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Sad news out of West Virginia. A mine exploded, killing every miner inside, save two, one of which is still in intensive care. In the worst mining disaster in over a quarter of a century, 29 miners lost their lives. Hope turned to despair which faded into incredible loss and grief. Soon, this will be replaced with fury and demands of accountability and steely resolve.
So, our attention turns to Don Blankenship, the head cheese for Massey Energy. Now Don, ran the company like a real Don. He was known as a union buster who preferred to run things in a dictator like fashion. Employees did what they were told, or got fired. It was always a simple take-it-or-leave-it proposition with Don Corleone Blankenship.
Over the years Don has stacked up thousands of safety violations. Some fines he would pay, some fines he would fight, but always he would make political contributions in an effort to reign in those pesky regulators and perhaps round of some corners of the regulations.
In short, Don is the poster child for the Republican default position of anti-union, deregulation, open range capitalism.
And now, hanging over him is a cloud of criminally negligent homicide. Multiple counts. Depraved indifference due to the well-documented history of safety violations. Perhaps his legal team and political contributions will enable Don to avoid criminal prosecutions, but his civil liabilities will be unavoidable and enormous.
But the point is all of Don’s struggles against unions and regulation, which he felt impeded the ability to run coal, and coal is what pays the bills, are the very things that would have prevented the Montcoal disaster and avoided what is in store for Don Blankenship.
At some point unions and regulations should be seen as a benefit and not a hinderance for industry Titans such as Don. It is my hope that Mr. Blankenship is totally ruined forever by this unfortunate and preventable disaster. Safe mines do not explode. Powerless employees either go home or go in. Organized labor have options that Don fought tooth and nail to prevent.
Because coal is what pays Don’s bills. Hey Don, how much coal are you running now?
Cross posted over at my place.
8 Comments
It’s always a pleasure to see your posts here, and I’m glad to see the kittenstomper is still prominently displayed at your place.
Thanks RBG. I’ve been thinking about this post for several days. Like the Banksters and ENRON’s of the world, Don needs to understand rules and regulations are there to protect them as well.
Bravo OFG, thanks for this post.
Hopefully after the civil liabilities are levied, with proceeds going to the families, this piece of man garbage will be out of business.
We can only hope.
I’ve never understood why the tea partiers get their panties in a bunch about certain issues and then bypass true Righteous Indignation about someone like Blankenship, who is so clearly causing them real physical and emotional harm……and I googled tea partiers in coal country…..and they are there. I’ll even help ‘em spell check their signs when they are ready.
I can’t seem to find Coalmont, WVA on Google maps. I just wanted to know what hiways it was by to see if I’ve ever been there before.
Hum… Both Senators from West Virginia are democrats, most of the Congressmen are democrats, the governor is a democrat…. What were you saying again? … Sorry, I lost track of your point about republicans.
Excellent point. But unionization and regulation need to be backed by adequate sanctions. Someone like Blankenship and/or something like Massey is too dumb/arrogant/greedy to follow the rules and too unimpressed by existing penalties. We need something with bite. We need a corporate death penalty.
Current sanctions do not deter. Fines are always small enough to become a cost of doing business, as they were for Massey, and can be endlessly appealed and litigated. Criminal penalties for individual members of management are rare and don’t seem to scare managers, if Wall Street is any indication. Moreover, a manager in prison does little to deter the investors that push for ever lower costs and higher profits. We need a deterrent that will actually deter, something that CEOs and investors alike actually fear–guaranteed abject poverty.
My proposal is simple: when a corporation’s negligence or malice results in loss of life or significant loss of limb, we kill the company dead. Effective at the moment of the loss of life, all assets are confiscated. All shareholder investments are forfeit, and the investors are wiped out without recourse. Moreover, the incorporation of the firm is nullified, so all limitations on liability cease. The investors and management become jointly and individually responsible for civil and criminal damages and costs. Payouts against company-provided liability insurance will, of course, be counted as a company asset and confiscated before management can hide behind it. Corporate legal departments will vanish with the corporations themselves. For the first time, every CEO, mutual fund chief, and wealthy Wall Street hedge fund manager would be naked and alone before the law–kind of like everyone else.
I think that a corporate death penalty of this kind would change corporate behavior. Investors would no longer be able to hide behind limited liability when criminality was involved. So they would have a powerful incentive to insure that criminality did not occur, even if the bottom line suffered as a result. Shafts would be drilled, methane would get vented, and dust would be controlled, because the alternative would–finally–be too awful for Wall Street to contemplate.