Palm Sunday

This is a heavy day for me for several reasons. First is the nature of the day itself, which commemorates Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem in the days leading up to his crucifixion and death. The day was triumphant, with blessings and shouts of hosanna...but we know what happens five days later.

Then there's the date itself. Ten years ago today, 29 coal miners were killed in Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine. Subsequent investigations, like this one written by my then co-worker Beth Spence, found a deliberate pattern at the company of evading mine safety regulations. The company no longer exists and its CEO spent a year in federal prison, although that's cold comfort to the friends and families of those who died.

I was literally on the far side of the world attending a karate seminar in Okinawa when I got the word. It felt so strange to be that far away at such a time, not that I could have done anything about it.

Finally, the holy day if not the date marks another sad loss for West Virginia and the world. It was on Palm Sunday in 1979, (April 8th to be exact, Easter being a movable feast) that Breece Pancake, in my opinion the state's greatest writer killed himself in Charlottesville.

He was from my home town of Milton and we had some family connections. At the time, I was working at the town library with his mother Helen. I remember going to work to pretend to clean the library that Sunday and finding main librarian Toney Reese there, visibly upset.

I'd work with Helen every Tuesday night and every other Saturday for the next six years and we grew very close over that time. It was sad but still a privilege watching his book of short stories come together and take off. It hasn't landed yet.

If nothing else, this day is a reminder of how quickly and drastically things can change...although we probably didn't need to be reminded of that today.

This day in West Virginia labor history

On this day in 1989, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) began its historic strike against the Pittston Coal Company. The issues leading to the strike were mostly regarding retiree health benefits.

The union had been working without a contract for a full 14 months when the strike began, which was pretty much unheard of at the time. During that time many miners received training in nonviolent action and civil disobedience.

Around 1,700 miners in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky participated in the strike, which lasted until Feb. 20, 1990.

It was my first big fight. I had only been working on economic justice issues with the American Friends Service Committee for a month or so, although I followed events as closely as I could in the Charleston Gazette in the year leading up to it. Everybody paying attention knew something was going to blow.

I remember sitting in the cafeteria of the WV capitol and being told by a UMWA rep that it was starting as we spoke. It would come to absorb my attention, energy and chi for the next 10 months and I forged some strong relationships that continue to this day. I'll always be grateful to AFSC for giving me the chance to jump in. I can't say that I had a huge impact on the strike, but it had a huge impact on me.

It was intense and exhausting, but, to be honest, I was having the time of my life.

When I look back on it, I think of friends, picket lines, burning houses, evictions, crashing coal trucks, (alleged) jackrocks, singing, banter, jokes, learning guitar, anger, Christmas, courage, goon guards, provocations, state police, constant motion, solidarity, direct action, mischief, learning, absorbing history, brave women holding the line, places, and the threat of violence, all to a Bob Dylan soundtrack.

At times, the atmosphere on the picket lines reminded me of the movie Matewan just before the shootout. It seemed to me at the time as if the fate of the world, or at least the labor movement, hinged on the outcome. Eventually, the union won a restoration of benefits, which have helped thousands of retirees and survivors over the years. But UMWA membership continued to decline.

The strike developed in the aftermath of another less fortunate strike against Massey subsidiaries earlier in the decade. Like Pittston would later do, Massey withdrew from the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), the industry bargaining group. This was the beginning of Massey's spree of union busting, environmental failures, intimidation, political manipulation, safety shortcuts and the rest.

Massey's power would grow over the years in power and influence, like the rising power of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.

Ironically, Pittston withdrew from the coal industry in the years following the strike, with many of its assets sold to Massey.

Fast forward to this date in 2010, when a mammoth explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch underground mine in Montcoal WV killed 29 miners. Before Massey bought the mine from Peabody Coal in 1993, it had been a union operation. But after a strong anti-union campaign led by former Massey CEO and now candidate for the US senate (!), the union was decertified by the late 1990s.

Without a union, miners had less of a voice in working conditions, and especially mine safety. With terrible consequences. You can read all about it here.

Much happened in the wake of the disaster. There were investigations, lawsuits, fines and criminal prosecutions, including the first ever conviction of the CEO of a major corporation for conspiring to evade safety rules. Massey no longer exists. But eight years later, the Republican controlled congress has yet to pass meaningful mine safety legislation, such as that advocated by the late great Senator Robert C. Byrd.

This day reminds me of the best and worst in West Virginia history, of what working people organized in unions can achieve and of what can happen if unions are weakened and defeated.

During WV's recent and successful teachers' strike, I felt echoes of Pittston days, with crowds at the capitol almost as large as the ones in 1989. And it was great to feel the warm presence of UMWA members rallying in solidarity.

Times have changed but our recent and more distant history shows that the need for working class solidarity is as urgent as ever. And that's not likely to change.

Read it and weep

I'll say it again, it's time to shelve West Virginia's old state motto, "Mountaineers are always free" and replace it with something more fitting. (Although I hope we can reinstate the old one when conditions change.)

My nomination for the motto has oft appeared here. It's "You can't make this **** up." I was hoping to come up with a Latin version, but the Republican controlled state legislature declared English to be the official language.

Perhaps that will save the billions of dollars currently spent on printing official documents in Urdu...

But I digress.

The most recent example of why we should use the new motto can be found in the publication from prison by former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship titled An American Political Prisoner.

Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo had this to say about that here. The truly...interested can read the whole document here. I actually skimmed it.

Let's just say it ain't Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Three more for the road...from the road

I'm traveling tonight but found a few things worth a look. First, here's an interesting item by Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter and Coal Tattoo blogger Ken Ward on the Blankenship verdict.

The NY Times editorial on the subject is here. Here's the first paragraph:

It was the rarest of news in the coal mining hollows of Appalachia: A once powerful executive, Donald Blankenship, was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where 29 workers died in an explosion six years ago. The very idea that a dominant baron of the industry called King Coal could be brought to justice and put behind bars shook the region, where miners have long complained that they face dangerous and illegal working conditions that routinely result in no punishment.

Kudos to federal judge Irene Berger, who had this to say to Blankenship:

 “You, Mr. Blankenship, created a culture of noncompliance at Upper Big Branch where your subordinates accepted and, in fact, encouraged unsafe working conditions in order to reach profitability and production targets.”

Finally, just for fun, here's a parody of a famous Robert Frost poem as Donald Trump might have written it.

The big news

It's not enough. But it took so much to get this far. Here's the Gazette-Mail on the Blankenship verdict. Here's the New York Times. Here's NPR. And here's the Washington Post.

Six years out

I'll probably never forget when I heard about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster. I was in Okinawa attending a karate seminar. It was the dream of a lifetime to meet and train with the greatest living masters of the traditional styles.

I think it was morning Okinawa time when I got a profanity laced email from my daughter, who was interning at a Charleston hospital then. Her email said something like "****ing Massey just killed a bunch of miners."

It was weird for something like that to happen at home when I was so far away, not that I could have done anything about it if I was there. This post was my first reaction. In it, I expressed my desire that the goddess Nemesis be swift to render justice.

I'm not sure about the swift part, but I'm hoping there will soon be a little justice to report.

A little justice or a slap on the wrist:

Federal legal memos don't always make for the most interesting reading, but this one on the sentencing of former Massey CEO Don Blankenship is an exception:

It shocks the conscience that in the 21st century, knowing all that has been learned from decades of grief in our nation’s mines, the CEO of a major coal company would willfully conspire against the laws that protect his workers’ lives. One struggles for words to describe the inhumanity required for a mogul like Defendant to send working men and women into needless, mortal jeopardy for no purpose other than to pile up more money. The law, as it stands, offers no adequate punishment for his crime. But what the law does allow, the court should impose: a year in prison and the maximum fine. Don Blankenship owes at least that much to the men and women who worked at UBB. 

The Gazette-Mail's Ken Ward has more to say on that here.

A HOT MESS. West Virginia's state budget is in pretty much disaster mode. Programs and services have already been cut to the bone and are facing more. One perennial target of cuts is higher education, which is perverse in a state with the lowest educational attainment in the nation. A friend of mine offers some common sense solutions here. The legislative purse string, however, are held by the tax cut crew.

The verdict

Sorry about the slow posts. Aside from running around, I was without phone and internet for a good chunk of last week, which was very frustrating. The big news, obviously, was the Don Blankenship verdict. Short version: guilty on conspiracy to evade mine safety laws, not guilty on charges related to corporate reporting and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Here's my thought: how (fill in the blank)-ed up is it that the maximum sentence he could face for helping to bring about the needless deaths of 29 miners is one year, whereas the sentences for misleading investors carried a penalty of decades? OK, so that was a rhetorical question.

I mean, golly, one might almost think that the interests of the wealthy and powerful count for more than those of working people in this country.

Still the fact that a corporate boss got any penalty (or even inconvenience) at all for causing the deaths of workers is a big deal, so I'll try to focus on the positive.

Anyway, the story is all over the web. I think WV Public Broadcasting did a good job on Inside Appalachia and Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo had this to say after following this developing story for years.

Not so fast?

Even while congressional Republicans continue to talk about repealing the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, some are starting to hesitate at the idea of taking way expanded Medicaid coverage from what probably amounts to millions of people.

WV Senator Shelley Moore Capito was even quoted saying this: “I am very concerned about the 160,000 people who had Medicaid expansion in my state. I have difficulty with that being included.” I'm glad she feels that way. I hope more people on her side of the aisle do as well.

I guess that amounts to good news these days.

THE LATEST EMBARRASSMENT TO WV? Maybe this.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE COURTHOUSE...the Don Blankenship case is up to the jury now.

It's not all bad, continued

I've been making a conscious effort here to highlight positive things happening in WV...when they happen. And they do. Here are two related bright spots:

Try This WV is an effort by many groups and individuals to promote healthy lifestyles, real (and local) food, and physical activity. The long range goal is to pull WV's abysmal health statistics out of the nether regions. Try This is a combination website, conference, mini-grant program and movement. This year it awarded more than $100,000 to local groups working on healthy projects.

One group with Try This connections that is making a splash in the northern panhandle is Grow Ohio Valley, which educates about food justice even while promoting local health food.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. Here's the correct link for the NY Times editorial on Don Blankenship/Massey Energy/Upper Big Branch that I mentioned yesterday but didn't properly link. My bad!

Two from the Times

I'm grateful to live in a state where we had a political leader with enough humanity to expand Medicaid coverage to nearly 170,000 low income working West Virginians. (Yes, that would be Gov. Early Ray Tomblin.) Unfortunately, that isn't the case in many states. If you want to see what the all too predictable pattern looks like, click here.

Meanwhile, the Times ran this editorial last week on the case of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who is facing federal charges in the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster which killed 29 WV coal miners.

Hypocrisy, skulduggery and one to watch

Perhaps the Gentle Reader will recall the crocodile tears shed by political candidates who oozed with compassion for miners and were eager to fight against the alleged "war on coal."

(The winning state candidates who did this demonstrated their sincerity in the last legislative session by rolling back some coal mine safety measures despite the firm opposition of the United Mine Workers.)

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the only member of WV's congressional delegation to support a bill making it simpler for deserving miners to get black lung benefits is Joe Manchin. This would be another put up or shut up moment for people who apparently have little inclination to do either.

NOW SKULDUGGERY. Workforce WV just completed a survey mandated by the legislature last year to calculate prevailing wages for public construction projects. It looks like state legislative leaders really wanted to kill prevailing wage and drag down conditions for working people all along.

NOW ONE TO WATCH. I'm referring of course to the trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.

Two ironies and a novelty

It occurs to me lately that the world is increasingly divided into two kinds of places: those in which it is difficult or impossible to stay and those to which it is difficult or impossible to go. And the difference between the two is shrinking.

AND HERE'S ANOTHER IRONY. Former Massey CEO Don Blankenship has achieved total political victory even while he faces criminal charges from the Upper Big Branch disaster.

NOW FOR THE NOVELTY: would you believe Buddhist campus sororities and fraternities?

Today in coal

How's this for randomness: a court decides that Alpha Natural Resources needs to pay for former Massey CEO Don Blankenship's legal fees. I'm not sure about the legal niceties but I think I'm with Alpha on this. I'm guessing the court ruled this was part of the deal for assuming Massey's liabilities.

Then there's this: WV coal production has been projected to drop by nearly 40 percent over the next 20 years from its 2008 high point. Most of that drop is expected to occur in southern WV, while production in the northern part of the state is comparatively stable.

I'm not sure how WV's ruling class will be able to blame all this on you-know-who but I'm guessing they'll find a way.

Curiouser and curiouser

The latest developments in the federal prosecution of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship just got more interesting with the release of the contents of recorded conversations. Ken Ward, as usual, is all over it.

A day to remember

This post is being written two hours before  April 28, Workers Memorial Day, which honors all those who died on the job. This time around, it's impossible not to remember the fact that West Virginia has led the nation in mining deaths since 2004. In particular, it is, or should be, impossible to forget those 29 miners who died just a little over five years ago at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine.

As regular readers of this blog know, El Cabrero is something of a hard core if not entirely orthodox Episcopalian. In the words of our Book of Common Prayer, "May light perpetual shine upon them."

And may such things never be again.