[lbo-talk] Dangerous Work Done Dirt Cheap

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

Leigh writes:
>Would you give up your so-called modern "lifestyle" to protect these
>workers? Would you turn the thermostat down so the intense pressure
>to pull coal out of the ground under uncertain/unsafe conditions would
>not be neccesary? (this would also apply to the oil/gas refineries in the
>US that have been running at 95% utilization (pre-Katrina), and have
>had incredibly high "incident and accident" rates for the last couple
>of years).

C'mon Leigh.  The reason the refineries are running at 95% is that the oil 
industry bought up the smaller refineries and shut them down to raise the price 
of gas.  (Some 1990s memos to this effect were obtained in a recent lawsuit in 
California, from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco.)   This is because the majors 
will make more money if there's a capacity shortfall.  It's not "lifestyle" or 
"consumption" but capitalist production--and in this case capitalist destruction 
of productive capacity--that leads to unsafe working conditions.  

Jenny Brown