Utah Mine Owner Murray: The Face of Capitalism Today, and Tomorrow?
Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 10:33:21 AM PDT
I am listening in bewildered awe to Bob Murray, the owner of the mine which collapsed trapping 6 miners underground in Utah, give a "press conference" describing the current rescue efforts. Murray is a well-known opponent of mine safety regulations - see RenaF's excellent diary from yesterday raising the question of whether this guy is a nutcase -
http://www.dailykos.com/...
What I see is a throwback to the days of Andrew Carnegie, when industrialists owned not just their companies, but effectively their workers so long as there was no union to represent the workers' interests. This guy, running a non-union mine, is controlling everything, and his behavior and language, as well as the collapse itself, raise serious questions of the role of both the Federal government in protecting mine safety, and of the state of Utah. It's hard to think of a clearer argument for unionization than this. Follow me below for more thoughts.
Rena commented yesterday, and I did too, on Murray's stated obsession with controlling all information on the situation. He criticized the media for consulting outside experts, and told them to listen only to him, for "the truth". Murray continues to insist as well that an earthquake caused the cave-in, and not risky and unsafe mining practices that he might have required his crews to undertake. Yet geologists are saying it's unlikely that there was any earthquake other than the seismic activity caused by the mine cave-in itself.
But what really concerns me is that I see no evidence of any state agency actually doing anything, or of anybody independent of the mine operator involved in the rescue operation. Murray says the Assistant Secretary of Labor is there - I don't know if he means Federal or State, but where are the mine safety people? Murray says they had to stop rescue efforts yesterday because there were "aftershocks" that made it unsafe to go on - yet geologists say there was no seismic activity after mid-afternoon yesterday. Finally, Murray keeps talking about protecting the privacy of the families involved, which essentially means he's not releasing any information on who's down there, and that the fate of those men "is in the hands of the Lord".
What the fuck century is it, people?!!! Why is this man apparently solely in charge of the rescue operation and all information, when this is a matter of public safety for those miners, who aren't just his employees - they're American and Utah citizens! Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume representatives of both Federal and State government are there, who is making the decision to go forward or not with drilling efforts? It's obviously in Murray's interests to defend this "earthquake" theory, despite the lack of scientific support for that - are we now allowing faith-based mine safety enforcement?
The broader lesson, of course, is that this is what you get when you allow 19th century laissez-faire economic theory, including anti-unionism, to pervade every level of government. The result is government that is incapable of truly protecting its citizens - and that allows blowhard capitalists like Murray to effectively own the fates of his workers. This has got to be stopped - we have got to turn this around beginning in January 2009 at the latest.
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