By Doug Cunningham

During the rescue attempt at the Sago mine in West Virginia the mine owners tried to keep the United Mine Workers of America from entering the site. The Mine Safety and Health Administration is pursuing an injunction against the International Coal Group to keep them from barring union safety and rescue teams and officials in the future. UMWA Administrator of Occupational Health and Safety Dennis O'Dell.

[Dennis O'Dell 1] : "Sago, they tried to kick us out. I was on the property with the mine rescue teams and they asked us to leave. They tried to remove us from the property after the first body had been found."

Some Sago miners requested that the union represent them for the purposes of the investigation into the Sago accident, but O'Dell says even though federal law permits, the union had to fight the mine owners at the scene of the rescue to stay on the property.

[O'Dell 2] : "They tried to remove us from the property when the first body was found but we went to the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the office of miner's health safety and training and said look, we have miners who are our representatives here and we want to be here to protect their health and safety and to offer any assistance that we can be in this rescue and recovery because we do have expertise in this field. And so the Mine Safety and Health Administration actually went to bat for us and kept us on the property."