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Massey CEO Set to Open More Coal Mines
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Don Blankenship was head of Massey Energy when 29 coal miners lost their lives in a massive explosion. Forced to resign, he has been largely invisible since.
Now he’s filed papers to start another coal mine venture. According to BusinessWeek:
Public records show that Blankenship has incorporated a new venture in Kentucky. Paperwork for McCoy Coal Group Inc. of Belfry, Ky., has been on file since January, though, and it has yet to seek a single mining permit, says Kentucky Energy and Environment spokesman Dick Brown.
Following the April 2010 the explosian at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine, a Mine Workers (UMWA) report on the disaster summed up the tragedy in its title: Industrial Homicide. An independent report on the disaster commissioned by former Gov. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) concluded the responsibility for the explosion “lies with the management of Massey Energy…[B]y frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices….Massey exhibited a corporate mentality that placed the drive to produce coal above worker safety.” And an investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) found the company kept two sets of books to hide safety problems.
Prior to the disaster, MSHA had filed more than 450 safety citations at Upper Big Branch, which wasn’t the only Massey mine with safety problems. MSHA records show that in at least six of the 10 years prior to the explosion, Massey mine’s injury rate has been worse than the national average for similar operations. In 2009, Massey and subsidiary Aracoma Coal Co. agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal fines and civil penalties related to a January 2006 fire that killed two miners at the Alma No. 1 mine.
But far from taking responsibility, Blankenship has implied the deadly blast was God’s fault and told the government to keep its hands off patriotic business like Massey. A business so patriotic that the Mine Workers’ report described it as:
A rogue corporation, acting without real regard for mine safety and health law and regulations, that established a physical working environment that can only be described as a bomb waiting to go off.
Blankenship has made a career of busting unions, violating mine safety laws, attacking environmentalists and shilling for the far right and corporate America. The workers at Upper Big Branch were not in a union. A report following the tragedy found that unionized coal mines are far safer.
Alpha Natural Resources, which bought Massey Energy for $8.5 billion, last week reached an agreement with the federal government to pay $210 million, which does not bar any future criminal prosecutions of individuals connected to the deadly explosion.
Let’s hope not. Because as UMWA spokesman Phil Smith puts it, at least 18 Massey managers should be prosecuted, including its former CEO.
Don Blankenship belongs in jail, not in a position to put yet more miners’ lives at risk.
(Blankenship is among 30 of the worst 1 percent—bankers, politicians and corporate big wigs—highlighted by Brave New Films. You can vote for the worst of the worst here.)
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15 Comments
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This should be stopped. Anyone of his ill-repute should be banned from entering in any corporate enterprise, just like a bank robber would be prevented from working for a bank.
Amen!
In San Francisco a few years back a roofing contractor who had been cited by OSHA several times for refusing to supply Fall protection had one of his workers fall and die. The district attorney Pamala Haris charged him with manslauter and he is serving time in San Quentin. So Kentucky how about you doing the same.
Whether we talk about mining, chemicals, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, health care, finance or any other industry in this country, the upper levels of management and ownership are filled with criminal sociopaths.
They commit more terror than ten thousand al Quedas.
Here is another example of failed government. For all the hot air from the windbags in Washington who claim to be for the American worker, what real action has there been following the Upper Big Branch mine explosion? Investigations? Fines? What good are they when no action is being taken to make mines safer? We don’t need more laws and regulations. We don’t need more fees and taxes on business. We don’t need more paperwork. We need government agencies to do their jobs because they are the only ones who can protect workers from the likes of Massey Energy and the Blakenships who consider the loss of life just a cost of doing business.
@Skeptic, while I share your anger and frustration I don’t agree with your position. Government bureaucrats are NOT the only ones who can protect us! We must be willing to protect ourselves through organizing and refusing unsafe work assignments!
America’s working class has become far too complacent depending on bureaucrats when we must re-learn to depend on ourselves like we did in the 1930′s!
As to Massey he should be arrested and charged with homicide!
If corporations are people, why isn’t he in jail?
As long as people are just going to stand or sit by and let Congress pass bills that protect the rich there’ll always be Massey and a Mr. Blankenship. Why not! whose going stop him? Young men from Eastern Kentucky? that really need jobs. What I can not believe is he going right back into coal mining and someone is just giving him the green light to jump right back on board. That’s person or committee is the one who gets the rotten tomato
With the good guys (?) too timid to prosecute, no wonder the bad guys are getting by with murder. It seems like a classic case of “Low T Syndrome” on the part of the government.
The only place that Blankenship shoud be occupying is a JAIL CELL>but fear not His richy rich gang will make sure that he is just fine.
Does anyone out there not believe that the 99%,s have a point?
I am sure that the families of the miners killed and injured GET IT!!
Another filibuster from the reich, is what you would get if anyone produced such a bill. Your not going to get any help from republicans on anything like stoping Blankenship, that isn’t even just tostop Obama the higher-arckie is always right.
totally right on
My Cousin was one of those who lost his life in this tragedy and I feel it could have been prevented. This is a perfect example of those in power putting profit before people. If you can’t put DONALD BLANKENSHIP in jail, please don’t allow him the opportunity to do this again.
I am really sorry about your cousin.Did he talk much about working for Massey?
As a matter of fact the week before the tragedy the employees had been sent home because of problems, so he took the opportunity to travel with his wife on a trip she had to take for her job. When he reported back to work the following week he inquired as to whether the problems from the previous week had been resolved and was told not to worry everything was fine. Had he NOT been asked to stay later than his regular quitting time he would be here today. At his service one of his co-workers was so distraught that I stopped and inquired and was told that my cousin should have left with him, but didn’t. He was upset because “HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE ALSO”. Really sad . That was the saddest town I have ever seen in my entire life with Funeral wreaths on every business you passed and the talk of the town for weeks if not months. Never will forget that experience. Truly haunting