Members of the Mine Workers (UMWA) overwhelmingly ratified a new five-and-a-half-year contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA) in a nationwide vote Friday.

The Mine Workers (UMWA) has reached a tentative 5.5 year agreement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), the union announced this morning.

The former Massey Energy Co. chief operating officer who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to be interviewed by the West Virginia commission investigating the Upper Big Branch explosion that killed 29 miners, will play a role overseeing safety at the corporation taking over Massey’s mines.

A new study shows that miners in unionized coal mines are far less likely to be killed or injured on the job than miners in nonunion operations. The independent study funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that “unionization predicts an 18-33 percent drop in traumatic injuries and a 27-68 percent drop in fatalities.”

The 444 workers at the Willow Lake Mine in Equality, Ill., voted last week to be represented by the Mine Workers (UMWA).

Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) coal mine exploded April 5, 2010 because the company operated the mine in a “profoundly reckless manner and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking,” according to an independent report on the disaster commissioned by former W.Va. Gov. Joe Manchin (D).

The day after federal mine safety officials announced a series of “outrageous” safety violations at a Massey Energy West Virginia coal mine, mining industry officials were on Capitol Hill calling for fewer federal inspections and a voluntary safety program.

Some 5,000 Mine Workers (UMWA) members, their families and other union and community supporters from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia braved cold winds and snow in a Waynesburg, Pa., march and rally to show We Are One with workers around the nation under assault. (Check out the video.)