Mike Hall

By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO Senior Writer 

Inside the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., this week, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship tried to defend the indefensible – Massey’s coal mine safety record. 

Thirty-one miners have died in Massey mines this year, including 29 in the April 5 explosion at the Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine. Fifty-four coal miners have been killed in the past decade at Massey mines. 

Outside the Press Club, more than 70 union members marched and chanted, demanding that Blankenship and Massey be held accountable (see video). Refining an old anti-war chant, the marchers sang out “Hey, Hey Blankenship. How many Miners You Killed Today?” and “54 dead. Should have been none.” 

Speaking through bullhorn at the club’s entrance AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario said: 

We are here today tell the National Press Club and tell the reporters who are in there that Don Blankenship and Massey energy have to be held accountable.  This is the worst outlaw company in the coal industry. Fifty-four miners dead in 10 years, the worst record in the coal industry. 

The march and Blankenship’s appearance at the Press Club came the day after the House  Education and Labor Committee approved a bill calling for tough new mine safety laws. Massey and the National Mining Association, an employer group, are adamantly opposed to the legislation. Seminario offered what could be behind their opposition. 

One of the most important provisions of that bill is that it would hold the coal operators, the coal executives and the boards of directors personally and criminally liable for violations of the law. 

Along with the 31 miners killed in Massey mines, 10 other coal miners have died on the job this year, all in nonunion coal mines. Seminario said Blankenship “is one of the most anti-union employers, anti-union coal operators in the country.” 

While miners represented by the Mine Workers (UMWA) have their safety rights—including speaking out about unsafe practices and withdrawing from unsafe areas—Massey miners have said they were afraid to speak out at Upper Big Branch. 

Ken Ward of the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, who was inside the Press Club, writes that Blankenship was there to flog: 

his company’s latest PR campaign—this one an all-out effort to convince the public that the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster was an unavoidable act of God. 

This morning, Massey issued a press release citing as the possible cause of deadly Upper Big Branch explosion an unexpected release of methane gas that “was intense and overwhelming to the normal safety systems.” At the Press Club, Blankenship said, “I believe that the physics of natural law and God trump whatever man tries to do.” 

Davitt McAteer, West Virginia Gov. Joe Machin’s special investigator for the Upper Big Branch disaster, told Ward: 

The effort to place blame on God or another person is not an uncommon practice after disasters, particularly in the mining industry. But investigations have almost always led to the conclusion that it wasn’t God who did it. 

Click here and here for more from Ward and his blog Coal Tattoo. 

Blankenship opened his speech inside the Press Club with a pledge to only deal in “cold, hard facts.” He talked about the cold hard fact that “companies have an obligation to make money,” but not the cold hard fact that more coal miners are killed in Massey mines than at any other U.S. coal company. 

When asked if he felt guilty over the 29 miners who died at Upper Big Branch, Blankenship replied that “it’s heartbreaking” but left the guilt question unanswered. 

While he opposes the Robert C. Byrd Miner Safety and Health Act (H.R. 5663) that includes provisions that hold coal operators criminally accountable for serious and willful safety violations, Blankenship did say anyone “who knowingly causes harm should be subject to due process.” 

Earlier this year , UMWA President Cecil Roberts said Massey Energy Co.’s continued inaction on safety violations at its Upper Big Branch Mine should be enough to subject Blankenship to due process. 

If there is any justice in America , U.S. Marshals should go to where he lives, get him, handcuff him, put him in chains, take him to jail, set his fine at $40 million. 

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Re-Posted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog 

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AFL-CIO Media Outreach Fellow Nora Frederickson contributed to this story.