82 Violations, 82 Coffins.

That’s what should be kept in mind when we receive reports like the one put out by MSHA this month against Morton’s Weeks Island Salt Mine. It is not enough that these extractive industries (for we know that the skills for offshore oil drilling and mining occupy the same workforce) damage the environment, they are horrendous for the workers that preform these acts of labors.

Simply acknowledging these reports means nothing if they are not acted upon both through local and state governments, and popular sentiment as well. There used to be a time when workers, through the collective actions of their union or through acts of the rank and file, made it known to members of their community that the Bosses were putting their lives in danger, the community was expected to act in solidarity and help them achieve safer working conditions.

We can have this world again, and it is at the forefront of the labor struggle AND the climate struggle for a just transition, acting in synthesis. These things need not be in conflict when the true enemy to the common man is the cold systemic indifference to the worker’s plights and the community at large. It is my hope that people can look upon these contradictions, recognize the fallacies in what we have so often in this state taken for granted as a “good job” and unite and organize together for their collective good. A Green New Deal, whatever shape it may take, does not need to mean an attack on the working man.

Every violation has the potential to become a deadly accident. I know because my own brother was lost in a mine accident that would not have occurred were it not for the carelessness of Compass Minerals back in 2019. 82 violations, 82 possible accidents, 82 families (at minimum) that are left broken and rudderless. Changed, forever and always.

It doesn’t have to be this way, a better world is possible. Cleaner jobs for the world and safer jobs for the workers. I encourage everyone who reads this to go into the new year with a fire in your belly, and to ignite the passion inside yourself, be it under worker’s rights, environmental action, housing justice, or groups that do all the above like DSA SWLA, Gulf South for A Green New Deal, or Housing Louisiana. We must have the courage to stand up to power, be it down in the mines or on the railways, as our brothers and sisters have shown us the last few weeks.

Happy Holidays to the workers of the world, and above all, Solidarity Forever.

Joshua Trosclair

Jeanerette