Collapse of Dignity (15 page)

The support pillars in the facility were also found to be deficient. In any mine, as progress is made in extraction of the minerals, the miners attack the wall with pick and shovel or use a high-powered drill to bore into the deposits. As they do so, the cavity of the mine becomes deeper,
wider, and higher, and each time they move forward they must continually reinforce the tunnel with posts—“monkeys,” or “monos” in Spanish, as the miners call them—to support the ceiling and walls. There should also be steel plates at the bottom of the mine, to prevent cave-ins caused by any vibration or settling of the earth as it is being dug out.

As the miners of Pasta de Conchos advanced deeper into the coal seams, they were indeed setting up these monkeys to support the cave. It's a delicate and important procedure, and the monkeys should ideally be composed of steel or prefabricated concrete. Some mines use wood, though, and this was the case in Pasta de Conchos. When one of these wooden columns was too short to reach from floor to ceiling, the workers would cut a piece from another beam to achieve the right height. This was an improvised measure that severely compromised the stability of the mine. Columns that are broken and stacked or otherwise not in a single piece cannot maintain stability during any major shifting of the earth.

Why would the miners use this inadequate means of supporting the mine? First of all, many of them were not aware of the proper procedures, and there were no supervisory personnel present to correct their mistake. General de Hulla's supervisors were more than happy to have the workers cut up wooden beams and stack them—after all, that was a lot cheaper than buying new supports that would actually fit the mine. In other words, this was just another symptom of the company's obsessive drive for reduced costs and enhanced production and profit.

The disaster of February 19, 2006, was caused in no small part by the poor structure and support of the mine. The union members who were familiar with the state of the mine estimated that the explosion caused a total of fifteen slides throughout the length of the mine due to lack of proper reinforcement.

On top of all this, as I have said, there was no alternative exit tunnel in Mine 8; the company simply refused to build it, ignoring our demands. Even one additional tunnel at the bottom or halfway down the mine would have allowed much greater circulation of air and oxygen, providing better working conditions, greater degasification, and
an emergency exit. In all likelihood, such a tunnel would have helped us rescue some or all of the men whose bodies to this day remain buried in the mine.

Grupo México wouldn't hear of building another exit, which would have cost them $1 million to $2 million, even though it had recently closed the mine briefly and spent between $10 million and $12 million to repair the coking ovens. Why would they do one and not the other? The short answer is that repair of the coking ovens increased the quality and purity of the coal produced at the mine, which in turn increased the price Grupo México could get for it. In other words, repairing the coking ovens had a direct impact on their already absurdly fat profits, but building extra access tunnels didn't. The only effect that would have had was on the safety of the miners, and thus Grupo México didn't care. Their insatiable greed for production drove them to refuse this small investment of $1 million to $2 million, in a year when their estimated profits exceeded $6 billion. The cozy friendship between corporation and government prevented this vital, and ultimately fatal, improvement to Mine 8. It's just one example of how easy it is for Mexico's ruling class to broker under-the-table deals.

It was in this hazardous and poorly maintained mine that the workers
of Pasta de Conchos were forced to labor. The subcontractor, General de Hulla, which employed the majority of the miners, routinely threatened non-union workers with the loss of their jobs if they complained about their wages or the condition of the mine. Grupo México hired General de Hulla for its most dangerous and complicated jobs, and the contractor willingly offered cheap labor from men who were routinely put in harm's way. For $8 a day, the contract workers labored in Pasta de Conchos, while General de Hulla charged Grupo México $73 a day for each of the same workers. While its employer collected all the profits, these ununionized workers labored through ten- to twelve-hour days with no vacation. And of course, each time there were proposals to unionize them, the workers in question were threatened, fired, or relocated.

The miners regularly observed and reported many of the dangerous anomalies that existed at Pasta de Conchos. Had the system of routine inspections been enforced and responded to by Grupo México and the labor department, there is no question that Mine 8 of the Pasta de Conchos unit could have been made into a safe work environment. Yet Grupo México stubbornly fought off any efforts to improve the mine, their refusals invariably backed by officials from President Fox's labor department. Of all the companies the labor department should be monitoring, high-risk ones like Grupo México should be at the very top of the list. But officials in Mexico City ignore this obligation. They issue mining permits for locations thousands of miles away, with no oversight or understanding of the daily hazard faced by workers or the impact mining has in local communities. The citizens of Mexico have paid the salaries of government inspectors who repeatedly fail to do their jobs.

In a coal mine like Pasta de Conchos, inspections should take place at least every fifteen days. To represent the workers during these inspections, local branches of the Miners' Union select a Joint Health and Safety Commission at each work site. The size of the commission increases with the number of workers at a site, but for an average site the commission consists of about three or four union members. These commissions' basic role, according to Miners' Union bylaws and the collective bargaining agreements signed with each of the companies, is to make frequent visits to the mines and the work centers and detect defects in safety systems and equipment, making suggestions to immediately correct any problems they see. Reports from the Joint Health and Safety Commission typically fall into two categories: urgent reports, which warn that an accident could be imminent, and reports that recommend preventive maintenance or medium-term service for problems that affect production, operations, and maintenance of a production center.

As stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement between union members and company, these tours are to be conducted with a representative from the labor department and representatives from the company, and they should result in a jointly prepared report that carefully records every fault or problem observed. The report is then used as the basis for
making demands of the company. The company must abide by the collective bargaining agreement, the Mexican Constitution, and the federal labor law to correct each irregularity in order to prevent accidents.

That's not how it worked at Pasta de Conchos. Labor department officials showed up for inspections only sporadically, and the resulting reports were often rigged. When inspectors did show up at the mine, instead of taking them down into the work site to perform their duties, company officials invited them to dine and chat with them. Grupo México prepared the reports and got them approved by the Department of Labor without input from the Joint Health and Safety Commission. (Naturally, this false certificate stated that everything was in order and within the appropriate safety standards and therefore there were no risks to fear.) In violation of law, officials then tried to get the workers who belonged to the Joint Health and Safety Commission to sign the falsified minutes. When the union members of the Joint Health and Safety Commission did not accept the minutes prepared by the company and supported by the complicit department of labor, they suffered threats of dismissal, either by losing their work altogether or having to relocate to areas that were more difficult and dangerous and where they would receive lower salaries and benefits. Thus, members of the Joint Health and Safety Commission who were supposed to make observations and propose urgent corrections were threatened with punishment or loss of their jobs. Officials would simply order that work proceed as if nothing were wrong. The contractors from General de Hulla and workers belonging to the Miners' Union were pressured into signing the minutes. They were routinely told not to worry, that the mine would “be okay.” Javier García, a contract worker who provided his services to General de Hulla, had persisted in reporting the deplorable conditions, and the company responded by firing him one month before the tragedy. Fortunately for him, being fired from his job saved his life.

Regardless of this deception and coercion on the part of the operators of the Pasta de Conchos facility, the workers would tour the mine on their own, prepare their own reports—some of which nearly reached book length—and save them, without the signature of Grupo México
or labor department representatives. But the reports and complaints of the workers produced no results except silence from the mine's owners.

When it wasn't bullying the miners into acknowledging false inspection reports, Grupo México was giving the miners false hope about future improvements to the work site. According to the members of Union Section No. 13, the union branch at Pasta de Conchos, Sergio Rico, operations superintendent at the mine, assured workers that there were plans to improve Mine 8. The main part of the plan, in addition to correcting truly basic elements such as changing cables, replacing a recording box in the electrical control system, and correcting mechanical defects in the coal transport cars, was to build the desperately needed second access tunnel. The new entrance would be located at the end of the mine, with its own ventilation system. Supported by perforations to the surface to reduce interior gas concentrations, the new system would better circulate clean air throughout the mine. That, of course, never happened. Because it felt supported and protected by the Department of Labor, Grupo México did not consider the improvements necessary, although the company knew such negligence was totally illegal.

The last true inspection of the Pasta de Conchos mine took place in July 2004, a year and a half before the explosion. The report shows that forty-eight problems were detected, including problems with electrical systems, transportation, and gas concentrations. Severe situations were “fixed” with duct tape—not enough to prevent a spark and the ensuing explosion. The company never met with government inspectors, during or after their visit, and never met with the union members who belonged to the Joint Health and Safety Commission. The processes and rules for inspections and meetings of the commission—set forth in the union's collective bargaining agreements with Grupo México—were never taken into consideration. The labor department took a full year to even send the July 2004 inspection report to Grupo México.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Salazar stated that on February 7, 2006, two weeks before the explosion, an inspection had taken place and that of thirty-four observations, twenty-eight were addressed and the other six were not, because they were in areas that were closed to
the operation. But the reality was that there was no such inspection, and the report didn't mention the still-uncorrected forty-eight irregularities from July 2004. The inspectors didn't even go down into the mine or tour the facilities on February 7. It was only a “verification” visit, as Salazar and Grupo México acknowledged much later, exclusively to check on the previously reported forty-two observations. If a true inspection had taken place, the inspectors would have seen that many of the forty-two anomalies from the visit in 2004 had still not been addressed—and had they any conscience, they would have closed the mine immediately. To inspect a coal mine on a yearly basis rather than biweekly one is nothing more than appalling irresponsibility.

It is equally appalling to note who was directly responsible for the governmental inspections of Pasta de Conchos. The labor department's delegate for the state of Coahuila is none other than Labor Secretary Salazar's son-in-law, Pedro Camarillo. Undoubtedly, Camarillo—even if he'd felt some need to honestly inspect and report on the conditions of Pasta de Conchos—would have felt extreme reluctance at opposing the wishes of his wife's father and the billionaire businessmen who supported him. (And of course, Salazar's own ownership of two direct suppliers to Grupo México constituted a major conflict of interest.) Yet Salazar and Grupo México representatives somehow managed to keep a straight face when they reported to the press that all necessary inspections had been done, and that Grupo México's operations were laudably safe.

On the night of Saturday, February 18, 2006, a few hours before the
main tunnel of Mine 8 would become choked with tons of coal and rock, Francisco Perez was preparing to leave home for the third shift, which began at 11:00 p.m. It was his wife's birthday, and her party was just getting started. Francisco's family begged him to stay, arguing that he could always invent an excuse to justify his absence the next day, even if he just said he was sick. The miner reluctantly agreed—it was his wife's birthday, after all. It was a decision that saved his life.

Whether it was pure luck or some sort of premonition on the part of Francisco's family is impossible to say. But one thing is certain: The miners knew that their lives were at risk that night. Earlier on Saturday, the workers of the first and second shifts had decided to suspend work because of the miserable conditions they found in the mine: high concentrations of gas, dust, smoke, chemical substances, and materials that they felt in the atmosphere, getting denser all the time. It was apparent that the mine was ripe for a disaster. Some of the miners got together that day, and a colleague proposed that a formal work stoppage begin, starting officially after a meeting that would take place on the following Tuesday, February 21. Those present agreed that on the twenty-first, they would gather all the miners and vote on the strike, to establish the majority support that Mexican labor law requires before a stoppage begins. The law does allow for an emergency stoppage before the vote, but they wanted to follow the whole procedure before they officially walked off the job on Tuesday. They knew Salazar had it in for the union, and they thought it would be better to follow the most legally defensible path.