Rebecca Clarren

I have a white bandana that I carry around with me. It’s thin cotton; it offers the smallest of comfort when I cry or sneeze or spill something. However for thousands of immigrant women who weed, prune and harvest fruits and vegetables throughout the West, bandanas such as mine are their singular shield from sun, pesticides and a more formidable threat: sexual assault and harassment from their coworker or boss.

Patricia Zavella, a professor of Latina American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz revealed in a 2003 journal article that bandanas and baggy clothes help women to mask their beauty and figures. Yet very often, these shields aren’t sufficient. I report in High Country News this week [Plowing Under the Fields of Shame] that sexual abuse and harassment of farm worker women is a serious problem.

The abuse - and dismissal - of immigrant women who work in agriculture is epidemic. In a 1997 study, 90 percent of female farmworkers in California reported sexual harassment as a major problem. Ten years later, those who work with farmworkers say that abuse - which ranges from obscene jokes and sexual innuendo to inappropriate rubbing, pinching and even rape - affects thousands of women. Workers in Salinas, Calif., refer to one company as the field de calzon, or “field of panties,” because so many supervisors rape women there. In several recent cases brought before federal court in California, women who resisted advances were fired or suspended without pay.

(Read on …)

Felice Pace

Few in the West are unaware that the federal crackdown on immigration has had an impact on western industries. The March 3rd edition of HCN, for example, included this comment on the situation from Bill Crooke’s essay for Writers on the Range:“There are upsides to the employment crunch (in Cody, Wyo.): It’s harder to get fired, and the increasingly desperate business community has to keep raising wages and incentives.”

Crooke may have been thinking more about the energy boom, but the loss of immigrant labor is affecting wages and employment not just in Wyoming but throughout the West. Even Silicon Valley is feeling the pinch. But the largest impacts are on low wage service industries and agriculture. From California to Colorado and Arizona to Idaho growers are wondering who will pick the fruit, prune the vines and hoe the weeds while motel owners wonder who will clean the rooms and restaurateurs are in search of cooks and dish washers. .

Another western industry which has “suffered” as a result of the immigration crackdown is the ski industry.

(Read on …)

Evelyn Schlatter

I was talking a few weeks ago to Robyn McCulloch, the state mining engineer of Montana, and something he said stuck with me. Since the 1980s, when “mining essentially tanked in this country,” he said, programs to learn it as a trade disappeared as well. There’s been a brain drain. In other words, most people working in mining these days are in their 40s or older because mining just doesn’t attract younger people and the ones it does attract tend to come from rural areas. They’re used to the whole idea of mining. But the problem there, McCulloch said, is that rural wages haven’t increased much over the years, so families can’t afford to send their kids to college or tech schools where they’d learn mining.

I thought about that and about changing values and expectations across different industries, and also about how new technologies are affecting industries like mining, in which fewer workers are needed to do the work. I don’t really see that many young people (read: 30 and younger) in trades like construction, plumbing, electrical work, or manufacturing. Unless you’re watching Home and Garden TV, which does feature a few beautiful, hip, young people doing things like carpentry, drywall installation, and bathroom upgrades. (See? Building things can be SEXY!) For the most part, however, what we’re talking about here is the “graying” of U.S. skilled trades. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if there aren’t any younger people coming up through the ranks, that means no one’s replacing retiring workers. Immigrant labor notwithstanding (and that’s a whole other discussion).

(Read on …)

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Here’s an update on the latest best stories on the Crandall Canyon Mine cave-ins, which have apparently killed six miners, two rescuers and a federal mine-safety official. These journalists are doing notable public service:

The mining method pushed by the current owner was more dangerous than previous methods, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, here and here.

Many pressures — economic and political — contributed to the cave-ins, says the Washington Post.

The boss of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, appointed by Bush, is under fire.

The mine, run by various owners since 2004, broke a lot of safety regs, says the Deseret Morning News.

Mines scout all the way to Mexican villages to recruit workers, including some caught in the cave-ins, says the LA Times.

Utah’s coal-mining families are loyal to the industry but some have questions now.

The rescuers risked their lives in a very difficult place.

The mine owner is already talking about reopening the mine, says The New York Times.

And for my previous list of best stories digging into the disaster, go here.

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

Today’s New York Times article about more and more people fleeing the cities for the resort towns of the West, and then telecommuting from there, offered few surprises. Most of us who live in the rural West have watched this phenomenon take root and then grow over the years. The Times’ John Leland sums it up:

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Time was you could tell the urban refugees in places like this: corporate achievers who quit the rat race to open a bed and breakfast or a candle shoppe.

Jim Moylan represents a new tribe in this bucolic mountain town, named for its loud sulfur spring. Mr. Moylan, 59, is a lawyer who specializes in securities and commodities work. When he moved from Chicago in 2003, he did not downscale his career for the small town, keeping his secretary and associates in Chicago and his clients around the country. He conducts his practice by fax and e-mail, just as he did in Chicago.

As a multi-generational native of the rural West myself, I am ambivalent about this sort of thing that technology, mostly the Internet, has made possible. It’s liberating to know that most of us — at least those of us who work mostly from a desk, in front of a computer — can work from wherever we please, as long as there’s a high speed Internet connection and cell phone reception. It increases our mobility, which, whether we like it or not, is part of American culture.

(Read on …)

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Mining in the Rocky Mountains is dangerous, but not as dangerous as oil and gas work. I discovered that chilling fact, when I researched oil and gas fatalities for my High Country News project headlined: “Death in the energy fields.”

Mining accidents killed 48 workers in the Rockies from 2000 to 2006, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. About twice as many workers got killed in the oil and gas fields, in the same period and territory, according to my research.

But rightly so, the cave-in that now traps six men deep underground in a Utah coal mine is headline news around the region, since Monday.

You’ve probably seen some of the coverage. And … you probably missed some of the best stories, because you can’t be everywhere at once. So here’s a quick guide to the best, with excerpts to give you an indication of what you can learn by following the links:

From Seth Borenstein, AP’s veteran tough-nosed science reporter:

The method of mining used at the Utah mine … has a history of being disproportionately deadly, according to federal safety studies.

The … miners were engaged in a method called “retreat mining,” in which pillars of coal are used to hold up an area of the mine’s roof. When that area is completely mined, the company pulls the pillar and grabs the useful coal, causing an intentional collapse.

It is “the most dangerous type of mining there is,” said Tony Oppegard, a former top federal and state of Kentucky mine safety official who is now a private attorney in Lexington, Ky., representing miners.

According to the American Society of Safety Engineers, retreat mining requires very precise planning and sequencing to ensure roof stability while the pillars supporting the roof are removed.

The reason the practice is used is that it pays off: The last bit of coal taken from pillars is pure profit, Oppegard said. Plus, if someone violates rules during pillar removal and there is a collapse, the evidence of rule violations are gone, he said.

Retreat pillar mining is one of the biggest causes of mine roof collapse deaths … (full story is here.)

From Ken Ward, Jr., another tough-nosed veteran, who specializes in coal-mining investigations:

Murray Energy President Bob Murray … has developed a reputation for taking on unions and battling environmentalists. He’s become known for donating big money to Republican politicians, and for occasionally using his political ties to try to bully government regulators.

… His privately held company has 11 mines and 3,300 employees in five states, and touts a production figure of 32 million tons of coal per year.

Along the way, Murray has also become a major political player. Murray Energy ranks among the coal industry’s major donors to federal candidates. Since 1996, Murray has contributed nearly $1 million, most of it to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Murray has also not hesitated to make use of those political connections.

In May 2002, two U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration officials were transferred after they clashed with Murray over inspections at the company’s Maple Creek Mine in western Pennsylvania.

Later, West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported that Murray warned MSHA officials in Morgantown that the same thing would happen to them if they didn’t let up on inspections at his Powhatan No. 6 Mine in Belmont County, Ohio.

“Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss,” Murray told the MSHA officials, according to meeting notes cited by public broadcasting. McConnell, a Republican U.S. senator from Kentucky, is married to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, whose department includes MSHA.

After that meeting with Murray, MSHA Morgantown district manager Tim Thompson was transferred.

Murray has also dueled with environmental regulators and with citizen groups. (Full story is here.)

From Robert Gehrke and Paul Beebe of the Salt Lake Tribune:

(In Murray’s briefing of reporters at the disaster scene) that was carried live on national television, Murray defended the coal industry, attacked the media and railed against what he called a foolhardy crusade against global warming that jeopardized his industry and America’s economy.

It was a public relations meltdown … but in many ways it appears to have been Murray being Murray — an eccentric, passionate, politically connected coal executive who has never shied from speaking his mind.

… Murray insisted there was no way the collapse was not caused by an earthquake — “It was a natural disaster and I’ll prove it to you” — even though a federal geologist said … the collapse was absolutely not caused by an earthquake. (Full story is here.)

From Christopher Smart of the Salt Lake Tribune:

“I’ve had men die in my arms. I’ve been trapped in mines,” (Murray) said, noting he had spent half a century in the coal mining business. (Full story is here.)

For more background on Murray’s company and the mine and the controversies, go here and here and here.

And to listen to a National Public Radio report on Murray allegedly pressuring workers to operate in unsafe conditions, go here.

With the rescuers facing tremendous difficulties, and the time that’s gone by since the cave-in, the trapped miners’ chances don’t look good. Murray, in his briefings and railings against journalists and critics, places it all in the hands of his god. Let’s hope for survival, and expect the investigations to unearth any human responsibility, in the interest of reducing workplace dangers in the future.

Microsoft is looking for a few hundred more software geniuses to staff its new development center. The new office will be close to its Redmond headquarters, but not too close: it will be opening in Vancouver, B.C., and Microsoft cites tough U.S. immigration laws as the reason. The company says the kind of talent it needs is in short supply in North America, and it wants to attract highly-trained workers from all over the world, including folks trained at U.S. universities who are unable to legally work here. Although skilled workers can qualify for H1-B visas, there are only so many of those visas available, and according to the L.A. Times:

The demand for H-1B visas for high-skilled immigrants has become so much greater than the supply that almost twice as many applications arrived in a single day as there were slots available for the year — 65,000, plus 20,000 for those with advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

Meanwhile, Canada’s borders are wide open to skilled workers, particularly those in the tech industry. Microsoft says this, plus Vancouver’s position as a “global gateway,” is its reason for moving north.

(Read on …)

If Ray Ring’s massive and authoritative opus on death in the West’s oil and gas fields didn’t convince you that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a toothless watchdog, you might want to read this AP story, which shows Wyoming and Montana to have the worst workplace safety records in the country. Here’s the operative quote from Kim Floyd, AFL-CIO executive secretary for Wyoming:

“In some instances fines are only $1,000 or $2,000 to a company for a fatality. That’s just a drop in the bucket in reality to these big corporations. It’s cheaper to kill people than it is to put on safety programs.”

And if you still don’t think OSHA needs some reform — and a whole new crop of top managers — take a look at this quote from the New York Times recent story on OSHA’s tendency to play footsie with the industries it is supposed to be regulating:

“The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency,” said Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health expert at George Washington University who has written extensively about workplace safety. “If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they’ve forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window.”