Shareholders call on Massey Energy to fire Don Blankenship.
Massey CEO Don Blankenship
by Brad Johnson, Think Progress, April 13, 2010
Shareholders are calling on Massey Energy to seek the immediate resignation of chairman and CEO Don Blankenship in the aftermath of the West Virginia disaster that killed 29 miners, the worst in forty years. The Change to Win Investment Group — a union pension fund group with over $200 billion in assets — believes the Upper Big Branch mine explosion is the “tragic consequence of the board’s failure to challenge Chairman and CEO Blankenship’s confrontational approach to regulatory compliance.” New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, who controls about $14.1 million of Massey stock as the trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, blasted Massey’s “callous disregard for the safety of its employees” as a “failure both of risk management and effective board oversight”:
Massey’s cavalier attitude toward risk and callous disregard for the safety of its employees has exacted a horrible cost on dozens of hard-working miners and their loved ones. This tragedy was a failure both of risk management and effective board oversight. Blankenship must step down and make room for more responsible leadership at Massey.Early this morning, the last of the 29 bodies of the miners killed were recovered from the mine. Yesterday, Standard & Poors upgraded Massey to a “buy,” saying the tragedy’s “financial effect” was “immaterial.”
Some responses to “Shareholders call on Massey Energy to fire Don Blankenship.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/13/fire-blankenship/
Wonder if his conscience ever bothers him?
April 13th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Why isn’t this porcine scumbag in jail ?
April 13th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Dear Mr. Thomas P. DiNapoli;
Sell the stucking fock. All of it.
Thank you.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
The Change to Win Investment Group — a union pension fund group with over $200 billion in assets — believes the Upper Big Branch mine explosion is the “tragic consequence of the board’s failure to challenge Chairman and CEO Blankenship’s confrontational approach to regulatory compliance.”
There you go, Limpy. The union will be taking care of the situation, after all.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
If he had any dignity (he doesn’t, it’s a rhetorical point), he’d step down and surrender to the authorities.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
About damn time.
It’s simple logic: the worse image your company has, the less likely your company will be to attract new investors or retain current ones. Blankenship is viewed (rightfully) as a callous, brutal sociopath with no regard whatsoever to the saftey of his employees. He belongs in prison, not a boardroom.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
This photo reminds me of the giant neck on that Exxon executive. He’ll get some giant severance package and never think again of all the lives he ruined.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Psychopaths don’t have a conscience.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Totall O/T, but check out the panel on the right of the TP article entitled Topic Cloud:
It reads:
Bachmann Banks Beck Blankenship Boehner…
I just got the wierdest visual from the first scan…!
April 13th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I hope he does resign, but he won’t. Less ignominious than getting fired, but that is next, one can only hope.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Is it still considered ‘clean coal’ with all that blood all over it?
April 13th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Chamber of Commerce has a job waiting for him.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
What about passing a law that makes Corporate officers responsible for their decisions, just as you and I are responsible for our decisions. If we get drunk and kill someone in our car, we are sent to jail. But when Massey makes decisions responsible for 29 deaths, their executives suffer no adverse consequences. Just as the stock manipulators whose actions brought on the current recession walked off with billions in profit, ruining the lives of many, reaped huge profits and walked the way with the words, “Thanks, suckers!” on their lips.
It is not enough to close loopholes. The smart guys will find new ones. People who commit crimes such as these must be brought to justice.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Time for the corporate death penalty.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
If Massey Energy and all it’s now acquired person hood could be summoned to court for manslaughter, maybe the Roberts Supreme court would re think their Citizens United decision.
Also, firing a CEO hoping to sweep the evil doings under the carpet is not enough. The same goes for Big Pharma, MIC, health insurance industry…so much death with much corporate gain.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/tea_party_movement_spreads_to_military.php?ref=fpa
Aye-Aye Sir! Huuuurah! Semper Fi!
April 13th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
You’re boring, SAP. You keep getting owned in every conversation in which you stick your nose, so it would probably behoove you to run away like the little terrorist wannabe that you are.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
This is where the whole Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman/Alan Greenspan fairy tale about the unregulated free market preventing anything bad from happening falls completely apart. Coal mining, like coal burning, involves expense. The question is who will bear the expense. Don Blankenship undoubtedly considers himself a hero to the shareholders because under his management Massey has been able to push a large piece of the expense onto his expendable (to the company) employees and thus enhance profits. This is why some soulless paper clip at S&P just rated Massey a screaming buy. The paper clip did the math and figured out that Blankenship squeezes out enough expense by keeping the union out, ignoring safety programs and flouting environmental regulations to more than make up for the piddling fines the company eventually has to pay when tragedy strikes. The Supreme Court may have decided that corporations are “persons” with constitutional rights but that does not mean they have any kind of moral compass. To the contrary, when reasoned, effective government regulation is not present, a for profit corporation has every incentive to act like a ravenous predator. This is what the right wing ideologues are really complaining about when they claim that responding to climate change will cost jobs — playing by a set of rules that will help preserve our ecosystem may cut into their almighty profits.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
#14 Chuck Feney…good point. I think China actually has such a policy. They have executed neglegent arsholes like him.
Maybe we can out-source him to China…
April 13th, 2010 at 3:11 pm