MONTCOAL, WV, April 58 — When 40 workers died last month in a flooded Chinese coal mine, U.S. media strongly suggested the racist idea that human life is cheap to Asians. They followed a familiar script, trying to demonize an economic rival and potential military enemy. “China’s coal mining industry is the world’s deadliest, with thousands of miners perishing every year in the pursuit of fuel for the country’s rapidly expanding economy.” (Wall Street Journal, 4/7)
But when an explosion killed 29 West Virginia coal miners a week later, U.S. rulers’ mainstream mouthpieces, like the NY Times, did something startling. They hammered at the profit motive behind the atrocity, editorializing (4/6): “[A]nger is building against the mine’s owner, the Massey Energy Company, which has long been accused by its critics of putting profits before the welfare of its workers.”
But the Times is hardly calling for the abolition of capitalism. It has never had a shred of sympathy for our class. To the dominant, imperialist wing of U.S. capitalists that the Times speaks for, Massey’s crime lies not in killing miners but in trading with the enemy, China, seeking short-term profits while ignoring the ruling class’s long-term strategic needs.
“Massey Energy Co. is preparing its first metallurgical coal shipment to China as part of its efforts to capitalize on growing demand from Asian steelmakers.” (Associated Press, 3/10) Metallurgical (coking) coal (“dirty” coal) and iron ore make steel. Boosting China-bound coal-for-steel production at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine increased methane gas levels there, leading to the deadly blast. (Washington Post, 4/11)
It was Massey’s China trade, not workers’ deaths, which prompted arch-imperialist West Virginia Senator John D. Rockefeller IV to call the firm a “rogue” and a “repeat offender” on safety. (CBS 4/9) Rockefeller worries that Massey coal, in addition to bolstering China’s economic growth, might help it build its expanding military.
Massey Mine Was Serving China, Against Main U.S. Rulers’
War Agenda
The rulers’ harsh response to Massey’s disaster starkly contrasts with their kid-glove handling of the 2006 Sago mine blast that killed 12. Then Rockefeller and fellow senator Barack Obama utterly absolved, and even praised, Sago’s owner, writing, “We know that miners, retirees, and their families throughout the country are well aware of the risks inherent in working in even the safest mines.”
Sago belongs to the International Coal Group, an outfit run by imperialist New York-based investor Wilbur Ross. In the last decade or so, Ross has bought up and consolidated firms in sectors that are now struggling but will be indispensible to U.S. rulers during a global war. Along with coal, Ross has created conglomerates in textiles and steel.
Ross buys up bankrupt companies, tears up labor contracts and re-opens non-union hellholes just as unsafe as Massey’s. The crucial difference between the two camps lies in strategic focus. In contrast to Massey’s China deals, International Coal boasts on its website of serving dominant U.S. capitalists: “We market our coal to a diverse customer base of largely investment grade electric utilities, as well as domestic [our emphasis, Ed.] industrial and steel customers.”
Ross & Co. are bent on ensuring the survival of essential future war producers on U.S. soil. On the other hand, Massey’s biggest shareholder, BlackRock Capital, is in turn controlled by Bank of America, which also seeks immediate short-term profits and does not share the main rulers’ war agenda.
Miners’ History Of Armed Struggle Points The Way To Revolution
The rulers’ absolute need to control coal supplies drives them to exploit miners ruthlessly. Mass killings like Upper Big Branch and Sago follow brutal anti-union campaigns. Tighter mine regulations, as Sen. Rockefeller and the Times propose, won’t change this deadly pattern (see page 1) but only strengthen the bigger, imperialist bosses’ grip on the industry.
Miners, however, have a history of militant fight-back that has often risen to the level of armed conflict — at times which has involved our Party (see box above). Someday such militancy, spread throughout the working class by PLP, will organize a communist revolution that destroys capitalism and its profit-driven disasters.