Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952

Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952

The Federal Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952 allowed federal inspectors to shut down any mine employing more than 15 workers if they believed conditions in the mine were serious enough to warrant such action (an “imminent danger withdrawal order”—such orders have never been used by the Bureau or its successors, including MSHA). Inspectors were now allowed to cite owners for less significant violations also, and if such conditions were maintained, the inspectors were allowed to shut down the mine.  The act gave the Bureau of Mines the ability to level civil penalties against recalcitrant employers, but monetary fines were still not made available to the agency. It also beefed up safety standards by requiring mine owners to purchase new equipment. But most regulation was still left in the hands of the states, with the Bureau only getting directly involved in the wake of a disaster or after a request of assistance from one of the state agencies. The weakness of the law is evident in a House committee report that explicitly explains the legislation’s goal: to address the 10 percent of mining deaths caused by disasters (termed as events that kill five or more miners) not the 90 percent of miners who die lonely deaths in ones and twos.

Cry Wolf Quotes

Now, if there is a real purpose to be accomplished by what you ask here from a safety standpoint, then you have my vote. But if the only purpose is to set up something that you say is going to be another police force, like they had in Germany and Russia, to inspect other policemen…then I say we are wasting our time.

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Representative Thomas Werdel (R-CA), who would run as Vice-President of the States’ Rights Party in 1956. House Committee on Education and Labor.

There are on an average 1,000 men who lose their lives in the coal mines annually. Ninety percent of the men lose their lives in the ordinary accidents, accidents in which the individual plays an important role usually. The other 10 percent lose their lives as a result of what we call mine disasters. Those disasters are preventable. They are almost in every case not caused by some action of the individual workman.

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James Hyslop, president of the Hanna Coal company.