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Originally posted by honeychile
I agree with you, except for one point. It's next to impossible for a coal miner to get or afford insurance. Throw in the fact that the company had 208 safety violations last year, 46 of which were in December, and the few who do have insurance may not be eligible because of that. Sago was just bought out by another company; we can only hope that the new company will put the necessary safety improvements. Until it's known what really happened, it's all guesswork.
These aren't all "poor, uneducated rednecks" who didn't even try to get out of the mines (yes, I know that no one has said that, but it has been implied). Some of these men had college degrees (electric engineers, safety engineers, etc) which would have qualified them for megabucks elsewhere.
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You know, these mines can get violations for not having enough toilet paper in the restroom( no joke). So before we start pointing to that as the cause, we need to look at all the facts.
The company that had owned the mine previously had gone bankrupt a year ago ( I think) and had no $$ to work on the violations. The current owners recently aquired the mine and have been working for about 2 months, trying to get it up to code. But no matter many or how few violations a mine, has, there is no way to make it completely safe. There just isn't. It's just a dangerous job. My husband is a director of coal sales and trading here in NC, and he's been to his company's mines in WV, and he told me, you just can't accident-proof the mines. And you can get violations for small, dinky crap like literally not having enough toilet paper in the bathroom. So, we have no idea what kind of shape this mine was in.
That being said, I think miners don't get paid enough for what they do.