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Forgetting nation's miners

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-07 07:58

On March 31, three days after the Wangjialing mining accident in which 153 miners were trapped underground, a gas explosion jolted a coalmine in Yichuan county, Henan province, and buried about 35 miners. The tragic accidents show that miners are being neglected under the current growth-oriented development model, argues an article in the Oriental Morning Post. Excerpts:

In very short order, tragic incidents have struck a large State-owned mine in Wangjialing and a small private mine in Yichuan. In both incidents, the managers or owners of the mines were disregarding the safety of miners.

The scourge of the accidents is the political-economic framework that ruthlessly pursues economic growth and ignores labor rights. In recent decades, China has been obsessed with economic growth. Government officials, many academics, and a large part of the public believe that growth is the panacea to social and political problems.

In this mindset, government policies have become slanted in favor of capital and business but against laborers, especially migrant workers from rural areas.

Labor costs are being squeezed; labor rights are being slighted. In the mines, many miners were not offered safety training and they are not allowed to negotiate collectively with owners. As a consequence, China's coalmines have become the most dangerous in the world.

(China Daily 04/07/2010 page9)