Rapid Response Info Alert: Mine Workers – Your Health and Safety is Under Attack

Click here for a printable PDF of this Info Alert.

Over the past two months, the Administration has started rolling back key protections that keep us safe on the job. These aren’t just cuts on paper, these changes will clearly mean more injuries and occupational illnesses, more accidents, and even more deaths in the mines.

What’s Going On?
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the agency that inspects our mines, upholds our rights, and enforces the rules that keep us safe, is seeing major cuts to its budget and authority. That means:

• Fewer inspections of the mines we work in.
• Less enforcement when companies violate safety and health rules.
• Weaker standards for things like silica exposures, ventilation, equipment maintenance, and emergency preparedness.
• Slower responses when dangerous conditions are reported and your rights are violated.

When MSHA loses power, companies cut corners—and workers suffer the consequences.

At the same time, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which does the research and science behind our safety, is being gutted – nearly 90% of their 1000-person workforce is being cut by the Administration. These are the folks who research exposure risks, test safety gear, conduct health hazard evaluations, and develop training that saves lives

Why This Matters to Us

• MSHA is in place to ensure that safety and health laws are enforced.
• NIOSH is responsible for conducting research for the prevention of work-related injury and illness.
• Without MSHA and NIOSH, more miners will likely suffer and die from mining.
• History shows: the more unregulated mining is, the more dangerous it is to be a miner.

On today, Workers Memorial Day, we reflect on our past fights for workers’ safety and mourn the loss of those who never returned home to their families.
We know none of our safety protections were given to us. We fought for every one of them through organizing, through bargaining, and sometimes through tragedy. And now they’re being stripped away by politicians who’ve never stepped foot in a mine. Today we mourn for the dead, but we will forever fight like hell for the living. Stay tuned to Rapid Response for more information on what is happening and how we can push back.