. He has a record for making big donations to Republican candidates with the company giving 91% of its political contributions to Republicans since 1990.


According to the history of coal mining in Appalachia, for many years coal miners worked in hazardous conditions, made little money, had safety concerns, and were afraid to speak about their problems. When unions first attempted to enter the coal mining industry, there was widespread violence, resulting in the West Virginia Coal Mine Wars. When the union gathered thousands of members together in an organized community, that looked to government officials like an army, they were met by state and Federal troops. They were accused of being socialists. Many lives were lost, history declares, but no accurate count ever made. The union members were accused of treason, and the company officials allowed to continue business in the same ways they had historically done.


Coal miner supporters and union officials have accused Massey Energy of being one of the big bosses in the tradition of the coal mine owners of yore. They believe that safety measures, that the union would have insisted upon, would have been instituted had the union been involved.


History tells a lot about unionism, power, and disasters in West Virginia. There are those who wonder if it has been repeated with the one in the coal mine owned by Massey now.


As it is, they say, the result of having unsafe conditions, caused the recent tragedy. President Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers Union had this to say.


“I can absolutely say that if these miners were members of a union, they would have been able to refuse unsafe work… and would not have been subjected to that kind of atrocious conditions,” said Gerard. “In some places like in Australia and Canada, this kind of negligence would result in criminal negligence [charges] being brought against the management and the CEO.”


The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) offered the following statement on April 5, following the disaster:


“The hearts and prayers of all UMWA members are with the families of those lost today at Performance Coal Company’s Upper Big Branch mine. We are also praying for the safe rescue of those still missing, and for the safety of the courageous mine rescue team members. They are putting their lives on the line, entering a highly dangerous mine to bring any survivors to safety.


“As a mine operated by a subsidiary of Massey Energy, the Upper Big Branch mine is a nonunion mine. Nevertheless, I have dispatched highly trained and skilled UMWA personnel to the immediate vicinity of the mine, and they stand ready to offer any assistance they can to the families and the rescuers at this terrible and anxious time. We are all brothers and sisters in the coalfields at times like this."