Don Blankenship: "Sell Coal Cheaper And Drive Union Coal Out of Business"

[Omaha Steve]

Run time: 00:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfp7yMNWO6A   Posted on YouTube: April 08, 2010 By YouTube Member: climatebrad Views on YouTube: 663   Posted on DU: April 12, 2010 By DU Member: Omaha Steve Views on DU: 460

 

Missing Lesson From the Mine Tragedy: Union-Busting = Death

Monday 12 April 2010

by: Art Levine, t r u t h o u t | Report

In the wake of last week's disaster at Massey Energy Company's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, it's become increasingly clear that CEO Don Blankenship has gamed the loophole-laden mine safety enforcement system. Despite a supposedly tougher federal law that passed in 2006 after the Sago, West Virginia, mine explosion killed a dozen miners, Massey and other companies have been able to use the law as a shield to avoid tougher enforcement measures by appealing safety citations - and overwhelming the weak Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) with a backlog of appeals.

Even though Massey has faced proposed fines nearing $2 million since 2005 and been cited over 1,300 times, it's paid only a fraction - one-sixth - of the proposed fines. All told, according to the United Mine Workers of America, nearly 50 people have been killed at Massey mines in the last ten years. In March alone, it was cited over 50 times for violations, many directly related to ventilation violations that allowed the build-up of explosive methane gas that played a major role in the killing of the 29 miners. As The Washington Post observed in an editorial, "'It's a profession that's not without risks and danger, and the workers and their families know that,' Mr. Obama said of the coal industry Friday. 'But their government and their employers know that they owe it to these families to do everything possible to ensure their safety when they go to work each day.' A good place to start would be to ensure that the regulations on the books are vigorously enforced."

Yet, despite such expected calls for stronger regulation and enforcement from leading editorial pages and news organizations, including The New York Times, most mainstream media outlets have essentially downplayed or ignored the role of Massey-led union-busting.

And, in a perverse way, political leaders and media outlets that morbidly romanticize the courage of rural mine workers for working in an industry known for its risks are also in some ways promoting the view that mine disasters are as unavoidable as natural disasters. As USA Today proclaimed in a recent headline: "In mine country, risks a 'way of life.'" The feature article concluded by quoting former miner Randy Cox, who had observed that deep in a coalmine, "bad things can happen fast, without warning." The article noted, "that it will take a long time for this area to mourn and heal, Cox said. "'It's all in God's hands now.'"

But the explosion that tore through the Upper Branch Mine, leaving rail lines twisted and bodies, was, like all mine explosions, "preventable," says Mine Safety and Health Administration official Kevin Stricklin - not divinely preordained.

Yet, union-busting's role in enabling such calamities to continue just isn't part of the official discourse in Washington now. No matter that Massey's anti-union campaign in the 1980s helped lead to the weakening of the United Mine Workers, which once was one of the nation's strongest, most effective unions, representing nearly 90 percent of the nation's 400,000 mine workers in the 1960s, but now represents less than a third of the remaining 10,000 or so coalminers.

With the union weakened by closed mines and the rise of untrammeled union-busting, unsafe, deadly conditions were allowed to continue unchallenged at the growing percentage of nonunion mines that put profits above safety.

In contrast, "what unions, particularly in dangerous profession like mining, mean is that they give workers protection and the leverage of a working group with management to vocalize and bring forward concerns about safety without fear of retribution," said Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of American Rights at Work, a champion of the now-stalled Employee Free Choice Act. She added, "In the absence of a union, in hard economic times, workers feel more vulnerable about losing their jobs and less confident about expressing their concerns about safety."

FULL story at link.

From an email:

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[PurgedVoter]

1. Exactly why is Blankenship not considered a murderer?

This is well past reckless endangerment. This is also not simply stuff that went on without his knowledge. These deaths were caused by his actions. Illegal actions he took knowing that deaths would be caused. Is being in business an excuse that allows someone to set traps and kill random people?

Seriously how is this different from arson for profit?

Is being a sociopath and a mass murderer expected in business? Or does being in business mean that the willful violation of law causing the deaths of many is not a crime. Seems like we don't need in this case to regulate business, we just need to enforce laws. We also need to see exactly who aided and abetted murder and put them on trial for doing so. Enforcing laws is much simpler than regulations on business.

Did he make money as part of his pursuit of crime? Then it should all be forfeit. Just like in a drug case, take his car, house, everything until he is proven innocent of murder. Apparently running a mining company means you can kill people.

[aquart]

2. Don't I count? I know he's a murderer.

[gadjitfreek]

3. Yep! Slavery isn't dead in America...

...it's abetted by corporations of all stripes. Want to know what freedom is? It's not what this guy wants. He wants to maximize his profits at the expense of his employees. Thus, slavery is alive and well. As long as people can buy i$hit, they shut up and accept their place.