Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)

The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) works to prevent death, illness, and injury from mining and promote safe and healthful workplaces for U.S. miners. (note: this account is done in parody and opinions expressed on this account do not necessarily respect the views of MSHA or the US Department of Labor)

[halosnothere]

well that can't be good

[miamaimania]

◆ Mirny Diamond Mine ~ Russia ⌘ 525m deep × 1.25km wide — the downdraft above the pit can ground aircraft

[redscharlach]

Sometimes you gaze into the abyss and sometimes the abyss gazes into you and sometimes it likes what it sees and decides to move in just down the street from you so you can spend more quality time together.

[halosnothere]

well that can't be good

[what-even-is-thiss]

I think that people on both sides of the political spectrum thinking that the government doesn’t do anything for them is unfortunately a product of people not noticing things when they work well.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Sure you notice when the government works badly. You notice the lines at the dmv, lawmakers getting nothing done, taxes being overcomplicated, lack of protections on this and that, hurting this or that people group, not punishing companies enough n

And that’s all worth criticizing. Absolutely.

However, it also does a lot of stuff you don’t notice. Making sure companies don’t take more out of your bank account than they should, forcing your boss to pay you, maintaining the roads, building a new gym at your kid’s high school, making sure there’s no lead in your coffee, stopping random soldiers on leave from breaking down your door and stealing your Cheerios, standardizing nutrition labels, making sure your house won’t collapse during your local natural disasters, getting internet to people, putting fluoride in the water to protect your teeth.

There’s a million things every day that governments do that people just don’t seem to understand. And they can absolutely be better.

Most governments are messed up in their own special way. But claiming that they do nothing is like saying “we don’t need to hire a guy to clean kelp off the beach because the beach is always clean” when the beach is always clean and free of rotting kelp because the local government hired a guy to clean it.

[prismatic-bell]

Also worth noting is that the government not working the way you want it to does not mean it's not working.

If you're screaming that we shouldn't have a guy cleaning kelp off the beach because there's always driftwood, your problem is not with the guy cleaning kelp, it's that you dislike the driftwood.

The solution is as follows:

1) figure out if the driftwood is actually hurting anyone, or if this is simply a minor annoyance you have to accept by virtue of living on Planet Earth.

2) if it is indeed a problem, contact your city and be like "hey, so you know how we have the kelp guy? Can we add a driftwood guy? Here's why we need one."

3) get others to also ask the city for a driftwood guy.

4) in the meantime, get together with some folks AND PICK UP THE FUCKING DRIFTWOOD. Maybe use this as a way to show why it's important to remove the driftwood.

5) either way, at the end the beach won't be covered in driftwood.

The solution is NOT as follows:

1) bitch, whine, piss, moan, and throw a tantrum about the kelp guy not clearing the driftwood, and how if he's not going to clear the driftwood you're going to hope everyone votes for the guy who plans to dump nuclear waste on the beach.

[free-and-to-none-accountable]

Hey you should read the Industrial Worker

Industrial Worker

Official Publication of the Industrial Workers of the World

Launched in 1907, Industrial Worker is the official English-language publication of the Industrial Workers of the World, a worker-led union dedicated to direct action, workplace democracy and industrial unionism. Follow the IWW on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Questions, comments, and other concerns about Industrial Worker should be directed to the IWW’s Industrial Worker Editor at [email protected].

The IW is the place to go stay abreast of what's going on in the One Big Union and its affiliates and to keep up with the radical movement for workers' rights. In addition to current events, the IW also conducts interviews and publishes articles about labor history and what's going on in the IWW.

Like we had said in this article from 2019: "If you’re a member of the working class, then this is your blog. We built this site to be a place where workers can write about what matters to them and share their experience in labor and community organization."

Come check it out, it's real good

Hello Wobblies!

Industrial Worker has finally entered the 21st Century!

[atlxolotl]

[beesmygod]

they gave out these stickers at my elementary school after harrowing assemblies about dying in mines. STAY OUT AND STAY ALIVE!!!!!

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[probablybadrpgideas]

Infiltrate a villain’s lair by pretending to be the OSHA inspector

"they don't even have dental"

[ebethdoodles]

ralph the adorable OSHAwott who is good at his job but no one takes seriously until they're hit with numerous workplace safety violations

[helenvaughans]

[ralfmaximus]

It's gonna take decades to rebuild what those arrogant DOGE children broke. I honestly want them prosecuted for sabotage.

[msha-official]

[elisecairo]

[msha-official]

Long story short: a revision to MSHA's requirements was proposed to remove the clause "Additional measures may be required in plans by the District Manager." (30CFR § 75.222)

This will cause more miners to die.

The public comment period ends July 31, 2025. The link with the rule change and instructions to comment is below.

I've also included my own defense for why this regulation change is hazardous and ultimately more costly for the mining industry as a whole.

Variability in roof conditions means not every coal mine is able to support the roof in a way that will prevent roof falls from killing the miners with the minimum roof support. The clause "Additional measures may be required in plans by the District Manager" (30CFR § 75.222)" addresses these shortcomings to suit the requirements of the individual mine's roof control plan to best protect the miners, without having to hold the entire industry to an unreasonably high standard, just to protect the miners at the mine with the worst conditions. By having the discretion to individually allocate minimum support at each mine based on the conditions present, this clause is actually saving the rest of the industry from having to follow stricter regulations everywhere.

Executive Order 12866 requires agencies to tailor regulations to impose the least burden on society. Having individualized roof control plans does this by imposing the burden of following stricter guidelines on only one mine instead of requiring every mine in the country to follow those stricter regulations

Removing this clause places the onus of miner safety more fully in the operator's hands to be able to address conditions that are not addressed in the minimum roof control requirements set forth by the regulations. The District Manager adds individualized mine requirements based on the conditions of each mine to ensure the safety of the miners working there. These additions are non-arbitrary and based on addressing the conditions of the mine. If this ability of the District Manager is removed, more miners will die from roof falls where the minimum roof control requirements are not sufficient to address individual mine conditions.

2016 marked the first year in US history where 0 roof fall fatalities occurred. Having additional requirements for each mine at the discretion of the District Manager is proven to work at preventing roof fall fatalities.

In addition, preventing fatalities by using appropriate roof support to begin with simply costs less than addressing fatalities. The annual savings estimated by this proposal of $1.1 million over 10 years is outweighed by the cost of addressing fatalities that will occur if mine-specific regulations, addressed by the District Manager, are removed.

The rule change also cites that this role change will result in "a more efficient Agency review and approval of roof control plans for underground coal mines." If every proposed change to a roof control plan needs full comment periods and the equivalent status of a publicly-applied law for a change that should only affect a single mine, the roof control plan approval process will significantly slowed.

Further note: the regulations for ventilation requirements and other specific mining plans are also being edited to remove similar clauses. Please also submit comments to those regulation changes.

[sherdnerdcollective]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/science/archaeology-trump-federal-budget.html

In the U.S., Archaeology Stares Down an Uncertain Future

Federal layoffs and grant terminations threaten efforts to understand and preserve the nation’s past. “We are getting cut off at the knees,” said one archaeologist.

[sirfrogsworth]

I was trying to think of a way to explain why this is stupid and also ghoulish. I think I came up with something.

Imagine you are an engineer designing body armor. You are tasked with making sure the body armor can stop 10 different types of bullets. In your first attempt, you create body armor that stops 6 of the 10 bullets. You start selling those because that's pretty good protection. You can save some lives while you continue to improve things.

You already know how to stop 6 bullets, but you really want to figure out how to stop the last 4. So you do exactly what you did before, but add a few more layers of Kevlar and a steel plate.

Your boss, RFK Jr., says he wants a test of the new and improved body armor. But he says you have to give one test subject the real thing and the other test subject fake body armor that does nothing.

And you're like, "Hey, can I at least give them the body armor that stops 6 bullets? We already know that gives some protection. We only need to compare the new armor to what we already accomplished."

And RFK says, "No, please shoot a person dead. It's science."

[starfieldcanvas]

Frogman's example above is a very good illustration of what's going on with non-placebo vaccine trials, but I'd also like to share my favorite explanation for why we don't do randomized controlled trials for everything—this "joke" study on the effectiveness of parachutes:

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial - PubMed

Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervent

All studies involving human or animal participants have to pass a certain threshold of safety for all involved (this is done by the IRB for human trials and the IACUC for animal trials.) if you wanted to do a control group for parachutes, the only way to make it safe would be to have everyone jump out of the plane while it was still on the ground. in which case the people with parachutes and the people without parachutes would have the same survival rate, making it look like having a parachute is not an improvement over no parachute.

so while the theoretical outcome of RFK's bullshit is this "kill people for science" thing, the IRB still exists; it wasn't just made up by the FDA or DHS, its existence is directly required by the US Legal Code (Title 42, §289. Institutional review boards; ethics guidance program, elaborated on more in Title 45 CFR 46). Studies that get federal funding still need ethics boards, per federal law, and the composition of ethics boards is controlled by federal law as well. RFK Jr can't wipe that away as easily as he can wipe away other things.

What that means in practice is that RFK Jr will say "let's do a randomized controlled study where we lie to parents about whether or not their children are actually getting vaccinated" and the ethics board will say "that's unethical, you can't do that" and RFK Jr will say "fine, then we won't do any research at all!" and now there's no research proving the new vaccines are safe and effective.

He does not actually want proof that vaccines are better than placebo. He wants to get rid of vaccines altogether. I'm pretty sure the point here is not directly killing people in unethical trials; it's to make it impossible to get any evidence that vaccines work.

[msha-official]

Thank you to our fearless (unconfirmed) leader for checking the buzz word sheet (but not much else) before opening up the town hall to everyone in MSHA. Wayne and Julianne really made it clear how much they care about mining in this country, and fast-tracking some mines keep critical minerals that we don't want to pay another country for, since we've already burned all those bridges.

Thank you Wayne for emphasizing how much you value community policing. Everyone loves having their work and opinions scrutinized by someone who doesn't know what they do.

Thank you for emphasizing transparency, but making sure our business is our business and we shouldn't talk to the media.

Wayne, you brought up your amazing critical thinking skills very often. I'd love to see you employ them someday.

It was wonderful you opened the town hall to everyone asking questions, and then proceeded to flounder every single one. I do love that you mentioned multiple times you had "no transparency" especially concerning the multiple questions about RIF notices, and whether they are forthcoming. I see that all types of transparency are being employed.

You did make it very clear you don't know economics, as you claimed at the start. I'm sure when you were growing up dazzled by America's booming industry, you were missing the lessons on what tariffs even are.

The one true thing you said was that our job is to protect miners and I am at least grateful you understand that much.

[liberalsarecool]

Capitalism kills.

Republicans deregulating kills.

Anti-prevention reactionary ignorance kills.