We went into your office a week or so ago on that situation; whether you heard it I don't know. Mr. Feder was there, we talked to him.

I think there are other men here who would say they don't approve of Lucas' name being in there as head of the Bureau.

STATEMENT OF DAVID PRICE, SAFETY COMMITTEEMAN, GATEWAY COAL CO., CLARKSVILLE, PA.

Mr. PRICE. My name is Davy Price, safety committee from Gateway Coal Co. I have been 28 years on the safety committee.

This new law here, what we have here in effect is a lot of things that I see in this law here that I think to myself is not helping us any.

The first thing I am going to talk about, I am going to let the Senator know about these spot checks. I am not in favor of these spot checks. We just had a Federal inspector here spot check inside the mine and that was the Gateway Mine. I think he had eight or nine violations. I made the comment in our local union that this section should have been shut down or all these violations corrected.

Now this man goes out of the section and what they do, Senator, they generally come back in say maybe 3 or 4 weeks but we don't get anything that was corrected, how many was corrected. I don't think Tommy got anything. That is the problem on our safety committee, that these things are not corrected.

Now I am going to tell you something. These Federal inspectors are good fellows but their hands are tied. The law has them tied up, their hands are tied. There is going to have to be something done. I think I will say this. Mostly what this was for is for the safety.

Senator WILLIAMS. You will have to clarify your statement that the law ties them up. I don't understand that.

Mr. PRICE. Well, the injunction ties them up.

Senator WILLIAMS. Oh.

Mr. PRICE. The injunction ties them up, that is what ties them up. Senator WILLIAMS. Not the coal mine health and safety law but the court injunction on enforcing the law?

Mr. PRICE. On enforcing the law.

Senator WILLIAMS. I see.

Mr. PRICE. And this is the thing that is tying them up.

Senator WILLIAMS. I get it.

Mr. PRICE. So we have a big mine up here.

Senator WILLIAMS. Which is your mine again?

Mr. PRICE. Gateway Coal Co.

Senator WILLIAMS. Same as Mr. Ozonish?

Mr. PRICE. Yes.

For a man to make a spot inspection up here, I will say when these inspectors make the run I don't think they are doing the job that I think they are capable of doing. I mean as a safety committee when we go around and make our inspections we have more on the paper than what they have on the paper.

Senator WILLIAMS. Let me see. I will just put this in and then I will keep quiet for a while. As you talk if you can tell us what is required under the law that you think is not being done under the law in the safety and health areas, we would appreciate it.

Mr. PRICE. Well, I am going to tell you something. Most of these inspectors when they go on they don't do like we do. When we go in a section we shut a section down and we make the inspection. We inspect the machinery, the electrical part, the buggies and everything. If something is bad on a buggy, we inspect it. If the lights are bad on the electric equipment, why we check that. If the dust place is not watered down, we check that.

When these inspectors make their report it seems to me that mostly what they are looking for is production men. I tell you, we have a fellow here that could tell you a lot of things because I am on the other end of the mine. Most of these inspectors, of course, tighten up their belts since this new law come in, but before-I tell you the truth-they were not doing anything. They were not putting the pressure on the men.

Say if a man got caught not testing for gas, there was no pressure put on the man. I mean as a Safety Committee we had to put pressure on the others. Not testing for gas, that was to save human lives. I think you understand that. The man was not testing for gas. A lot of these fellows don't know when they were supposed to, and this law you have here every 20 minutes you are supposed to test for gas. Before it was every half hour.

I think the inspectors when they put pressure on the fellows, this would cut down the explosions. The main thing was to keep the canvas up. This was another thing we had trouble with.

Senator WILLIAMS. What do you mean? The brattice?

Mr. PRICE. The canvas keeps the air going over so you have 4,000 cubic feet of air going over the machine and the air is coming back down the canvas. Sometimes when you go in there the canvas is not properly put up. Well, you have a boss in a section in there and the man goes in there and they say they don't care. Just like I say here, we need an inspector at the mine every day, we are going to have to have him there every day. I think this is the sole purpose. The other fellows on the safety committee should help us, and I think, Senator Williams, you are here to help us.

Senator WILLIAMS. Exactly right.

Mr. PRICE. This is the thing here. We have a dust problem in here, float dust. We have that trouble on the belts.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now let me ask you this. Now to make all these requirements, to have everything in that mine meet the requirements of law, does your mine need a great new big machine or is it using the equipment you have and just making sure it is in proper repair and making sure the hoses and the nozzles are working on the sprays and the brattices are lined up-in other words, making sure what you got is working right? Is that right?

Mr. PRICE. This is something that should be established, for the brattices to be put up right.

Senator WILLIAMS. Is there anything here, any reason why the company has to go out and buy a lot of new machinery in your opinion? Mr. PRICE. Well, they got a new machine coming in there right now that is going to cost them $5 million and I think our Safety Committee is worried about the machine. Long wall. We are worried about that machine on the dust problem.

Senator WILLIAMS. I wondered whether the reason why this law might not be fully honored is because they do not have the proper machinery, and you are telling me the machinery is all right, that it is just making sure that what you have got in the mine is working right. Is that what you are telling me?

Mr. PRICE. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Is that what you are saying?

Mr. OZONISH. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now what is this about the long wall?

Mr. OZONISH. Our company has even driven a section especially made for this new machine that is going to be operating in our mine. Now this new machine is called the long wall and it is supposed to come from Germany. This new machine has a lot of noise in it and it brings hazard with it. It has a power capacity I think which we have in our mine today, 7,200 volts. This machine is going to create a lot of dust, which I say in every mine you have got. We have never seen this machine work. Senator WILLIAMS. You never saw the machine work?

Mr. OZONISH. No, it is just in the process of coming in there. They are supposed to install this machine in September.

Senator WILLIAMS. How are you so certain that there are so many problems with this machine if you have never seen the machine work? Mr. OZONISH. We have talked to other people in different sections of the country where they have this machine and they state to us that it is an enormous machine and the one thing you are going to have is that continuous noise which is going to affect your ears, your hearing. They say the dust is very bad.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Ozonish, where do they have that machine in this country, do you know?

Mr. OZONISH. I think they have one--I can't exactly tell you. I think they have three in this whole United States, three or four. Mr. PRICE. It was in Germany.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now I am going to become a witness.

I have watched this machine work for a full day in Czechoslovakia, if it is the same thing. The long wall is the process in mining. As a matter of fact, the wall they were mining that I observed-and as I say I spent a day watching this-was 500 yards long. That machine made that long haul twice a day down the 500 yards of wall. Now it is noisy, you are right, but I will tell you this: The roof is 100 percent safer. Mr. PRICE. They have a lot of jacks.

Senator WILLIAMS. It is the hydraulic jacks.

Mr. PRICE. What about the conditions?

Senator WILLIAMS. I will tell you why I think the conditions are better. You have that long, long wall and you have got air coming along that wall. You think you are in a high wind and that means the gas it just going down and around and out and there is no gas problem. Mr. OZONISH. Isn't it creating different hazards though? Senator WILLIAMS. The sound, you are right.

Mr. OZONISH. The blowing of the air is hazardous for your health. Mr. PRICE. And ears.

Senator WILLIAMS. The blowing of the air is to take the gas away. Mr. OZONISH. That is right.

Senator WILLIAMS. You don't have these traps. You don't have the brattice bit, you don't need that.

I am not a salesman for this machine, by the way.

Mr. OZONISH. In our mine in the summertime we have conditions there where we are sweating all the time. In the wintertime we are freezing in our mine. Now with that air blowing up there in the wintertime, I don't think you could work. I don't think our men could work.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, it can be regulated. This is a safety factor. Mr. OZONISH. If you cut so much air off, then you have another condition from your gas or your dust.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now I was over in Czechoslovakia in this big mine.

Mr. OZONISH. In the summertime or winter?

Senator WILLIAMS. It was around Eastertime last year.

They had not had an ignition, they had not had a flash, they had not had an explosion in 20 years in that mine. That was in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia.

Mr. BISHOP. How much gas is liberated?

Senator WILLIAMS. It is comparable.

I just want to say the reason I thought they could not long wall it over here is the geology of the business, the way you have to mine. I didn't know you could long wall here.

Mr. O'BROCHTA. They have a long wall down near Greensburg. I think that is in that mine now.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Feder tells me there are 16 in this country. Mr. BISHOP. The air coming in, it takes care of all that. It says anything that is injurious to the health and safety and welfare of the coal miner himself. So we have those problems, and this machine could create a problem.

Senator WILLIAMS. The new machine.

Mr. BISHOP. The long wall. Not only that, we have it here for the dust standards.

Senator WILLIAMS. I suggest you come over there.

Please identify yourself for the record.

Mr. O'Brochta. Thomas O'Brochta.

We had this so-called safety meeting which I think was a farce.
Senator WILLIAMS. Which meeting was that?

Mr. O'BROCHTA. The meeting called by the International. I think it is a farce more than anything else. We talked to several men that worked on this long wall about the dust hazard with the air coming over, getting the dust as it comes over. You have a lot of jacks. Whether you have a long wall or the plainer type, you still have the long wall jacks and they claim that the men on the jack get the dust. They said those men get the dust. They said that the man farther down each jack gets the most dust.

Senator WILLIAMS. Yes, I can see that.

Mr. BISHOP. But this act takes care of it because no dust can be accumulated and each year it gets less and less.

Senator WILLIAMS. Yes. Whether it is long wall or not the dust content has to be under the law. You are right on that. We are sort of having an academic discussion here because whichever system, the dust content cannot be more than the law says.

Mr. BISHOP. That is right.

Mr. PRICE. That is right.

Mr. BISHOP. The main thing we are here for today is to get more qualified people to enforce this act. Congress has passed this act here, it is the law of the land, right?

Senator WILLIAMS. You fellows are miners, how do you evaluate the law? Is it an adequate law? Is it a good law?

Mr. O'BROCHTA. On the whole, yes.

Mr. BISHOP. It is a good law, I have read it backward and forward a number of times. Everything in here is identical to what we want, but we want somebody to enforce it.

Now they say we don't have qualified men. I had it all written down here. We would like for you to go back and tell the people that we do have qualified people. These high standards that the Bureau of Mines and Civil Service put out, who is up to date on that? Practical experience is safety.

Mr. OZONISH. We had a school operated by the Federal people and all safety committees were advised to go to that school.

Mr. BISHOP. Everything.

Senator WILLIAMS. Which school is this?

Mr. PRICE. Bureau of Mines.

Mr. OZONISH. We went to that school and received a certificate of qualification.

Senator WILLIAMS. When did you go to school, by the way?
Mr. O'BROCHTA. February.

Senator WILLIAMS. Of this year?

Mr. BISHOP. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Since the new law?

Mr. O'BROCHTA. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Was that the textbook when you went to the school?

Mr. BISHOP. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. At this point, without objection, I order inserted in the hearing record the text of "Training Course for Coal Mine Safety Committeemen."

(The material referred to follows:)