Coal miners forced to attend Romney event and donate to campaign

On August 14, 2012, Mitt Romney held a campaign event in Beallsville, Ohio that featured coal miners as a back drop from the Century Mine. Yesterday, on WWVA talk radio, host David Blomquist read e-mails from coal miners who work for the Century Mine, which is owned by Murray Energy Corporation.

 In the e-mails, miners said that they were forced to attend the campaign rally, without pay, and had to donate to the Romney campaign. Bloomquist said that he had received several e-mails and calls to his show about the intimidation being used against them.

Blomquist interviewed Rob Moore the Chief Financial Officer for Murray Energy Corporation on his talk show to address the complaints by the miners.

David Blomquist told Moore that miners feared for their jobs if they did not attend the Romney event, and then read one of the e-mails from the miners:

“Yes, we were in fact told that the Romney event was mandatory and would be without pay, that the hours spent there would need to be made up my non-salaried employees outside of regular working hours, with the only other option being to take a pay cut for the equivalent time,” the employees told Blomquist. “Yes, letters have gone around with lists of names of employees who have not attended or donated to political events.”
“I realize that many people in this area and elsewhere would love to have my job or my benefits,” one worker explained. “And our bosses do not hesitate in reminding us of this. However, I cannot agree with these callers and my supervisors, who are saying that just because you have a good job, that you should have to work any day for free on almost no notice without your consent.”
“We do not appreciate being intimidated into exchanging our time for nothing. I heard one of your callers saying that Murray employees are well aware of what they are getting into upon hire, or that they are informed that a percentage of their income will go to political donations. I cannot speak for that caller, but this is news for me. We merely find out how things work by experience.”

CFO Rob Moore told Blomquist that the charges were untrue, and the following conversation between Moore and Blomquist took place:

Moore: “There were no workers that were forced to attend the event. We had managers that communicated to our work force that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event. We had a preregistration list. And employees were asked to put their names on a preregistration list because they could not get into the event unless they were preregistered and had a name tag to enter the premises.”
Blomquist: “What about not getting paid for an eight-hour day? If the mine was shut down for the visit, I understand, but wouldn’t it be fair, let’s use the word ‘fair’, to still pay these individuals for that day? I mean, it wasn’t their fault they weren’t working.”
Moore: “Our management people wanted to attend the event and we could not have people underground during Romney’s visit”.
Blomquist: “But why not still pay then their wage for that day?”
Moore: “By federal election law, we could not pay people to attend the event. And we did not want anyone to come back and see where anyone had been paid for that day.”
Blomquist: “I’m not saying pay them to attend the event, I’m saying, ‘Hey look, we have to close down the mine, if you want to attend this event, that’s fine, but you’re still going to get a day’s pay for the work that you would have done. Why not do that?”
Moore: “As a private employer, it was our decision and we made the decision not to pay the people”.
“We’re talking about an event that was in the best interest of anyone that’s related to the coal industry. I do not believe that missing an eight-hour day, when you put it into perspective, when you think about how critical this next election is, and how critical it is that we get someone in this office that supports coal, to give up eight hours for a career, I just don’t believe that there is anything negative about that.”

Robert Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy Corporation received national attention in 2009 after his Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah collapsed, leaving six miners trapped inside. Government mine inspectors had issued 325 citations against the Utah mine since January 2004, according to federal Mine Safety and Health Administration online records.

Murray is a large campaign donor for Republicans and runs a Super PAC called the Murray Energy Corporation Political Action Committee. The Super PAC has given $317,575.00 to various Republican campaigns, including Mitt Romney in 2012.

This past June, Mitt Romney spoke to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), and told them to threaten their employees and “make it very clear” that they must support his campaign or they could lose their jobs.

You can listen to the entire radio interview on the Huffington Post by clicking here.

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Republicans put their Founding Funders ahead of the American people

Government regulations create jobs and save lives

 

The republican mantra that “regulations kill jobs” is deceiving, unless you are talking about new hires at mortuaries that will be needed as people die from dirty drinking water, lung disease from breathing polluted air, or eating food contaminated with mercury. 

Republicans and their right wing propaganda outlets such as Fox “News”, say that thousands of regulations prevent jobs from being created, even though CEO’s say that that is NOT true, and as economists, including republican economists, show data that refutes the GOP’s misinformation.

 Mike Morris, the CEO at American Electric Power said, “We have to hire plumbers, electricians, painters, folks who do that kind of work when you retrofit a plant. Jobs are created in the process — no question about that.”

 

A report by the independent Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), at the University of Massachusetts, estimates that more than 250,000 jobs will be created through installation of new equipment at existing power plants and construction of new clean energy facilities.

The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that regulations are having virtually no impact on job losses. In 2010, only 0.3% of job losses occurred because of government regulation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made a statement today on the Senate floor;

 

Republican economist says GOP spreads the falsehood because it has no plan to create jobs.

Bruce Bartlett, an advisor to President Ronald Reagan ​and a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, is a trusted, conservative voice on economics. He offered these strong words on the regulation monster under Big Business’ bed:

“No hard evidence is offered for this claim; it is simply asserted as self-evident and repeated endlessly throughout the conservative echo chamber… In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.”

 

But why use regulations proven to protect the health of every man, woman and child in this nation as a scapegoat? What are the origins of the myth?

I believe – as Bartlett does – that Republicans are attacking regulation because they don’t have a plan to create jobs and turn our economy around.

While Democrats have been pushing time-tested remedies for a flagging economy, such as infrastructure investments or middle-class tax cuts, our Republican colleagues have been peddling a cure-all tonic of deregulation.

Bartlett says, “People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them.”

They’ve offered up the specter of overreaching government regulation to distract from the fact that they haven’t offered a single idea for how to put America back to work.

And they use the argument to justify rolling back everything from clear air and water safeguards to Wall Street and health insurance industry reforms.

What’s more, they’ve spread the tall tale that removing these regulations and letting Big Business do exactly as it pleases will not only prevent job losses, but actually create new jobs.

Bartlett called that logical leap “nonsense.”

“It's just made up,” he said. So, let’s talk fact, not fiction.

*****

Republicans want to kill new financial regulations that were put in place to help prevent another economic collapse that financial institutions caused in 2008. Republicans want to kill the EPA regulations that require some of the oldest coal power plants to upgrade their facilities so they pollute less. 

Republicans want to give free rein to some of the biggest polluters in our country and free rein to financial institutions that have destroyed our economy. And Republicans fought to kill or marginalize the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that will help all Americans from being ripped off by banks.  

The Republican Party works against American families and against you. Republicans put their own jobs and their Founding Funders ahead of the American people and the United States.

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