Labor

Don Blankenship, the man ultimately in charge of Massey Energy’s West Virginia mine where 29 workers died in an explosion April 5, assured financial analysts last week that safety is paramount in his operation.

Massey, the country’s fourth largest mining company, issued a statement that same day asserting that a review of conditions in the Upper Big Branch mine uncovered no problems shortly before the blast that killed more workers than any other mine disaster in nearly four decades. 

All that could only mean one thing, right?  Massey did nothing wrong and bears no responsibility. So clearly the disaster was an act of God or an omission by workers. God killed them. Or they killed themselves. Blankenship suggested that in earlier interviews and repeated it to stock analysts last week:

 "Obviously, I don't want to speculate, but either something went wrong from a natural/unnatural manner that was not foreseeable by us or human beings or somebody made a mistake or something."

That contention – that God’s hand or worker blunder caused a disaster – is a bogus employer excuse that managers frequently dredge up. The supervisor of the Westray Mine in Canada, where 26 workers died in an explosion in 1992, did the same thing. A government-commissioned report on that catastrophe recounts that manager, Gerald Phillips, “blatently blamed the miners for the explosion.” It’s a refrain that might be repeated in the aftermath of the Tesoro refinery blast on April 2 that killed seven workers and the explosion on the Transocean Ltd. oil offshore oil drilling platform on April 20 that killed 11 workers.

In both cases – the five fatalities in a Washington oil refinery on April 2 and the 29 deaths in a West Virginia coal mine the following Monday – news reports described the explosions that killed workers as industrial “accidents.”

When an explosion occurs at a refinery or mine that has been repeatedly fined for heath and safety violations, one question that ought to be asked is just how unexpected was the event.

Answering this question is essential because: less time plus less money spent on safety measures equals more profit for owners.  America must introduce new factors into that computation to protect the lives and limbs of workers who produce the energy on which this country depends. One factor is larger safety violation penalties – fines and shutdowns costly enough to outstrip profitability. And when corporations consider fines just another cost of doing business, another crucial factor is the ability to charge CEOs with criminal negligence when their corporations flagrantly violate safety regulations – an ability that other countries have written into law. 

As it stands now, corporations have discovered that they can continue profiting even after unconscionable disasters. Take BP for example. In 2005, a massive blast at the BP Texas City refinery killed 15 and injured 180. Business Week noted that BP continued to turn a profit every year after the Texas catastrophe, even though it paid more than $2 billion for legal costs and fines and for remediation programs at its U.S. refineries.

More than a century after ratification of the 13th Amendment, thousands of slaves are still transported to America each year.

The International Labor Organization estimates that over 12 million people worldwide are held in bondage at any point in time, nearly 2 million of whom are child sex slaves.

Modern day human traffickers have developed creative and ruthless methods to extend the practice of slavery into the 21st century, making their crimes more difficult to detect and counter. 

Read more...

A day after the Senate adjourned for Easter recess President Obama said he was going to appoint 15 of his nominees during the break, depriving the Senate the opportunity to vet and vote on any of them.



Circumventing constitutional Senate vetting is dangerous because President Obama’s track record in vetting nominees and other high-level appointees has been very poor. At least 10 of them have already resigned or withdrawn in disgrace. 



On Saturday, Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding withdrew his nomination to become the director of the Transportation Security Administration after it was discovered he claimed “service disabled veteran” status for sleep apnea. President Obama’s first nominee for that position, Erroll Southers, withdrew after refusing to respond to requests relating to false testimony he gave to Congress and his censure by the FBI for improperly accessing files. 



On Feb. 1, 1960, when four African-American college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., they ignited a youth-led movement to challenge racial segregation and injustice in the South.

The freshmen refused to stand and eat at the F.W. Woolworth counter as the policy of that time required. They were denied service but remained in their seats. The manager left the students alone hoping they would eventually leave. 

He assumed wrong.

Some of the nation's top political commentators, legislators and intellectuals offer their insight into the biggest question burning up the blogosphere today .

Today's question:

What lessons should President Barack Obama have learned during the
healthcare reform push that might help him move a jobs bill forward quickly?

(Read today's responses after the jump.) Read more...

A Washington, D.C. area hotel last week closed its doors to a racist convention that had booked rooms under the benign-sounding name “American Renaissance” conference. Now all American hotels and conference centers should follow that lead because in the U.S., renaissance means overcoming bigotry.

“American Renaissance” conducts a biannual conference that promotes racial and religious hatred. This year one of its guest speakers at the February conference is to be Nick Griffin, a convicted criminal who heads the British National Party, a white separatist group that contends immigrants are causing the “genocide” of “indigenous” white Britons.

The hotel cancelled the booking after several groups asked it not to serve as host to a hate hoedown. Those groups will monitor the organization’s attempts to secure another meeting place. They include the United Steelworkers; One People’s Project, which describes itself as a resource for those fighting fascism; and the Mormon Worker, a newspaper based in Provo, Utah. Read more...

A screwy thing happened after the United Steelworkers and eight domestic steel producers won their trade case late in December against Chinese manufacturers of the steel pipe used for oil and gas drilling. 

Instead of describing it as an important victory for U.S. industry and workers, one in which they proved to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that China violated international trade rules, the media characterized it as Americans unnecessarily picking a fight with the Chinese.

What else is new? It’s exactly what happened in September when the United Steelworkers won tariffs in a trade case regarding imported Chinese tires.

What’s particularly disturbing about this stance from the media is that it occurs only when a trade case involves manufactured goods. The media strongly supports protections for copyrighted material – movies, music etc.  The media have made clear they oppose Chinese piracy of intellectual property – you know, like the written and filmed products that media members produce.

But their reaction is completely different when the Chinese violate international rules regarding manufactured goods. Then, the media blame the victims -- the U.S. industries and workers – the same way defense attorneys accuse rape victims.

Here, for example, is the Washington Post contending that the ITC decision to impose duties of between 10.4 and 15.8 percent on Chinese pipe heightened trade hostilities between the U.S. and China:

“The current tensions began in September, when the United States imposed a staggering 35 percent import fee on tires from China.”

The Dow Jones Newswire in a story by Henry J. Pulizzi also blamed the U.S. with provoking a fight with the Chinese by imposing duties, beginning with a reference to the steel pipe decision:

“The ruling adds more tension to the U.S.-China trade relationship. Ties between Washington and Beijing are already frayed by the Obama administration's imposition of duties on Chinese tire imports and China's criticism of U.S. moves as protectionist.”

These reporters act like the decisions themselves initiated animosity between the U.S. and China over trade.  That completely disregards how the process starts – with China violating international trade rules it had agreed to obey in ways that cause U.S. businesses to collapse, factories to close, thousands of U.S. paper workers, tire workers, steelworkers and others to lose their jobs, and their communities to suffer.

We could sit back and just take it and allow U.S. industries to die, one after another, while China keeps its citizens employed by providing subsidies and supports forbidden under international law to its industries and then selling the goods in the U.S. at prices below production costs.

But that doesn’t sit well with most Americans. They believe their country should enforce trade rules. That is what U.S. industry and unions are demanding. That is what occurred in the tire and steel cases. That is what the United Steelworkers and paper manufacturers are seeking in a trade case to be heard later this year.

Demanding adherence to the rules isn’t protectionism. And the media need to stop saying it is. Here’s how Dan DiMicco, chief executive officer of Nucor, the nation’s second largest steelmaker, explained it, “It is not protectionism when countries are held accountable for the agreements and obligations they freely entered into to have access to the USA and world’s markets.”

In addition to falsely making this a protectionist fight, the media wrongly contended the tariffs were political. Dow Jones, for example, tried to make the unanimous ITC decision in the steel case political, writing:

“The ITC is an independent federal agency tasked with investigating the impact of alleged ‘“dumping’” of foreign products on U.S. industries. While its six commissioners are split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, the decision fits with the Obama administration’s push to address U.S. manufacturers’ concerns about Chinese competition.”

Dow Jones implies here that somehow Obama managed to strong-arm all three Republican ITC members to vote his way in this case. None of the stories suggesting politics were involved in the tariff decisions note that Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and nine Republican Congressmen joined dozens of Democrats in signing letters to the ITC supporting the duties.


Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has written that failure to enforce trade laws and compel China to stop manipulating its currency could cost the U.S. 1.4 million jobs over the next couple of years. He describes China’s behavior as mercantilist – supporting industry for export of goods to maintain high employment and trade surpluses.

He quoted economist Paul Samuelson:

“With employment less than full. . . all the debunked mercantilist arguments” – that is, claims that nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries – “turn out to be valid.”

That is what China is doing to the U.S. – stealing jobs.

The U.S. doesn’t have to let it happen. America can enforce international trade laws. It works. Shortly after President Obama imposed the tire tariffs, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. announced plans to add capacity to its Findlay, Ohio plant and hire up to 100 workers. Other U.S. tire plants began recalling laid off workers.

American manufacturers, workers and communities are the victims of unfairly traded Chinese exports. They’re fed up with the media blaming them when all they’re asking for is justice.  

United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard has worked with jobs-oriented investment expert Tom Croft for years in the Heartland Network, which was created to promote responsible pension investment. Here, Gerard chats with Croft about his new book, Up From Wall Street, which explains how responsible investment can be both profitable and provide for good jobs, affordable housing, and a green future.

In Columbus Ohio, a 5-year-old girl jumped onto Santa’s lap last month and asked if he could give her dad a job as an elf.

Mike Smith, who works the Santa station at the Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus, asked why, the Wall Street Journal reported. The little girl in the Dora-the-Explorer sweat shirt responded:

“Because my daddy’s out of work, and we’re about to lose our house.”

Happy Holidays America. Read more...