Coal miners - lessons in the value of life in China and the West

It's amazing how much press coverage there has been on the deaths of 12 coal miners in West Virginia. I suppose what strikes me about this heavy amount of coverage is the sense that this was a real tragedy. Judging by the amount of press coverage I've seen in newspapers and news websites (I don't own a television), it seemed as though 120, 1,200, or 12,000 miners were killed.

While North Americans and Europeans don't usually hear about their coal miners dying, those of us in China are constantly reminded that coal mining is a VERY deadly industry. In the past few years, nearly 6,000 Chinese coal miners die per year. And this is only the REPORTED number, reported by the Chinese media, that is. Who knows what the real death toll is.

Why must so many die in China's coal mines? Well, China needs energy, and importing energy costs money, so the use of coal (and in China's case, high-sulfur coal - BAD coal, that is) is a good choice for a developing country with lax environmental laws (and lax enforcement). In the last couple of years, mines that were shut down because they were unprofitable or deemed unsafe were reopened due to a rise in energy prices.

Which brings us to something that really really pisses me off. Mine owners aren't very concerned about their safety of workers because frankly, life is cheap in China. While American miners earn $25,000 to $50,000 USD a year, Chinese miners make 1000 yuan ($125 USD) a month, or $1,750 USD a year. For peasants-turned-migrant labourers, this isn't a bad salary, if you don't mind working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, with minimal safety equipment. But it IS bad when these miners die. A lot of the time, mine owners are real scumbags who won't pay any compensation to the dead miners' families. In fact, a lot of mine owners, as with factory owners, construction bosses, etc., don't pay their workers. They hold back pay for months, maybe even a year or more, and when the workers ask to be paid, they are fired. And if these workers try to appeal to the authorities or take matters into their own hands? These bosses hire thugs to fight them off, or kill them. Oh yes, this doesn't just apply to unpaid workers and the families of those who die on the job, but also to those who are fired because they're injured on the job.

EDIT: According to the South China Morning Post, about 130 million migrant workers in China were owed 33 billion yuan ($5 billion CAD) in 2003.

A friend of mine who works for a Chinese news agency (guess which one, haha!) told me that the rich people I see in Beijing usually aren't Beijingers, but are outsiders. He wanted to buy an apartment in Beijing, but can't do so with his shitty salary. He blames the Shanxi coal mine owners that move their families to Beijing after striking it rich, usually at the expense of their workers. My disdain for the ultra-wealthy in China intensified three-fold after my buddy told me this.

EDIT: I meant to imply that it is often the same bosses who owe the 33 billion yuan who buy up valuable property, buy BMW's and Audi's, send their children (yes, they have extra children and pay the "fines"), and buy all sorts of luxury goods - usually in bad taste.

Unlike a lot of my friends, I don't consider myself a leftie, but I know social injustice when I see it. Another project I'd like to start later in life is a team, or a network of teams, that identifies such scumbag bosses. These teams would kidnap these bosses and force them to pay their workers, under torture (not 'threat of' torture). Of course, I'd practice responsible vigilantism, and would do sufficient research to confirm these peoples' guilt. Hey, if Simon Wiesanthal could do this with Nazis, why can't I do this with these scum of the earth coal miners?