WeLoveMountains

 

Julian,

Feel free to share any e-mail that I send your way. 

I worked for Massey Energy for about 2 years.  I went to work for Massey when my youngest son got sick.  I couldn't afford to pay the hospital bills and the mortgage, etc.  You know how I was raised, you do everything you can to pay your debts.  So I went to work for Massey to get the 90/10 insurance (no premium out of my check) insurance, and I could work unlimited hours.  I had no idea what I was getting into, the work conditions were horrible.  I spent 11 hours every night at the job.  I was required to come in every Monday for a safety meeting that was a joke.  The safety director for the company was a complete moron.  He never went out on the job.  Safety was not an issue for the company. They had a safety director to cover their ass.  Massey was concerned with one thing and that was blowing up the mountains to get coal.  The men were of no value other than to do their job.  If you had a safety concern, you were scrutinized by your superiors.  I contacted the UMWA to try and establish some organization because there was no representation for the men.  I was even getting tuition reimbursement through the company to start my MBA.  I could have just gone along and kept silent and eventually become a supervisor at a major operation but I couldn't do that and live with myself.  The men were treated like dirt.  If you couldn't come in on your days off and work to increase production then you were scrutinized.  Here is an example of a typical day at the operation.   

    One night I was supposed to drill underneath a 300 ft+ high wall.  When I trammed my machine to the destination it was raining and the wind was unbelievable, large rocks were falling off of the high wall all around me and my machine.  I was almost hit in the head at one point. There was no lighting to see what was up there and you couldn't see were these rocks were coming from.  I knew if I was going to be positioned underneath this wall, I would possibly die.  My supervisor told me that he would watch the

un-illuminated wall.  He told me that if any "big rocks"  started to fall that he would radio me to get out of the cab of my stationary drill.  I told my supervisor that objects fall with an acceleration and if he knew how absurd he sounded that he would shut up.  Of course that didn't go over too well.   I then told my supervisor that I was not comfortable working in those type of conditions and he told me, "If you don't want to work, go to the fucking house."  I told him to take me to my vehicle.  He tried to take me to my vehicle and send me home for refusing to work in unsafe conditions.  He called his supervisor to tell him that I refused to work in those conditions.  His supervisor then told him to stop and that he wanted to look at the unsafe wall.  When the night shift supervisor met us they made me get out of the vehicle while they discussed whether they thought the wall was safe or not!  They made some calls on their cell phones and then they told me that I was a pussy and that they would work under that wall anytime.  So I told them to go park their new company trucks under the wall.  I told them if they didn't get crushed by any rocks within 30 minutes then I would gladly go in and do my job.  Of course they called me a wiseguy and a dickhead and everything else you could think of to try and degrade me.  I knew at that point if they were doing this to me, then how many other people did they try to intimidate on a daily basis.  This shit happened all the time. 

Julian, the devastation is unreal.  I feel horrible that I was even apart of anything like MTR.  I knew how wrong it was before I went and worked there anyway.  I am ashamed of myself.  

    The destruction of the operation at the Progress mine is unbelievable.  I would like to take you there to show you the operation and exactly how bad it is.  I tried to organize the men and we had about 80% of the job aboard until the company had their vote no meetings.  They intimidated men and told them that they would lose their jobs. They scared the men away from the union.  The union was my way of helping those guys.  I know that operation and have seen an enormous amount of violations.  There is no over-site by the EPA if there was then they wouldn't have been blowing shit all over un-permitted land adjacent to the operation.  I want to stop this destruction of our land.  I want to help. If there is anything that you need from me, I am more than willing to help, to get the word out.