I am so excited, even ecstatic to read that a federal grand jury has indicted Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, in the coal mining disaster that killed 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch Mine. Everyone who died that day, everyone who survived, and all of management knew that mine was not properly ventilated and was an explosion waiting to happen.
Don Blankenship deserves to spend the rest of his days in a jail cell. His typical corporate disdain for workers and their families, his typical corporate willingness to sacrifice the lives of workers in the interests of his own greed cost the lives of 29 daddies, husbands, sons, Grandpas, best friends, and church deacons.
According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the cause of the explosion was Massey’s “systematic, intentional and aggressive efforts” to hide problems.
The disaster happened in April, 2010.
That disaster is the result of the de-unionization of America’s coal mines. For decades now the coal giants like Massey and Peabody have been systematically busting the United Mine Workers by closing union mines and opening up non-union mines in the very same vein of coal.
As the son of a coal miner said after the Sago mine disaster in Pennsylvania, the worst thing that happened to us was killing the union.
Image source: Rainforest Action Network