cross post: Book recommendation for the human side of mining towns and disasters

(cross-post from GD to Labor Forum, where things stay a bit longer)

Goodbye, Wifes and Daughters by Susan Kushner Resnick is a sensitive telling of how company greed destroyed lives in Bear Creek, Montana. That disaster, back during WWII, led to some serious considerations regarding mine safety and regulation. Not everyone in that mine died in the initial blast or even in the fire that followed. Some men made it to 'rooms' that they tried to seal off and buy them selves time, in hopes of rescue. As time, and air, was slipping away, they left notes for their families and loved ones. "Goodbye, Wifes & Daughters" was how one note started.

Times have brought us nearly back to the conditions that took out the Smith Mine in Bear Creek: lip service to safety, greed and disregard for human life on the part of owners.... Oh, times change but people don't seem to change much. Sure we have laws, regulators, new safety equipment, partly BECAUSE of the Smith Mine disaster in Bear Creek, but companies seem to have bought their way out of obeying the laws. Regulation? Fines mean nothing anymore.

The book gives you a peek into the lives of miners' families, then breaks your heart with the deaths of over 70 men and how the attempt of rescue, then recovery, involved all the towns people and many more from other communities. It will help give a really solid understanding of how mining companies kill more than just the unlucky workers who may die from greed and inept management. Good background for this current situation.

Read this one just last month. I cried hard. Watching the news about the Massey mine... wow, deja vue. The only real difference between Smith Mine and Massey was Massey had ventilating fans installed, of course, they were blowing the wrong way. Gassy mine, coal dust problem..... oh there are ways of mitigating some of the dangers, but it takes a few dollars from the profits, and evidently, every dollar is more important than lives of workers, their families, their communities.

Fines for safety violations HAVE to be enough that companies can't just pay them on the way to bank obscene profits. The people at the top, the people who really decide and impact, need to know they are looking at hard labor in prison for reckless prusuit of getting any penny of profit they can by ignoring laws and regulations.

People need to wake up to the dangers of unfettered corporate greed, power to undermine regulation, and disregard for life. It would also be a good time to push some education on the importance of Unions for promoting safe, fair laws & regulations in our history, and how the agenda of destroying unions has put Americans at greater risk than they need to be.

"Goodbye, Wifes & Daughters" was how one note left for loved ones started. It was a message left by someone in that Smith Mine so long ago. And I hope you find time to learn about the men who left those notes. Their stories will help us all understand the full impact of unlimited greed over safety of those who do the work that creates wealth for the few at the top.

Havocmom is welcome here anytime.

The location is not far from me.