Sago and Mosaic; politicians and unions.
Wayne Uff makes a nice catch on another one of the subtle differences between Republicans and Democrats that rarely makes the politician-obsessed media (or blogospheric) radar: Democratic bureaucrats propose reforms to save lives -- in this case, "a requirement to stock coal mines with spare emergency air masks to protect miners from poisonous gases". Republican bureaucrats kill these same reforms.
But in Slate, Noah Leavitt argues that what really determines mine safety is how organized the workers are on their own behalf:
Perhaps more fundamentally, union mines instill—and can at times reward—a greater sense of collective responsibility than nonunion mines. In stark contrast to the Sago disaster, on Jan. 29, the lives of all 72 unionized miners trapped in a Saskatchewan potash mine [Mosaic] were saved after a devastating, toxic machine fire trapped them underground. When the workers reached the surface more than 24 hours later, virtually all of them credited the emergency training they had received—including practices and rehearsals. Their union—Communications, Energy and Paperworkers—had pushed for this training, and the union had also agitated to allow miners to earn paid time to prepare for underground disasters.
Newspaper accounts described how the men in Saskatchewan did exactly what they had practiced: At the first sign of fire, they retreated to sealable refuge stations stocked with supplies, beds, and pure oxygen. They calmed each other, led other miners to the "safe zones," and waited for rescue teams. Could stricter safety guidelines, on their own accord, have generated such preparation and cooperation? Maybe, but probably not.
Granted, the Clinton MSHA proposal wasn't just for and better masks in the mine but also for "more frequent hands-on training in how to use them". Still, the story highlights a problem with the whole concept of "Liberalism without Unions". Even assuming that those diligent, public-minded Gore Administration bureaucrats, under pressure from what remains of organized labour flush from its successful GOTV operation in Palm Beach, would have put those new masks in the mine and forced the miners to learn to use the safety stations, the probability of those bureaucrats getting/staying there was never more than 50-50 to begin with. Just ask Canadians: if the government doesn't turn over occassionally, citizens get to feeling antsy about how robust the democracy is. People don't vote for bureaucrats, either, and politicians don't talk about what their bureaucrats do on the campaign trail. So however different the parties and their interest coaltions, however much material difference it makes whose bureaucrats are running things, it's only one of many things at stake in a federal or a state election, taking its place alongside culture, personality, history, taxes, macroeconomic conditions, philosophy of government. West Virginia, of course, went twice for Bush.
Unions don't have that problem. Not that voting for a union isn't subject to demagoguery and peripheral issues like culture-of-corruption and that workers won't sometimes reject unions under rightwing or management pressure, particularly if they don't have card check. But the major purpose and selling point of a union is to look after the nitty gritty details of the workers' wage and work conditions. The broader social and philisophical clutter of politics isn't there; all the bread-and-butter stuff is. And in the cases of Sago and Mosaic, we saw the results.
But in Slate, Noah Leavitt argues that what really determines mine safety is how organized the workers are on their own behalf:
Perhaps more fundamentally, union mines instill—and can at times reward—a greater sense of collective responsibility than nonunion mines. In stark contrast to the Sago disaster, on Jan. 29, the lives of all 72 unionized miners trapped in a Saskatchewan potash mine [Mosaic] were saved after a devastating, toxic machine fire trapped them underground. When the workers reached the surface more than 24 hours later, virtually all of them credited the emergency training they had received—including practices and rehearsals. Their union—Communications, Energy and Paperworkers—had pushed for this training, and the union had also agitated to allow miners to earn paid time to prepare for underground disasters.
Newspaper accounts described how the men in Saskatchewan did exactly what they had practiced: At the first sign of fire, they retreated to sealable refuge stations stocked with supplies, beds, and pure oxygen. They calmed each other, led other miners to the "safe zones," and waited for rescue teams. Could stricter safety guidelines, on their own accord, have generated such preparation and cooperation? Maybe, but probably not.
Granted, the Clinton MSHA proposal wasn't just for and better masks in the mine but also for "more frequent hands-on training in how to use them". Still, the story highlights a problem with the whole concept of "Liberalism without Unions". Even assuming that those diligent, public-minded Gore Administration bureaucrats, under pressure from what remains of organized labour flush from its successful GOTV operation in Palm Beach, would have put those new masks in the mine and forced the miners to learn to use the safety stations, the probability of those bureaucrats getting/staying there was never more than 50-50 to begin with. Just ask Canadians: if the government doesn't turn over occassionally, citizens get to feeling antsy about how robust the democracy is. People don't vote for bureaucrats, either, and politicians don't talk about what their bureaucrats do on the campaign trail. So however different the parties and their interest coaltions, however much material difference it makes whose bureaucrats are running things, it's only one of many things at stake in a federal or a state election, taking its place alongside culture, personality, history, taxes, macroeconomic conditions, philosophy of government. West Virginia, of course, went twice for Bush.
Unions don't have that problem. Not that voting for a union isn't subject to demagoguery and peripheral issues like culture-of-corruption and that workers won't sometimes reject unions under rightwing or management pressure, particularly if they don't have card check. But the major purpose and selling point of a union is to look after the nitty gritty details of the workers' wage and work conditions. The broader social and philisophical clutter of politics isn't there; all the bread-and-butter stuff is. And in the cases of Sago and Mosaic, we saw the results.
2 Comments:
Andy Stern for President.
Hey: why not?
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