Miners sue for virus protections
WASHINGTON — Two unions representing hundreds of miners in the Pittsburgh region sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, demanding federal workplace health officials authorize stronger COVID-19 protections for the country’s mines as demand for coal and other minerals rebounds with the U.S. economy.
The United Mine Workers of America, joined by the Downtown based United Steelworkers, asked a federal appeals court in Washington to require the Mine Safety and Health Administration to issue an emergency temporary standard. The standard would legally require employers to provide uniform protections amid the global pandemic, such as an exposure control plan, protective equipment, enhancing cleaning and job protection for workers who fall ill.
The unions cited the first outbreak of COVID-19 cases among coal miners, which were reported in March by Consol Energy at the Bailey Mine complex that sprawls under Greene County and across the West Virginia border.
The lawsuit was filed as many miners are being called back to work in job sites that, the unions argued, can be exceedingly difficult to clean and maintain federal health requirements. Miners are considered “essential” workers — Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf allowed coal mines to stay open after briefly ordering them closed — and have clocked in during the pandemic.
The Virginia-based mine workers’ union represents about 1,000 members in southwestern Pennsylvania, spokesman Phil Smith confirmed Tuesday, including about 450 employees at Contura Energy’s Cumberland Mine near Waynesburg, Greene County.
The United Steelworkers represents about 13,000 miners working at 130 facilities that mine and process minerals like iron ore, copper, salt, nickel, silver, limestone, granite and sand.
“Working in a mine is very different from working in any other workplace,” UMWA International president Cecil E. Roberts said in a written statement. “The air is circulated throughout the mine, meaning an airborne disease like COVID-19 can spread among workers who are far removed from one another. A six-foot social distance is meaningless in an underground environment.”
“We have been asking MSHA to step up and do its job to protect America’s miners from the beginning of this pandemic,” Mr. Roberts added. “But so far, the agency has refused.”
The legal dispute followed months of wrangling over COVID-19 protections between the mine workers’ union and MSHA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor. It is distinct from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which governs standards in non-mining workplaces.
Asked for comment, an administration spokesperson called the lawsuit “counterproductive” and said the U.S. Department of Labor “is committed to protecting American workers during the pandemic, and MSHA has been working around the clock to that end.”
Like OSHA, MSHA has published COVID-19 guidelines on its website from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Labor unions have been pressing both OSHA and MSHA to adopt the emergency standard, which carries legal muscle.
Mr. Roberts asked MSHA for the standard in a letter on March 24, arguing miners are among “the most vulnerable populations for the virus.”
He pointed out that miners often live in rural areas that do not have the same level of health care access as urban centers and that many miners have underlying health conditions, such as black lung disease, that would “greatly exacerbate the severity of the symptoms related to COVID-19.”
A group of U.S. senators from coal states also have pressed MSHA to enforce the standard.
On May 14, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. — joined by Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. — introduced legislation to require the agency to issue an emergency temporary standard.
The bill also would prohibit mine operators from retaliating against miners for reporting infection control problems.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, claims MSHA is breaking the law by refusing to issue an emergency standard.
The suit argues the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 requires the administration to issue such a standard if “miners are exposed to a grave danger” and that an “emergency standard is necessary to protect miners from that danger.”
“The situation confronting miners is urgent,” the suit stated. “As the economy reopens, production increases, and more miners return to work for a greater number of hours, person-to-person contact in the nation’s mines will increase and health experts predict that the already shocking number of infections and deaths among workers will worsen.”
The Pittsburgh region already has seen the effects of COVID-19 in the mines.
In late March, about 500 coal miners were told not to report to the Bailey Mine after two workers tested positive for COVID-19. The shutdown at Bailey lasted two weeks — the amount of time that the virus is believed to be contagious.
Consol Energy, based in Cecil, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.