LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Cartoon exhibits disregard for safety

I am writing to take extreme exception to the editorial cartoon “Chicken Little Underground,” which ran in your Jan. 11-17 issue.

The cartoon portrays two miners, one with the cartoonist’s initials, “JK”, on his lunchbox, walking on 10 level with a co-worker, a stout, semi-human-appearing miner with “CL”, for Chicken Little, on his lunchbox. One of the miners says, “If he starts screaming again about the sky falling on our heads, we’ll be having chicken for lunch.”

The clear implication of the cartoon is that miners who express concerns about safety underground are “Chicken Littles” and are to be scorned for not being “real men” or “real miners.” The Northern Miner is wholly irresponsible to portray such a callous, cavalier attitude towards safety. Apparently, neither The Northern Miner nor the editorial cartoonist has much knowledge of rock bursts, cave-ins, explosions or any of the other underground perils that can snuff out the life of a friend, husband, father or brother and forever alter the anguished lives of the survivors. Perhaps you have not stood with, watched and heard the sobbing of a grieving family as a killed miner is carried off. I have.

One wonders if “JK” believes in the pseudo-maxim, “Any wimp can work safely and go back home at the end of a shift, but it takes a real macho miner to drag his family through the agony of bereavement.” Perhaps “JK” dreams of a job running down peasants with a dozer or wishes that he too had been able to share in the “glory” (or is that “gory”?) of the Westray management team?

We have buried far too many miners in Canada who were killed on the job. The Northern Miner owes every miner in Canada an apology for its flippant disregard for the sanctity of safety on the job. If you can’t or won’t caution “JK” about appropriate regard for workplace safety, I can recommend at least a few headings where he might seek alternative employment.

Jef Keighley

Canadian Auto Workers Canada

New Westminster, B.C.