MSHA issued a news release that gave credit in part for a large drop in mining fatalities to enforcement. They gave a nod to miners being safe, but ignored the fact that with the bad econonmy miners just didn't work as many hours last year. Of course the figures aren't out, but it's not too hard to see in the stone industry at least. It's a great accomplishment for everyone to reduce the fatalities as much as we did, but I'll wait to see the fatality rate before I celebrate too much. It's possible that with the reduced hours the rate still did not decline and that's what really matters.
Read the news release here.