During the turmoil, anguish, and grief that was the rescue operation at the Upper Big Branch mine owned by Massey Energy in southern West Virginia last month, the first press reports said that Massey�s safety record was �spotty.�

Turns out that �spotty� was the grossest of understatements. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), pointed out in the early hours of the rescue operation that, since 2000, 45 miners had been killed on Massey coal properties, and that �no other coal operator even comes close to that fatality rate during that time frame. That demands a serious and immediate investigation by MSHA and by Congress.�

After he made his statement, the four remaining miners� bodies had been found in the Upper Big Branch mine, bringing the total to 29 victims of Massey. The �serious and immediate investigation� called for by the union and the people in coal country, is likely to be some time in coming.

Roberts, in a statement at the time, explained:

�Mine safety laws and regulations have progressed to the point where, when followed and properly enforced, they should prevent disasters like this one at Upper Big Branch from happening. Clearly that was not the case here. The mine had a continuing history of safety violations, including several of a very serious nature.�

He pointed out, however, that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has been prevented from taking more aggressive action at this mine because the operator has contested over 30 percent of the violations, leaving them in limbo until adjudicated by the Federal Mine Health and Safety Review Commission (FMHSRC).

He continued, �That means no pattern of violations can be readily established at this mine, leaving MSHA without the ability to use stronger enforcement powers.

�This is a problem that extends beyond Massey Energy mines. There is a huge backlog of contested cases before the FMHSRC. These cases aren�t just clogging up the system, they�re leading to a reduced ability to strictly enforce mine safety and health laws and regulations at mines throughout the nation.�

Gaming the system on workplace safety and health is something that has been finely honed to an art form, starting about 30 years ago, in the early stages of deregulation and privatization. The Bush-Cheney Administration gave a big boost to the idea that corporations should regulate themselves, rather than have a government watchdog do the job.

When the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970, it was widely expected that workplaces would become safer, even if incrementally. At the least, it would end the era that lasted for the previous century, in which workers were seen as eminently replaceable. If one died or if 100 died, there would be 500 applying for their jobs, so companies never lacked a steady supply of workers.

OSHA did set a standard below which employers were not to fall and it was called the �general duty� clause.

The general duty clause of the law [Section 5(a)(1)] states that the employer �shall furnish�a place of employment which is free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.�

Clearly, Massey Energy did not meet even that low standard in the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. And, no one will know the degree to which the bosses of Massey - starting with Massey CEO Don Blankenship - ignored the requirement to provide a safe workplace for the miners.

Until there is a streamlined system of judgment by governmental regulatory authorities, and meaningful fines for violations - including the ability to immediately shut down a mine that is so grossly in violation of the law - there will be no resolution of the problem of corporate scofflaws who bring tragedy to the mountains of coal country.

Until that happens, Massey and other coal companies can write off the deaths and the small fines that are imposed (then routinely appealed in a drawn-out process) as just a cost of doing business.

Blankenship and other coal CEOs characterize any effort to bring them into compliance with safety and health laws as �anti-coal� measures.

The answer of UMWA�s Roberts: �Well, on behalf of the tens of thousands of UMWA members and their families who depend on coal and coal jobs, as well as the tens of thousands of retirees and widows who depend on pensions and health care benefits paid for by coal, I�m here to tell Don, that�s bull.�

Production, rather than safety, is the primary objective in the billion-dollar energy industries. An investigation is just beginning into the reckless drilling of oil in the Gulf of Mexico by BP (formerly British Petroleum) that has resulted in the pollution of the gulf of monumental proportions and resulted in the deaths of 11 workers on the oil platform.

The safety and the lives of those workers - and the profound damage to every person who lives within 50 miles of the gulf - was secondary to the production of oil. The extent of the damage will not be known for a long time. Officials don�t even know how long it will take to �turn off� the oil a mile below the surface. Meanwhile, the oil keeps coming up from the depths and the contamination now covers an area more than 170 miles long and 70 miles wide.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney�s former company, Halliburton, was revealed this week to have been the contractor for the �cementing� of the actual opening in the sea bed, the proper operation of which would have prevented the catastrophic leak. Halliburton also was reported to have been the contractor for the cementing in a similar leak in Australian waters - a leak that continued for 10 weeks, according to the Huffington Post.

Cutting corners is what energy corporations do. BP never expected a spill or leak of these proportions, so they didn�t prepare for their �surprise� leak. They didn�t believe it could happen. Massey never expected a methane (or whatever gas) explosion, but why not? The mine obviously wasn�t properly vented to eliminate the gas. It�s expensive to provide the proper safeguards. BP engineers could have prepared for a leak or blowout of this proportion, but it would have cost money. And, Massey could have vented the gas.

Corporations that are in the business of extracting �energy� from the earth have had pretty much an easy go of their methods of operation, whether the energy is oil, natural gas, or coal, because they know that the American people are not ready to deprive themselves of their comparatively low-cost energy sources.

After all, that�s what makes it possible for people in high-technology nations to live at a high standard. Even if it is at the expense of people in developing countries, the people in rich nations are not ready to bring energy corporations to heel. They just don�t want to give up the material things that (relatively) cheap fossil fuels bring.

The gulf oil spill is an eye opener for many, especially since it will have a negative impact on their supply of seafood. The families� grief from the mine �disaster� was brought into their living rooms for several nights, so people are somewhat aware of the destructive potential of modern coal mining techniques and methods. Still, that may not be enough to cause Americans to act.

Every day, in thousands of places around the world, these disasters that are largely man-made occur. We just don�t hear about them. Most of them are done in reckless disregard for the humans who live where they are operating. Since much of the damage to Mother Earth is done to make life easier for the rich nations and, since it�s mostly indigenous people and people of color and poor people who do the suffering, there is an unwillingness to mitigate the destruction or halt it.

Speaking about the Upper Big Branch mine, Roberts said that the livelihoods of thousands of families in coal country depend on coal jobs, �but we also believe that the miners who work in those jobs ought to be able to come home at the end of their shift.�

He could as well have been speaking of the untold numbers of people in developing countries who live under the unfettered rule of faceless transnational corporations.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.