St. Louis — A federal appellate court’s denial of a United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers of America petition to defend rulemaking on miner exposure to respirable crystalline silica is “profoundly disheartening,” union officials say.
The labor unions expressed their disappointment after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 30 rejected USW and UMWA’s motion to intervene in the court’s April 4 decision to grant a temporary stay of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s final rule on miner exposure to respirable crystalline silica.
“Despite this ruling, we will not stop fighting to ensure that mine workers are protected from silica exposure,” the unions said in a press release. “Every day this rule is delayed is another day that miners are exposed to deadly dust that causes the worst forms of black lung – an incurable disease that this rule will help to prevent.”
USW and UMWA added: “We sincerely hope that MSHA remembers its primary responsibility is to keep miners safe and healthy on the job and joins us in that fight sooner rather than later.”
The ruling follows MSHA’s April 8 announcement of a temporary enforcement pause to Aug. 18, citing “unforeseen NIOSH restructuring” and “other technical reasons.” Coal mine operators had been given a compliance date of April 14 for the long-anticipated rule, which went into effect in June.
The rule lowers the permissible exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air – half the current limit – over an 8-hour time-weighted average. The rule also increases silica sampling and enforcement at metal and nonmetal mines, as well as requires mine operators to provide periodic health exams at no cost to miners.
The rulemaking first appeared on the Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda in 1998. OSHA estimates that about 2.3 million workers are exposed to silica dust each year.
The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association filed a petition on April 2 seeking an expedited emergency stay of the rule. Its claims included that “MSHA lacks evidence that operators can feasibly comply” with the new PEL and “mandates extensive, expansive medical monitoring far beyond what MSHA has authority to compel.”
USW and UMWA countered in an April 14 motion filed with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that “the sudden shift in litigation position signaled by MSHA’s ‘enforcement pause,’ and by its unilateral proposal to hold this case in abeyance for a period of four months, is a clarion call to this nation’s miners that the agency charged with the profound responsibility of protecting their health and safety is losing the stomach for the fight to vindicate its own rule.”
The unions referenced “a good-faith interest in protecting the silica rule for the benefit of their members and the nation’s miners generally.”
An NSSGA spokesperson declined to comment.
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Original article published by Safety+Health an NSC publication