Bushite Policies and Corporate Greed Gets Workers Killed
Corporate greed and profits are more important than workers' safety. The $50 million fine plea agreement and settlement between BP and the US government for the explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City that caused 15 deaths does not adequately punish the oil company for safety violations resulting in workers' deaths say those who lost friends, co-workers, and loved ones in 2005.
According to the Guardian today, "In a highly unusual legal move, the bereaved appeared in a Houston court to demand that a settlement between BP and the US government be thrown out. "This is no deterrent to BP, nor does it provide incentive for BP to take the kind of action necessary to prevent more deaths," David Senko, a contractor who lost 11 workers at Texas City, told judge Lee Rosenthal.
"...BP pleaded guilty to a single felony under the clean air act.
"Eva Rowe, who lost both her parents in the disaster, told the judge that she considered this inadequate: 'Was pollution BP's greatest sin? BP's greed murdered 15 people.' "
As the NYTimes reported last year, "An investigation led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III has concluded that weak leadership at BP and a lack of attention to effective safety helped create a dangerous setting that led to 15 deaths at the oil giant’s Texas refinery...
"....the company had fundamental problems in its “decentralized management system and entrepreneurial culture,” which left safety processes to the discretion of managers and did not define what was expected of them. Executive management was not held accountable for safety process of the United States refineries, the report said.
Ms. Rowe is absolutely right. BP only pleaded guilty to polluting the environment, not killing 15 workers. They received a carrot, not a stick.
This has been the pattern throughout the Bush administration. For example, the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006 and the Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah in 2007 were both caused by corporate greed.
The International Coal Group (ICG), owners of Sago, blamed lightning for the deaths of 12 miners. However, a mine safety expert stated that, if lightening were the cause, "it is clear that ICG failed to properly ground the mine’s electrical power infrastructure in its entirety, and failed to install lightning arrestors at some key locations as required by federal regulations. Pending further investigation, the question of whether these failures directly contributed to the explosion and subsequent loss of life remains to be resolved, but there is no question that they represent serious failures of mine management."
At Crandall Canyon, the co-owner, Bob Murray, who first claimed the disaster, which killed six miners and three rescue workers, was caused by an earthquake, which was debunked, then said it was a "once-in-a-lifetime" incident, had a horrible safety record.
As Robert Borosage wrote: "At Crandall Canyon, the miners were working at depths that test the limits of safety. Although Murray denies it, federal regulatory officials say that retreat mining was being practiced. Retreat mining is a perilous technique in which pillars of coal hold up portions of the roof, and when the area is mined, the pillars are pulled down, capturing the useful coal and collapsing the roof.
"Murray's scorn for safety has resulted in the MSHA citing his mines for thousands of safety violations, and calling for him to pay millions in fines. According to the New York Times, Crandall Canyon had been issued 324 citations by federal officials, with 107 said to be "significant and substantial," or likely to cause harm.
"Murray also knows how to buy influence. He is a big-time donor to the Republican Party, personally donating over $115,000 to Republican candidate over the past three election cycles and another $724,500 to the GOP over 10 years through political action committees connected to his businesses. He brandished that clout in 2003, threatening the job of MSHA district manager Tim Thompson, who ordered him to shut down one of his Ohio operations. "I will have your jobs," he said. And in fact, Thompson was transferred to another office and retired in 2006."
These terrible disasters occurred because of corporate greed that resulted in lax and ineffective safety measures that cost workers' their lives as these catastrophes prove. None of these deaths had to happen.
However, Bush and his administration are also guilty of aiding and abetting these disasters by deliberately weakening and impairing regulatory agencies so that they no longer provide adequate oversight.
Bushites have no interest in protecting workers but leave the workers' safety to corporate employers whom they believe must be trusted even though the record shows otherwise. Coeporate management is not held really accountable for violating safety regulations that cause workers' deaths; given a slap on the wrist fines for killing workers or, as in the case of the BP disaster, the corporation's crime of manslaughter/murder is completely ignored.
According to the Center for American Progress, "Mine workers deserve a government that is on their side. But under the conservative ideology of the Bush administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has become more responsive to mine operators seeking to avoid oversight than to the safety of miners."
And Dubya, supporter of corporate cronies and their profits, re-appointed Richard Stickler, who was unqualified, to head the MHSA. Another in countless examples of the fox guarding the hen house. This is the disdain with which King George holds regular, hard working Americans like miners.
Meanwhile, corporate greed and the Bush administration, which protects and supports big business first and always, and results in Dubya's intentionally deregulated, ineffective or no oversight, politicized regulatory agencies, continue killing American workers.
And impeachment is still off the table.
According to the Guardian today, "In a highly unusual legal move, the bereaved appeared in a Houston court to demand that a settlement between BP and the US government be thrown out. "This is no deterrent to BP, nor does it provide incentive for BP to take the kind of action necessary to prevent more deaths," David Senko, a contractor who lost 11 workers at Texas City, told judge Lee Rosenthal.
"...BP pleaded guilty to a single felony under the clean air act.
"Eva Rowe, who lost both her parents in the disaster, told the judge that she considered this inadequate: 'Was pollution BP's greatest sin? BP's greed murdered 15 people.' "
"....the company had fundamental problems in its “decentralized management system and entrepreneurial culture,” which left safety processes to the discretion of managers and did not define what was expected of them. Executive management was not held accountable for safety process of the United States refineries, the report said.
Ms. Rowe is absolutely right. BP only pleaded guilty to polluting the environment, not killing 15 workers. They received a carrot, not a stick.
This has been the pattern throughout the Bush administration. For example, the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia in 2006 and the Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah in 2007 were both caused by corporate greed.
The International Coal Group (ICG), owners of Sago, blamed lightning for the deaths of 12 miners. However, a mine safety expert stated that, if lightening were the cause, "it is clear that ICG failed to properly ground the mine’s electrical power infrastructure in its entirety, and failed to install lightning arrestors at some key locations as required by federal regulations. Pending further investigation, the question of whether these failures directly contributed to the explosion and subsequent loss of life remains to be resolved, but there is no question that they represent serious failures of mine management."
At Crandall Canyon, the co-owner, Bob Murray, who first claimed the disaster, which killed six miners and three rescue workers, was caused by an earthquake, which was debunked, then said it was a "once-in-a-lifetime" incident, had a horrible safety record.
As Robert Borosage wrote: "At Crandall Canyon, the miners were working at depths that test the limits of safety. Although Murray denies it, federal regulatory officials say that retreat mining was being practiced. Retreat mining is a perilous technique in which pillars of coal hold up portions of the roof, and when the area is mined, the pillars are pulled down, capturing the useful coal and collapsing the roof.
"Murray's scorn for safety has resulted in the MSHA citing his mines for thousands of safety violations, and calling for him to pay millions in fines. According to the New York Times, Crandall Canyon had been issued 324 citations by federal officials, with 107 said to be "significant and substantial," or likely to cause harm.
"Murray also knows how to buy influence. He is a big-time donor to the Republican Party, personally donating over $115,000 to Republican candidate over the past three election cycles and another $724,500 to the GOP over 10 years through political action committees connected to his businesses. He brandished that clout in 2003, threatening the job of MSHA district manager Tim Thompson, who ordered him to shut down one of his Ohio operations. "I will have your jobs," he said. And in fact, Thompson was transferred to another office and retired in 2006."
These terrible disasters occurred because of corporate greed that resulted in lax and ineffective safety measures that cost workers' their lives as these catastrophes prove. None of these deaths had to happen.
However, Bush and his administration are also guilty of aiding and abetting these disasters by deliberately weakening and impairing regulatory agencies so that they no longer provide adequate oversight.
Bushites have no interest in protecting workers but leave the workers' safety to corporate employers whom they believe must be trusted even though the record shows otherwise. Coeporate management is not held really accountable for violating safety regulations that cause workers' deaths; given a slap on the wrist fines for killing workers or, as in the case of the BP disaster, the corporation's crime of manslaughter/murder is completely ignored.
According to the Center for American Progress, "Mine workers deserve a government that is on their side. But under the conservative ideology of the Bush administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has become more responsive to mine operators seeking to avoid oversight than to the safety of miners."
And Dubya, supporter of corporate cronies and their profits, re-appointed Richard Stickler, who was unqualified, to head the MHSA. Another in countless examples of the fox guarding the hen house. This is the disdain with which King George holds regular, hard working Americans like miners.
Meanwhile, corporate greed and the Bush administration, which protects and supports big business first and always, and results in Dubya's intentionally deregulated, ineffective or no oversight, politicized regulatory agencies, continue killing American workers.
And impeachment is still off the table.
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