Miners will be better protected from toxic silica dust that has led to the premature deaths of thousands of miners from a respiratory disease commonly known as black lung disease, the Labor Department said Tuesday as it issued a new federal rule on miner safety.
final ruleannounced Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su is cutting the permissible exposure limit for crystalline silica in half for an eight-hour shift.
Miners, public defenders and elected officials from Appalachian states pushed for stricter rules, noting that health problems have increased in recent years as miners dig through more layers of rock to access coal seams after deposits closer to the surface have long been exposed. Increased drilling is producing deadly silica dust and causing severe forms of pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung disease, even among young miners, some in their 30s and 40s.
“It is unconscionable that our nation’s miners have worked without adequate protection from silica dust, even though it has posed a known health hazard for decades,” Su said Tuesday. “Today we are making it clear that no job should be a death sentence, and every worker has the right to go home healthy and safe at the end of the day.”
In Central Appalachia, about one in five full-time miners suffers from black lung disease. The disease shortens life expectancy by an average of 12 years and makes it difficult to “talk on the phone or play with grandchildren without getting out of breath,” Su said in a speech in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where she was speaking with Cecil Roberts. , president of the United Mine Workers of America and other labor leaders.
“For too long we thought this was the case for people working in mines,” Su said. “They had to work without the same protection from silica dust that people in other industries have, even though we have known about the dangers of silica dust since the days of Frances Perkins,” who was Secretary of Labor in the 1930s and 1940s.
The election year rule shows “what it’s like to have the most pro-labor, pro-union president in history,” Su said, a political comment referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.
Rebecca Shelton, policy director for the Appalachian Civil Law Center, which has pushed for stricter rules to protect miners, said the group is reviewing the rule to ensure that regulators at the Mine Safety and Health Administration take into account comments from medical professionals, lawyers and miners who worked on the rule for years.
“There are too many lives at stake to be wrong, and we will do everything we can to ensure this rule provides the protections miners deserve,” Shelton said.
Democratic senators from Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia welcomed the new rule, saying it would go a long way in protecting miners.
A spokesman for the National Mining Association said the group is reviewing the rule but supports lower limits. The mining lobby is pushing to allow the use of administrative controls and personal protective equipment to meet safety standards. “Unfortunately, these recommendations were not included in the final rule,” spokesman Conor Bernstein said.
Vonda Robinson, whose husband John was diagnosed with black lung a decade ago at age 47, said she is hopeful as officials consider changing the rules. But she was skeptical about how the rule would be enforced.
Robinson, who lives in rural Nickelsville, Virginia, near the Tennessee line, said the Mine Safety Administration does not have enough staff and resources to adequately protect workers and their families.
“You can have rules, but unless you back them up with compliance, it won’t mean anything,” she said in an interview. “If they’re going to make these decisions, you need to hire more people.”
The White House requested a $50 million increase to the Office of Mining Safety’s budget for the current year, most of which would go toward increasing the number of inspectors and law enforcement agencies. Congress rejected it, keeping the 2023 budget at $388 million.
Vonda Robinson said her husband struggles every day. John Robinson worked in the mines for almost three decades. Two years ago, the couple met with a doctor about a lung transplant.
“Until you see it and live with it, you don’t understand,” Vonda Robinson said. “And knowing what we’re seeing now – miners being diagnosed at 32 – they’ll probably never see their children graduate from university or have grandchildren.”
The Department of Labor rule lowers the permissible exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for exposure over an entire shift, calculated as an 8-hour average. If a miner’s exposure exceeds the exposure limit, mine operators must take immediate corrective action.
This rule is consistent with the exposure levels established by OSHA for the construction and other non-mining industries. And that’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standard. recommending back in 1974.
The Department of Labor began studying silica and its impact on worker health nearly a century ago, but the focus on ending workplace exposure has largely bypassed miners. Instead, rules focused on coal dustseparate hazard created by crushing or grinding of coal rock, which also contributes to black lung.
In subsequent decades, silica dust became a major problem as Appalachian miners cut through layers of sandstone to reach less accessible coal seams in mines that had long mined coal closer to the surface. Silica dust is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and even after years of exposure causes severe forms of black lung disease.