Tony Oppegard
Tony Oppegard
black cheaper coal couple dust exceed expose fine lung mine miner pay tons
You can mine 4 tons of coal in a couple of minutes. It's cheaper to exceed the dust limits, expose a miner to black lung and pay the fine than it is to do the right thing.
coal miners
We're not getting everything that we think coal miners need in this bill.
continuous guy machine miner operate worth
They see tomorrow, they don't see the future. They don't think they're getting their money's worth ... if a guy can't operate a continuous miner or a roof-bolting machine tomorrow.
discharge foreman miner relying
If you have a foreman who is not doing pre-shift examinations properly, you should discharge that person, because every miner working there is relying on that person.
across conditions employers expect miners table testify unsafe
You can't expect miners to come in and testify about unsafe conditions in the mine when you have their employers across the table from them.
good
I've been criticizing them for 20 years for doing it that way. It's not good government.
assessment coal far goes less mines minimum receive ton
Far too many mines receive the minimum assessment of $60, which is less than what a ton of coal goes for these days.
flag problems red safety unusual
That's very unusual and a red flag that there's some safety problems at that mine.
cost deterrent factor high minimal operators pay
Most of the fines are not high enough to have a real deterrent effect. If the operators know they're not going to have to pay the fines, or that they will be minimal fines, they just factor that into the cost of doing business.
attached speaker telephone thin wire
What we have now is terrible. Just a thin telephone wire with a speaker phone attached to it.
act key protect
I can't over-emphasize how important pre-shift examinations are. It is a key provision put in the act to protect miners' safety.
bet extent operator pay
If an operator is undercapitalized to the extent that he can't pay his fines, he shouldn't be in business. You can bet he's skimping on safety.
alert attorney company criminal failure possible referred time
From the time that the company got its first unwarrantable failure, that put them on alert that those examinations weren't being conducted properly. Such unwarrantable failure is just intolerable, and that should be referred to the U.S. attorney for possible criminal prosecution.
concerned mine operator sign troubling
Basically, if you see 73 accumulation violations, that's a sign of a mine operator who is not too concerned with safety. It's troubling if you see that many.