Coal Miners Forced to Submit to Romney's Advances

[footfootfoot]

Coal miners in Ohio - who work for a company that's given almost $1 million to the GOP - say they feared they'd lose their jobs if they didn't attend a "mandatory" event with Mitt Romney and contribute to his campaign. Insult to Injury: They lost a day of pay for their trouble.

“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’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 think about (how) 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." - Murray Energy "defending" the company's actions.

[Happy Monkey]

I bet the guy who made that quote didn't give up 8 hours worth of pay that day.

And someone who said "attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event" shouldn't be paid at all.

[piercehawkeye45]

If it was that critical, wouldn't it be worth it to pay the workers?

[glatt]

I feel badly for the coal miners. It's a shit job. Just about the worst I can think of.

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'mandatory' is."

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'mandatory' is."

I think it has something to do with Mandates, but I could be wrong...

[tw]

From the NY Times of 8 April 2010 is why Federal prosecutors are building felony charges against the owner of the Big Branch Mine:

Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety
Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable. ...
In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch because of dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. ...
Mr. Blankenship sent a memorandum to his deep mine superintendents. ...“If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal,”

Even after burning off in the explosion, methane remained at dangerous levels? Alarms that warned of methane were disabled. A critical fan necessary to remove methane was compromised?

But this was only an accident because they did exactly what the memo ordered? The current administration would prosecute because employee lives were only secondary to coal? Yes. They know the GOP will protect profits at the expense of safety. After all, the purpose of a company, as taught in business schools to both George Jr and Romney, is only profits.

Top management (Don Blankenship) needs GOP protection. Otherwise profits will be harmed by the upcoming criminal lawsuits that target the reason for that (and other previous) explosion. After all, the only purpose of a business (and the mafia) is profits.

[richlevy]

If you're an hourly worker, and your company sends you someplace during normal work hours, you get paid.

They should talk to the National Labor Relations Board while it's still the Obama administration. It would certainly make for a good headline.

"Obama Administration Insists Workers Be Paid for Attending Romney Event"

[Razzmatazz13]

See, with husband in the military we end up getting "volun-told" to do things... that's when they tell you something is optional, but it's really not. Sounds familiar but it's not supposed to happen in the civillian world. If work wants you somewhere and it's mandatory, you get paid for being there.

[Clodfobble]

My old employer would routinely have periods of mandatory unpaid overtime hours, even if I literally had no work to do myself, because it was important for team morale for everyone to see the burden was being shared. I nodded my head and went home anyway, but I only got away with it because my office was in a completely different part of the building.