Welfare Warriors
Winter 2006
MW Voice FEATURE
Letters to the Editor
War
Mothers news from around the world
Did You Know?
Corporate War on the People
Youth/ Disabled/ Gay news
Resistance in the War
Against the Poor
other WINTER 2006 articles
Winter
2006
Corporate War on the People
Making Money Off Mother’s Milk
Prolacta Bioscience is a large company that sells donated breastmilk, to hospitals for a profit. But first they pasteurize it. It is much more expensive than formula—and a big scam.
A recent four-year study of 243 premature infants shows that pasteurizing breastmilk damages the milk. It ends up being no more nutritious than formula. And the ingredients in breastmilk that ward off infection were no longer present after pasteurization.
Info from Mothering
Investing in Murder
On Jan. 12 New York activist groups staged a “picketline for justice” outside the New York office of Wilbur L. Ross. Their flyer read,
“Billionaire Wilbur Ross controls the International Coal Group (ICG). Twelve miners didn’t have to die. Corporate greed and Bush cutbacks killed them. ICG pocketed nearly $16 million in profits from this coal mine. Yet it racked up 208 safety violations in 2005 alone, including 19 roof-falls.”
On Jan. 2, an explosion trapped 13 workers in a coalmine in Sago, WV. Only one survived. The rest died from carbon monoxide poisoning. This was a non-union mine in a county where the main employers are Wal-Mart and the school system. Starting pay of $15-$20 an hour made mine jobs attractive despite possible unsafe working condition. A cousin of one of the victims said “If it’d been a union mine, this never would have happened.”ned.”
Wilbur Ross is a “distressed investor.” His other investments include the takeover of bankrupt Bethlehem and Weirton Steel. Distressed investors buy financially troubled firms and force concessions from employees. This makes the company more valuable to shareholders. To save even more money, they cut corners on training and safety practices…which lead to disaster.
Repeated cuts in funding for the federal watchdog, Mine Safety and Health Administration, helped them overlook the company’s deadly neglect. But the Bush administration has proposed another $4.9 million in budget cuts to this agency.
The state contributed to the murder of the miners by not mobilizing a rescue operation. And they failed to arrest the corporate and government officials responsible for the killings. Instead they sent police reinforcements to occupy the town and intimidate the families of the miners.
100,000 people have been killed in US coal mines since 1900. In 1969, Congress enacted the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. But government and corporate buddies allowed the Sago mine to operate with violations. These included poor ventilation, inoperable machinery and combustible materials. They risked the lives of the workers and ignored federal law.
Info from International Action Center, Million Worker March and NY Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal