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Don Blankenship is CEO of Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine that exploded yesterday, killing at least 25 miners with four still missing in the mine. Blankenship is well known as a right-wing crackpot and global warming denier, but I want to paint just a brief picture with regard to this disaster. I’ll start with Rolling Stone’s description of Don Blankenship:
The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”
In late 2005, Blankenship issued a memo to company employees instructing supervisers to “ignore” any directive except to “run coal,” because “coal pays the bills.” That apparently included safety measures to protect the workers who help Blankenship “pay the bills.” This amazing graph from Brad Johnson at Think Progress shows that Blankenship’s employees got the memo. Violations skyrocketed at Massey mines, but most notably at the Upper Big Branch Mine as illustrated below.
Graph via Think Progress
Brad Johnson gives some more context to these numbers:
Massey is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in delinquent fines:
Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]
Massey is contesting $251,613 in fines for citations for Upper Big Branch-South Mine’s ventilation plan. [MSHA]
Not that that should phase Blankenship. Mike Lillis at Washington Independent finds a 2003 quote that shows just how little Blankenship cares for his own damn employees.
Over the two years through 2001 Massey was cited by West Virginia officials for violating regulations 501 times. Its three biggest rivals, mining twice as much coal in the state as Massey, were cited a collective 175 times. [CEO Don] Blankenship says Massey is unfairly targeted by regulators.
“We don’t pay much attention to the violation count,” he says.
Blankenship has a day of reckoning coming, or at least he better. As Jeff Biggers, author of several books on coal mining disasters, wrote at HuffPost this morning: “All coal mining safety laws have been written in miners’ blood.” One can only hope there’s an indictment for Blankenship written in the same blood that he spilled.
Oh, and for good measure, Attaturk finds this video that sums up the entirety of the mess that is Don Blankenship.
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About Work in Progress
Two Words:
Jail Time.
Any chance of that?
Interesting that wikipedia entry for him doesn’t mention his record on safety. Anyone want to fix this?
He will go with the God and Family routine.
In trying times like these…. we turn to God and family. Who would have thought such a disaster could occur? We are but humble, and hard-working people here.
This yokel is so rich he hangs out on the French Riviera. I thought Rednecks hated France. Seems Dubya had a French Chef.
Maybe rich rednecks actually like France and they lie to appeal to rubes. I’ll bet Sarah Palin likes France.
In case others missed this “ANTRIM CASKEY: Well, coal in West Virginia is a mono economy, and it basically controls and has infiltrated every level of the power structure, from the governor to the courts all the way down. And your viewers may be familiar with Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, who basically purchased the state Supreme Court seat for Brent Benjamin several years ago. The ensuing controversy over that situation was a refusal on Benjamin’s part to recuse himself from certain cases where the opposing side thought he was biased, because Blankenship gave him $3 million to help him get elected to the state Supreme Court. And that’s how they do it in West Virginia. They elect these judges to the Supreme Court.
From here
minor typo: ‘Not that that should
phasefaze Blankenship…’(if I may be so bold as to presume your intended meaning)
That’s right. All they need is prayer. The wives and children with the father now deceased can pray and pick themselves up by the bootstraps while this mega asshole eats Coquille St. Jacques on the French Riviera.
Two words. Nope, nope.
I hope not, but that is the hand he will play – its been done before on a much larger scale.
Richard Trumka issued a really, really powerful statement just now. I posted it here, pasting below.
This guy would fit right in with the Apartheit White Supremacist crowd in South Africa. Thugs are the same the world over. I’m thinking criminally negligent homicide. 25 counts.
Great to see you. Hope all is well with you and the family.
It sounds like this was a methane explosion. They have meters that can detect it. Based on everything I have read so far, this was very, very preventable.
From Open Secrets:
I’m as shocked as you.
Damn shame that will never happen. But maybe now that it’s too late for 25 miners, something will be done to force some safety reforms at his mines. Unfortunately, it takes a disaster to bring attention to a situation like this.
I’m going to raise this again because I think it’s an interesting idea – now that the Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people, I think they’ve pierced the invulnerability of corporations in worker negligence deaths. I’d love to see — the labor secretary or the national mining board lodge a complaint and get a law enforcement agency to charge Blankenship and all the management members of Massey Energy PERSONALLY for either criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter (take yer pick). Get these buggers in court and try them on federal worker safety charges and hopefully get some of them jail time. Now THAT would be change we could believe in.
Evil villain is in fact an evil villain.
Well that’s not particularly surprising.
Jail would be appropriate. But he’ll have the best defense money could buy.
Would love, love, love to see it. I don’t know legally how that would come together or what WV statutes allow for, but if there were ever someone deserving a 25 counts of criminally negligent homicide, Don Blankenship is your man.
Wait a minute. How come all this Clean Coal™ is covered with blood?
Why isn’t Massey a union shop? The UMW should be organizing.
Where’s the modern Myles Horton?
He changed his name to Mike Roselle!
Paging Michael Whitney; Digby has some more. Blankenship is a Teabagger:
At what point does it become criminal negligence? Ever?
Ha! I was just going to say Massey is the type of outfit that the GOP refers to as “small business”. you know, like a mom and pop grocery store or something. We have to protect the little guy from so much govt interference so they can conduct business and such.
I also wanted to suggest some type of legislation that if a company has X number of safety violations it’s an automatic changing of the guard. suspension of all operation until changes are made. etc.
Jail time doesn’t scare these guys. Losing money does.
Blankenship’s tweets.
Are we talking morally or legally?
Morally, we’re way past the point of culpable negligence. Legally, I guess we have to wait and see what MSHA has to say.
Blankenship has a long history of confronting the UMW — and winning.
Maybe Mike Whitney can find somebody to whip on a quick posting on that said story
no heshe meant phase
as in set phaser to stunned.
I hope so. A union shop is a safer shop!
Even the mountains weep. We need champions to fight off the vile dragons. It isn’t easy and it takes a long time.
David Dayen had a diary the other day about a bill (HR 2067, the Protecting America’s Workers Act) in the House that would bring federal workplace enforcement standards up to California standards… To copy what I wrote on that thread….
If you haven’t read it already, you should check out the NY Times phenomenal series When Workers Die. It won the Pulitzer Prize 6 years ago. One of the points the Times reporter, David Barstow, makes is that California is the only state that prosecutes safety violation-related deaths as homicides. OSHA and the other state agencies merely levy fines. I see that HR 2067 would bring federal law in line with California’s.
Years later, I still remember feeling sick when I read the first article in the series and saw the photo with this caption– The body of Patrick Walters as it was removed from the trench that collapsed and killed him in 2002. His family’s lawyers provided the photograph.
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/03/31/deaths-in-the-fields-why-state-agencies-need-help-protecting-americas-workers/#comment-2219
It would help a lot if the God Damned Democrats would give us card check. Thanks for nothing.
I, too, would like to see criminal and civil charges brought against this company. I don’t care if it takes twenty years. These families deserve nothing less.
What I would like to know is why mines are allowed to get away with having numerous safety violations. As a comparison to my own experience in commercial construction, ONE violation can shut down the job. No General Contractor can get away with 600 violations on a jobsite (and yes, they can have as many employees as were at this mine (200).) ONE local inspector can “red tag” the project and everyone goes home, even over something as minor as not having a permit, nevermind actual safety violations.
I would also like someone in the media to ask, “How much would these safety compliance issues have cost?” and “How much did Massey energy make last year?”
I can not believe that series was 6 years ago, because like you, I can still see the picture you described clearly in my memory. Workers need real protection form soulless, greedy, powerful individuals.
This company, and this CEO in particular, would kill another 1000 miners in a minute if they calculated that after the dust and lawsuits were settled that they made an extra ten cents on the coal produced.
An extractive industry where gross negligence = profitable and human life = cheap is a mature extractive industry. US electricity generated by coal has declined some 11% in the past two years.
What about the Sen & Rep’s of WV that have served 3 or so decades and have been such a failure making sure the laws are enforced?
Oh yeah. I really bet that will happen.
Last night, Diane Sawyer interviewed him on the WNT broadcast. He appeared to be so subdued and humble. That, in contrast with the 2008 footage they showed immediately before the interview, where he threatened a camera man and reporter on his property.
The man is an arrogant twit. If MSHA and the Feds can’t bring this #$%^&* to justice for willful murder, there’s no hope. How many counts of 1st degree murder just for Monday alone?
Pray for the families – not just those of the victims, but for those who are still underground.
Obama and his ‘Clean Coal’ position need to do something about this crap before I’ll take him seriously.
Yes it is true that the coal industry has its boot on the throat of West Virginia politics and what have the Democrats done to increase union organizing? Nothing! The Democratic Governor, US Senators, and Congressmen have done what; oh that’s right nothing. So much for Jello Jay Rockefeller being for the working man.
I live in West Virginia and can vouch for his lack of care. The man is a crook and is motivated by money, not the safety of his miners.
Sorry Becca, but in modern day USA, there will be zero counts of anything brought.
I still say that there has to be a way to hurt these MF’s.
Why can’t there be a fine of a million dollars per victim per day the rescue effort goes on? That’s 25 million for Monday, 25 million for Tuesday, etc., etc., etc.
Heck we’re up to 75 million now, right? Think that would do some damage? We’re after other idiots who create their own problems, like hiking in mountains they’re not supposed to be in, or rescuing phantom kids from hot air balloons they aren’t actually in? Why can’t we do the same here? At least make these idiots who think ‘coal pays the bills’ pay for the rescue efforts that are a direct result of their ‘inability’ to resolve their violations.
Because the legal system is completely corrupt and broken. Like everything else. State laws don’t allow for criminal negligence charges. That’s only possible in California.
Better yet, as I was just reading, the Louisiana murderer(s) of civilians on the bridge – police all of them, and quite clearly still covering up what happened – are back to being done for ‘civil rights violations. Yes, that film Mississippi Burning was on last night by chance. What a backward America it shows hey? One that ceased to exist decades ago, as modernity was embraced. You’d never see cop/murderers getting off with civil rights violation charges only, nowadays would you?
Oh, hang on……
going backwards so fast it makes you dizzy.
As I said. This is a sickness coarsing through the veins of your country. It is literally everywhere, and visible for all. There’s no cure. It will get much worse before it gets better, if it ever does.