WV Mining Disaster CEO: "It's Survival of the Fittest"

In a video last year, Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the company at the center of the tragedy at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, complained that it is "very difficult" to obey "nonsensical" safety rules.

The team at ThinkProgress posted it up and here it for all to see:

Here's Blankenship in the 1970's explaining that in a capitalist society it is the most productive that survive:

Here's a list (also compiled by Think Progress), showing just how many of these "nonsensical" safety rules Massey has violated at the Upper Big Branch coal mine where 25 miners lost their lives:

Since 1995, Massey's Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent.

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years.

In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey's Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan.

Pretty tough to survive when your workplace is a potential death-trap, let alone be productive.

 

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Comments

[hypnotoad72]

03:41 PM on 04/13/2010

Define "fit".

Ironically, those who seem to be the least fit are surviving the most.

[Chuckie Corra]

03:37 AM on 04/09/2010

Don Blankenship is a greedy man. The workers were not part of a union, therefore forced to work in the poor conditions that the mine had. The only job in those parts is coal-mining, so it was either mine or be unemployed. He does not care about his employees or the safety violations would have been fixed, or at least paid for. He has only paid roughly 16% of the fines as it is. The mine received 61 calls to shut down between 2009-2010. Blankenship has seen several frivolous lawsuits thrown his way and has essentially bought himself out of them.

He paid roughly $3million to unseat WV state supreme court justice McGraw and get one he wanted in because McGraw wanted to question his safety record. Blankenship saw this as a threat. The miners had no protection and no voice because of this guy and its truly sad. Justice shall hopefully be brought. I have a feeling he has some huge criminal charges coming his way.

[OldTart]

08:46 AM on 04/09/2010

If there is any justice in this world, this man will be pilloried. I feel outrage!

[Kevin Grandia]

05:32 PM on 04/10/2010

Blows me away that these videos don't have millions of views. They should be emailed to every reporter in the country and talked about at dinner tables across the world.

[hypnotoad72]

03:42 PM on 04/13/2010

If they unionized, or all quit at once - would that have put Blankenship in his place?