The Missing Piece at Montcoal

As a follow-up to Tom B's great post on Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, John Nichols at The Nation reveals the factor that could have reined in Blankenship's lethal management and saved the lives of 29 miners:

Union.

Does it matter to make it easier for unions to make their voices heard on job sites?

You bet, says Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union that, with the United Mine Workers of America, represents workers at America's unionized mines.

Reviewing the details of the disaster at the non-union Massey mine -- which racked up 1,342 safety violations from 2005 through this month -- in an appearance on MSNBC's "Ed Schultz Show," Gerard bluntly declared:

"(This) is another series of fatalities at another non-union mine. I can absolutely say that if these miners were members of a union, they would have been able to refuse unsafe work in our collective agreements, and they would have been able to refuse that work, and would not have been subjected to that kind of atrocious conditions."

Union representation matters when it comes to enforcing health and safety rules in workplaces.

An anti-union NLRB, or even a lax NLRB, makes it harder for unions to protect workers -- not just their own members but non-members, as well.

Writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette several years ago, former Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Labor Relations director Charles McCollester made the essential point: "There's no question that union mines are safer."

"Critically, workers in a union mine are not afraid to speak," explained McCollester. "In a non-union operation, asking questions or challenging company mining practices or safety procedures can lead to termination."

That's why unions matter.

That's why a fair and functional NLRB matters.

It is, as well, why labor law reform is needed.

SNIP

Workers have a right to be safe on the job, and to be able to object when they feel their safety is threatened. But unions make give that right meaning. And a strong NLRB, along with fair labor laws, make it a reality.

This is something that Republicans once understood as well as Democrats. And that understanding needs to be renewed.

After all, it was a Republican, John L. Lewis, who declared: "Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America."

And it was another Republican who outlined the core values of a party that once sought to be not the champion not the few on Wall Street but the many on the Main Streets, in the farm fields, in the factories and, yes, in the mines of America.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital," said Abraham Lincoln. "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Let "Remember Montcoal!" be the new rallying cry for unions organizing workers everywhere from the coal miners of West Virginia to the janitors in Wall Street skyscrapers to the vegetable pickers of Texas to the home health-care aides of California.

Because in the end, it's management's job to exploit workers. The only force in this world protecting workers from that exploitation is the union.