LIFE IS CHEAP

The Sidney Coal Company is planning to hire non-English speaking Hispanic coal workers for their East Kentucky mines at the paltry wage of six dollars an hour. The average wage in Kentucky is $12.57 an hour and average wage for a miner is $15.89 an hour.

Now, you’ll read it here first: the Sidney Coal Company is owned by Massey Energy Corporation. That’s right; it’s the same company that was responsible for two miner deaths in West Virginia. What is the hiring of Hispanic labourers in the coal mines without the language to protest or to protect themselves against unsafe working conditions worth? Well, Massey Energy has racked up an 18 percent increase in their profits. One of their own is being tapped by the White House to head the Mining Safety and Health Administration.  Furthermore, one of theirs was also a former MSHA executive.

Something stinks. It isn’t the fumes coming from the mines but the rotting corpse of corporate nepotism that characterizes the Bush administration. In the next election, maybe it’s time to let fresh air into American government by cleaning out the (White) house.
---Izzy