Associated Press
Murray Energy CEO, Robert Murray
In the month leading up to the election, quite a few business leaders used heavy-handed campaign tactics, pressuring their employees to support Mitt Romney, apparently at the candidate's behest. None, however, went as far as Robert Murray.
Murray, of course, is a coal-industry leader whose mines (and workers) were used as campaign props, and who stands accused of forcing his employees to make Republican campaign contributions.
Last week, not surprisingly, the Republican donor was not at all pleased with the elections results, and he decided to respond to President Obama's success by laying off over 150 workers.
Robert E. Murray read a prayer to a group of company staff members on the day after the election, lamenting the direction of the country and asking: "Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."
On Wednesday, Murray also laid off 54 people at American Coal, one of his subsidiary companies, and 102 at Utah American Energy, blaming a "war on coal" by the Obama administration.
Murray Energy is the country's largest privately owned coal mining company, with about 3,000 employees producing about 30 million tons of bituminous coal a year, according to its Web site.
It's rare to see anyone in business be quite this spiteful for purely partisan reasons. As Dave Weigel noted, "There was no need for [Murray] to sack these people so quickly. There was no guarantee that he'd be dramatically more profitable in, say, March 2013. But he fired them, because he's basically amoral."
For the record, most of the high-profile business leaders who threatened their employees with post-election layoffs have not followed through, at least not yet.
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Ridiculous. If Romney had won, absolutely nothing would be different today. Maybe the time would have come when he had to let some people go, but it certainly wasn't now, and he fired them out of nothing but spite and bitterness.
Has anyone checked the profit numbers from his company lately? I can't see any business person doing this unless there's a bottom line reason somewhere. This guy isn't stupid, or he wouldn't be in the position he's in, so unless he has Altzheimers or something, there's more to it than "I'm pissed because Romney lost!"
For years Murray bullied MSHA (Mine Health and Safety Administration) and practically had them eating out of his hand. Then he went and killed a MSHA inspector at the Crandall Canyon Mine in a collapse 10 days after the first collapse at that mine that killed six, and now MSHA is finally starting to grow a backbone.
I think with everybody preferring a cleaner natural gas to "clean" (what a euphemism) coal, AND the fact that he can't cut corners with worker safety any more, he can't make the revenues he used to. It is just "handy" to claim he is doing it because of the elections - NO serious businessman risks their company because of their politics!!!
Brilliant. More coal miners voted for Romney than Obama.
So you lay them off.
The strategic thinking is to reinforce the meme of job creators. The economic reality is that natural gas is putting severe competitive pressure on Coal, whose environmental costs have not been factored into its market price.
This economics is not some theoretical feel good Green party nonsense. The 50 Billion dollar price tag of Hurricane Sandy is a form of Government subsidy for fossil fuel consumption. The cost of Extreme weather must be reflected in the price of fossil fuels.
It is time for market price of fossil fuels to reflect its true cost. A carbon tax is the most sensible way to do this, but another is the Cap and Trade proposal that was defeated in 2010 due to Reid's support of the fillibuster.
Kill the Fillibuster. Retrain the miners and give them jobs in green technologies like Lithium Ion automotive battery plants, building turbines for wind, solar thermal towers, a High Voltage long distance power transmission backbone in the US (so that solar farms in the South can power electric heaters in Chicago, and excess wind velocity from offshore new england wind farms can balance temporarily becalmed wind farms in Texas.
Coal Miners don't have to die for plutocrats like Robert Murray any more.
So that solar farms in the South can power electric heaters in Chicago-- Does the Windy City really need to get wind power from so far away? Iowa is closer. One of the things we need to do in the wake of Sandy is to design power systems that do not require such long transmission lines and such complex systems. Of course if eveyone has their own power souce (solar and wind) there would not be big utility companies for the rich to use as a place to stash their money.
So that solar farms in the South can power electric heaters in Chicago-- Does the Windy City really need to get wind power from so far away? Iowa is closer. One of the things we need to do in the wake of Sandy is to design power systems that do not require such long transmission lines and such complex systems. Of course if eveyone has their own power souce (solar and wind) there would not be big utility companies for the rich to use as a place to stash their money.
You are talking about distributed power generation and much more of that is a very good idea, but unless you are talking about rural areas where you can actually go off the grid, then it is more complex. It's because the power generation architecture is completely different than the one our massive investments in electricity distribution assumed. The good news is that it is not that bad and sophisticated switching devices and communications in the transmission of power can be used for load balancing surges at the leaf ends of the electricity network. The current systems are designed for unidirectional flow from central plants out to the leaves. The distributed model is possible, but the question is what happens when you have too much excess power being generated by for example roof top solar in one branch of your network? You would need some way either to vent off the excess at substations to other branches, or the ability to shut down upload of the power from individual roof top arrays.
The remote control portion was being discussed not just at the generation side but the consumption side. At the consumption side, you can have units like water heaters listen to communications from the plant about good times to turn on. This allows the plant to do power balancing on the consumption side.
But all of this requires greater complexity. Not less.
Regarding my post, I was making the point that the objection to renewable sources is that they cannot be what the industry refers to as a baseline power source- because they are intermittent. The winds in Chicago can die down, solar farm in some sections of a state can be covered by clouds.
But if you have a robust high capacity backbone, you can rapidly move power round a continent were it is needed.
A high capacity backbone might use standard overhead HVDC lines, or could use superconducting underground cables. In either case, building these lines would require massive spending that could be used to inject further capital into the hands of consumers, thereby reigniting the consumer economy.
John, I am in California. My electric utility is the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). SMUD is a leader in distributive generation. I have solar electric cells on my roof. I found that even in the rain or cloudy weather there is power generation. I have two meters, one for my power generation and one for my power consumption. So it's not just a pipe dream to have multiple sources of electricity. It's here.
Maybe that ass should have not wasted his money trying to buy the election. Time to start looking into his safety and pollution records.
Lib50- you don't have to look far. In 2007, 6 miners died in the Crandall Canyon Mine that Murray owns, after repeated violations of mine safety standards. They were fined $1.8 million, and Murray was none too happy about it. He claimed the collapse was an act of God. (WP has sources to the newstories here).
Joan- I don't know about your utility, but ours is aggressive but as of a few years ago the policy was to cap home generation at 20%. That is, my understanding is that if a given area supplied by a substation had more than 20% supplied by rooftop solar or other means, the utility would not accept more onto the grid in that area.
So yeah, it is here now, but massive distributed generation requires some upgrades to the local grid to handle the decentralized topology. These are outlined in this WP article, including some links to good articles describing the sensors and switching upgrades required.
Lots of good jobs to put in these upgrades, and the multiple returns on the investment makes the "stimulus" spending a no brainer. It pays for itself many times over.
The trick is to get the House to approve this spending.
I would like to see advances made in fuel cell technology. Then you don't have to worry about being hooked up to the grid.
Fuel cells are a fossil fuel technology. Secondly, fuel cells are extremely expensive and fragile.
You hear a lot of hype about fuel cells because the natural gas/ fossil fuel industry LOVES this technology. Why? Because by far the most cost effective industrial source of hydrogen needed for fuel cells is fossil fuel like natural gas.
The good news is that the industrial process used allows the large amounts of CO2 generated to be efficiently channeled off and stored. Currently the gas is not sequestered, but simply vented to the atmosphere. If it were sequestered, then at least the CO2 objection would be addressed.
That is 3,000 people who are no longer at risk from his safety violations.
Exactly, nomoremagicalthinking!! That was my first thought while reading the article!!
Too bad the Molly Maguires aren't still around to leave him dangling from "the hangin' tree." If anyone wonders why a union/terrorist organization like them ever existed, all you have to do is look at a bucket of slime like this putz.
It wasn't that long ago that a Republican (Bachmann?) talked about "2nd Amendment Solutions."
That was Sharron Angle, soooooooooo "last election" an extremist.
After the height of the Mollies, the MO of coal owners in NE Penna was to lay off all of the miners. In turn they leased sections of the mines to their former foremen to run as subcontractors. That way all violations, and Workmens Comp claims were on the work force, not the owner. I expect that Murray will quietly be turning over day to day operations to subcontractors to escape future liability. Obama is just a convenient scape goat to mask this.
@TC Come St Patrick's day proceed to the Second Street Pub in Giradville PA, wear orange, and act disrespectful, and I expect that you just may get to meet some of the remains of the Molly Maguires.
asdfasdf
Just the kind of guy who throws the chess board across the room when he loses.
More like the guy who throws the chessboard at the first mention of "check"...
In other words, "Oh Lord, forgive me for being un-Christian in your name."
Yet another reminder of why I'm saving my kids from religion.
yeah, ya gotta know God is saying, "Hey buddy, leave me out of this. AMF YoYo."
So, coal use is growing and he cuts jobs. The 'Obama' is against coal crap is in his mind.
Coal miners have to work. So, they go to competing mines. Those left behind see the handwriting on the wall and make the move, too. Now, his production is going down. His competition are able to keep up with the additional demand and he is not.
Murray has to sell his mines or go bankrupt. Oh, he is up to his neck in lawsuits over voter intimidation from the ex-employees.
Lets face it,the only reason he is laying off workers is because he made a big investment in a loser and he has to get his money back some other way. So what does he do,he does exactly what the people that voted for Obama are tired of ,suppression of the American worker.
He was hanging on to the employees HOPING that he could get back to business, but now he's lost all hope that would happen. Obama's going to continue to destroy the Coal industry JUST AS HE PROMISED to do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTIhyMa-Nw
Why is it that you people seem to not be able to take people at their word?
What is reducing the demand for coal in the United States is the lower prices for natural gas. So he can't compete in the "free" market?
I took Romney for his word when he stood in front of a coal plant and said "this plant kills." He then proceeded to have it shut-down, good for him.
Did you even watch your own video? Obama talks at length about how coal isn't going anywhere as an energy source and the need to pursue technologies that clean it up.
OMG holding polluters accountable for the greenhouse gases they spew. OH NOES!
Are you advocating a coal stimulus?
BS He laid off his employees because he he refuses to meet basic safety and environment regs. Most of which would have stayed under Romney. He was going to lay off those folks no matter who won. He can just blame it on the President now instead of accepting responsibility for it.
Why is it that you, Jeannette, seem to think that 2+2=22?
It is simple...dig the mine or take the top off a mountain load a line of coal cars at the mine ....travel to the power plant , unload , move it around or.....
Connect the gas pipeline that supplies cheaper cleaner fuel .
That is a tough one .
Isn't this the same Robert Murray who has repeatedly lobbied against mine safety regulations? This despite the fact that 33 miners lost their lives at two of his mines due to collapse. He obviously has no concern for his employees and I hope that those who were laid-off find jobs soon.
Not amoral, immoral. I think this qualifies as active and not passive mavolence.
Absolutely!
This Ken Lay wannbe is more likely lieing about the lay-offs. And should probably be investigated as an Enron gonnabe.
What evil the rich hath wrought!
This "Obama's War on Coal" is as ludicrous and lacking in a basis in reality as the supposed "Obama's War on Guns" and "Obama's War on Religion". I guess if you want to say that Obama has finally required MSHA to finally start enforcing existing safety regulations as a war, then fine. What a shame that slime like Mr. Murray will finally have to start making sure that his workers are somewhat safer, and won't let even more of his miners die like he has in the recent past. I lived in WV for a number of years, and it gave me a greater appreciation for the true cost of coal. Mountaintops torn off to dig out coal; ponds and creeks choked with mining residue; earthen dams that hold back this contaminated sludge and finally break, killing innocent people downstream; miners dying of black lung. The regulations that exist are rarely enforced because repubs gutted MSHA over the years, so there aren't enough inspectors available to visit more than a fraction of the mines each year. Murray is an idiot and a very poor businessman. Demand for coal is at an all-time high, so his response is to throw a temper tantrum and cut his production capacity? One can only hope that this weasel goes out of business. If I was a shareholder, I'd be questioning his decision-making ability. His childish response will cost his company far more than any fictional "War on Coal" could ever do.
From the standpoint of simply running that company properly, should Murray's board tolerate a CEO who bases business decisions on political paranoia?
Obama's war on coal has considerable more substance to it that the GOP war on women. Obama has been clear- we'll bankrupt you if you build a coal fired gen plant. Granted, cheap natty gas has also hurt the coal industry. It will be interesting if Obama gets behind the natty gas conversion for the trucking industry.
I'm all for exploiting our huge supply of coal---as long as you burn it on another planet. We've already pumped so much CO2 into the air burning fossil fuels that even if we stopped completely today, the warming would continue for another millenium. Clean coal is a myth, an oxymoron, and it's time everyone wised up to that little scam. Natural gas is much better in terms of greenhouse gases, but the fracking used to produce it is causing earthquakes, not to mention contaminated groundwater.
Uffda you're back! Good to see you friend. :-)
Good to see you too, Maria! It's been a long year, but it looks like things are getting better for everyone...unless they have an (R) after their name!
Uff- you just called President Obama a liar. He has recently telling us about clean coal. Which of you should we believe?
Actually Uff did not call Obama a liar, but the scent of sour grapes is so strong that you wouldn't know that.
And Obama's war on coal is just as real as the GOP's war on women.....right?
Donna, Obama says there is clean coal technology that he has been supporting. Uff says there is no such thing. They both can't be right. Is one of them a liar, or is one of them just poorly informed. And if so, it begs asking, which one?
I seem to recall Romney saying that Coal mines were killers. So why would Murray support Romney over Obama? Guess Faux news never reported what Romney said?
I have to wonder what makes this a-hole think that a Romney presidency would suddenly make everything hunky-dory for the coal industry?
They lose ground every day to natural gas and it has nothing to do with who's in the White House.
Oh noes his taxes might incrementally go up! Find a tar pit and go for a swim.
This is the same clown who required workers to attend the rally without pay?
And coercing employees to make political contributions- there has to be some violations here, he cannot be above board.
Just keep in mind...all unions are the result of bad management.
That certainly applies here.
My thought is, that since contributions and attendance at the event were not required (but they were mandatory?) he couldn't fire those who didn't.
At least not before the election. Not with all those reporters around. But to "lay them off" now? Easy--especially since they kept attendance.
West- to a big degree, you are correct. The most powerful unions in existence today are afscme and the teachers unions, and no one has ever claimed the government was good at managing.
Also, I would point to a substantial improvement in management theory over the last several decades, involving workers more, etc. your point is well taken in this aspect as well. It seemingly would support the evidence as the number of union members in I ate enterprise, as a percent, has drastically declined.
Maybe the IRS needs to pay a visit to Mr. Murray's books and ledgers.
Also an investigation into which safety regulations are currently being violated in Mr. Murray's mines should be launced immediately. Put some well deserved heat on this idiotic clown!
I know in this economy any job is better than no job, but man. I would hate to work for this guy.
Jen, I don't know what you mean by "in this economy". If you are implying it is bad, then I would have to point out the nearly one billion dollars spent on this election cycle, the sale of new cars, and the fact that the price of oil hasn't kept anyone from driving. There will always be people out of work, and sometimes more than other times, but there is a lot of money floating around out there. I wouldn't want to have to work for such a bastard either, and I feel for the people stuck with him. Hopefully they can get out of that situation sometime soon.
This is another situation where I wish the DOJ would show more initiative. Go after this guy's safety violations with full force. Don't allow him to bargain to reduce fines so that he pays full freight for his lack of attention to miner safety. The DOJ would be perfectly within its rights to prosecute this. If fact, it would be doing what we pay it to do.
It would definitely have to be done at the federal level, because state government in coal states is owned lock, stock and barrel by the coal companies. Years ago in WV, Gov. Arch Moore ended up going to prison for taking a $100,00 bribe from a coal company exec in exchange for letting the company off easy on a burst dam that unleashed a flood of water and coal waste that killed a lot of people. I'm sure the same happens in any state that is dominated by one industry, such as coal, oil, autos or whatever.
Does he think that workers won't get the picture? That even allowing the GOP anywhere near electoral success means that they will be even more abused than they are already?
Maybe his laid off workers will find good jobs now and his investors can put their money into clean energy?
Your article did not mention that, just before giving the equivalent of "This hurts me more than it hurts you," Murray invoked II Peter 1:5-9:
5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
What hypocrisy!
As several comments suggest: retrain those miners in renewable energy technology.
Wow. Maybe the workers should see this as a blessing in disguise. They can get out of the coal industries and aim for the clean energy jobs while collecting unemployment! Oooh! A handout! Forced on them by a man that was for a man that was anti-handouts!
Well, maybe if he had not made such large campaign donations to a losing cause, he'd have some money left
Another "Great American". May he rest in peace! Screws up the environment and then fires his workers. He should get an award for .......hole of the century!
You know, an enterprising automobile manufacturer or two could drive a few more nails into the Romney Machine's coffin by hiring some of these folks.
No such thing as clean coal.
Yellowknife (in the Northwest Territories) is implementing a project that heats the entire downtown core of the city with geothermal energy. No small feat considering it's in the sub-arctic. High schools that heat the entire school with wood pellets. Coal is no longer necessary. Effort should be spent on transitioning workers, not laying them off.
Jerry, do we have to sit here and listen to you call president Obama a liar? He was crystal clear on his clean coal plans during the debates and the campaign. Now for you to come out and declare our elected leader has been lying...
And again, no one is calling President Obama a liar, sour grapes.
Jerry is. How about you, Donna? Do you agree with Obama or Jerry? I side with Obama on this.