An investment group with ties to labor pension funds called for the resignation of Massey Energy directors who are “ultimately responsible for Massey’s alarming safety compliance record.” The Change to Win Investment Group “presented today an in-depth analysis to shareholders of Massey Energy Company, making the case to vote against the three directors up for election at the mining company’s May 18 annual meeting, the first meeting of shareholders since the tragic April 5 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners lost their lives.” In a letter to investors, CtW called for the removal of directors responsible for the “preventable mine explosion” that “killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value“:

We urge you to vote “Withhold” on directors Richard M. Gabrys, Dan R. Moore and Baxter F. Phillips, Jr. at the Massey Energy Company annual meeting on May 18. As members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee (SEPPC), these directors are ultimately responsible for serious and systematic non-compliance with mine safety laws over an extended period, a risk oversight failure that likely led to the catastrophic and preventable mine explosion on April 5 that killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value.

The investment group “believes Massey Chair and CEO Donald Blankenship’s ‘production first’ emphasis fostered a management culture that tolerated unacceptable safety and compliance failures.” By supporting Blankenship’s drive for profits over rules, the members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee hold ultimate responsibility for the deaths of Massey’s miners.

Richard Gabrys

On Massey’s board since 2007, Gabrys is “the retired vice chairman of Deloitte.” He also serves on the board of the Michigan-based companies La-Z-Boy Inc., coal-dependent utility CMS Energy, and engineering firm TriMas Corporation. Gabrys has given $6000 to Republicans, including $1000 to George W. Bush, and $500 to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).

Dan R. Moore

On Massey’s board since 2002, Moore is “the Chairman of Moore Group, Inc., which owns multiple automobile dealerships in West Virginia and Kentucky.” He previously ran West Virginia’s Matewan Bank. Moore also serves on the board of the West Virginia University Foundation, the Branch Bank and Trust Company, and the West Virginia Housing Fund. Moore has contributed $8100 to Republicans since 2000.

Baxter F. Phillips

Massey’s president since 2008 and a top executive since 2000, Phillips joined Massey in 1981. Phillips has contributed $8900 to Republicans and $5950 to the Massey PAC.

On April 19, Massey director Lady Barbara Thomas Judge resigned amid shareholder unrest.

“During times like these, a change in senior management is not appropriate or in the best interest of our members and shareholders,” said Admiral Bobby R. Inman, Massey Energy’s lead independent director on April 22. “Therefore, we want to emphasize that Don Blankenship has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors.”

Coal baron Don Blankenship is pushing back against calls for his resignation, following the deadly explosion at his company’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, WV, the worst US coal disaster in 40 years. In an extended interview with the Charleston Daily Mail, the Massey Energy chairman and CEO challenged the idea that anyone should be held accountable for the mine explosion, which killed 29 miners:

I don’t think anybody’s head has to roll. I think that’s misplaced emphasis right now. The guys that are running these coal mines, they’re heartbroken, and they’re distressed and despondent, and the last thing they need is anybody pointing fingers at them right now. We don’t need anybody to be more impacted than they already have been.

Gone was the partisan, anti-regulatory, science-denying, unrepentant right-wing capitalist Don Blankenship. The Blankenship in the Daily Mail interview was conciliatory and cautious, though flashes of his high self-regard and combative spirit appeared.

“It would be a big disappointment to everybody else involved if I were to walk away from [the job],” Blankenship concluded, ignoring the calls for his resignation coming from shareholders, workers, and consumer advocates.

At a hearing with top US coal executives, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) agreed with a statement made by another coal CEO, Massey coal baron Don Blankenship. Last year — a few months before his Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, exploded, killing 29 miners in the worst US coal disaster in 40 years — Blankenship said that the efforts by officials to get Massey Energy to improve mine safety are as “silly as global warming.” Inslee replied that “it’s actually very true“:

It’s actually very true. Mine safety is as silly as global warming — they’re both deadly serious and they’re not silly at all.

Watch it:

In his full opening remarks, Inslee noted that several headlines tell the story of the deadly dangers of our dependence on coal — a killer tsunami in Peru caused by a glacier breaking apart, the disappearance of yet more glaciers from Glacier National Park, and the Montcoal mine disaster. “If you decide to join with us to try to find a way to have a policy that will allow coal to be burned in a way that does not put massive amounts of CO2, that does not treat the atmosphere as a garbage dump, that in fact buries it underground,” Inslee said, “coal can have a future. If you don’t, it won’t.”

The House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing was later interrupted by youth climate activists, who confronted the CEOs of Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Rio Tinto with lumps of dirty coal.

Last Friday, Rush Limbaugh asked why a coal miner union didn’t protect the 29 miners who were killed when Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, WV, exploded under unsafe conditions:

Was there no union responsibility for improving mine safety? Where was the union here? Where was the union? The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?

Listen here:

There’s a simple reason the union didn’t protect the miners: the Upper Big Branch Mine, like nearly all of the mines under Massey CEO Don Blankenship’s control, is non-union. In fact, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) “tried three times to organize the Upper Big Branch mine, but even with getting nearly 70 percent of workers to sign cards saying they wanted to vote for a union, Blankenship personally met with workers to threaten them with closing down the mine and losing their jobs if they voted for a union.”

Blankenship rose in Massey’s ranks by breaking its union mines in the 1980s. Blankenship said then that busting unions is “invaluable” to profits, as non-union companies can “sell coal cheaper and drive union coal out of business.”

Union mines have a significantly better safety record than non-union mines especially for major disasters, as union miners can refuse unsafe work and report dangerous conditions without fear of retaliation. In addition to preventing Blankenship-style intimidation, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would increase whistleblower protections for non-union and union workers alike. Under Blankenship’s direction, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association have spent millions to oppose passage of such legislation for worker rights, comparing it to a “firestorm bordering on Armageddon.”

Immediately following the tragedy, the UMW sent trained support personnel to the disaster site. “We are all brothers and sisters in the coalfields at times like this,” UMW President Cecil Roberts said in a statement offering the assistance, which was refused by Massey company officials.

The death toll from Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine explosion last week has reached a total of 29 miners, the worst coal disaster in 40 years. When the disaster occurred, Massey was contesting millions of dollars in major safety violations levied against the mine. At his Labor Day anti-union rally last year, Massey CEO Don Blankenship attacked the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), claiming it “seeks power over coal miners.” He mocked both “Washington politicians” and local elected officials who attempt to ensure miner safety, calling their efforts “as silly as global warming”:

We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming.

Watch it:

Don Blankenship — who uses his position on the boards of the National Mining Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote his conspiracy theories about global warming — said he spent one million dollars to put together the “Friends of America” right-wing rally and rock concert in Holden, WV on September 7, 2009, which starred Ted Nugent, Hank Williams, Jr., and Fox News host Sean Hannity. In 2009, Blankenship also complained that “politicians get emotional” about disasters and establish “nonsensical” safety rules.