West Virginia Blue
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Verizon is trying to sell its landline operations to Frontier. The Public Service Commission's Consumer Advocate has voiced opposition to this deal which must be approved by the Public Service Commission. Please call Governor Manchin, write a letter to the editor and learn more by visiting www.bad4wv.com or www.wvcag.org.
This deal is worth $8 billion to Verizon tax-free. Similar deals in other states have resulted in the new company filing for bankruptcy. Please voice your opposition to this sale!
I've got a long list of "things I've been meaning to write about." Here's a link drop for a quiet Sunday afternoon.
* This is quite simply, unacceptable. In a just world, this would the major topic of discussion in the January legislative session... Andrew Clevenger notes 1 in 6 West Virginians living in poverty:
More than 300,000 West Virginians lived in poverty in 2008, according to new data from the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau yesterday.
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The data can also be broken down by county and school district. Staggeringly, an estimated 46.3 percent of people under the age of 18 in McDowell County lived in poverty. This is almost two times higher than Kanawha County (23.5), three times higher than Monongalia County (15.2) and four times Jefferson County (11.1, the lowest percentage of all 55 counties).
If this deal is approved by the West Virginia Public Service Commission, West Virginians can expect Frontier to cut, not add jobs. On Nov. 4, in an interview with Bloomberg News, Wilderotter finally admitted that Frontier "plans to cut jobs" -- as part of its effort to achieve cost savings of $500 million a year. Up until that interview, Frontier management maintained the fiction that the deal would mean more, not fewer, jobs. Cutting jobs isn't in the public's best interest.
The deal also will make our telephone utility in West Virginia weaker financially.
* I don't know if Sens. Byrd or Rockefeller will have a chance to ask Bernacke questions during his (re)confirmation hearing, but I'd sure like to see Bernacke get some follow-up grilling on this. Bernacke gets Feds mandate wrong (emphasis mine):
Yesterday, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke referred to the "our dual mandate, which is growth and inflation." In fact, the dual mandate is full employment (defined as 4.0 percent unemployment) and price stability. Presumably Bernanke had unemployment in mind when he said "growth," but it striking that he would not use the right term. The two are of course not synonymous.
Because of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration, Americans can go just about anywhere in this country and see FDR's hand on the landscape. These programs weren't flawless, but they were smart, effective, pragmatic. To hear some Party of No politicians and rightist pundits tell it, however, this particular use of the public sector was just short of a Bolshevik coup. So, obviously, anything with a whiff of New Deal scent about it is going to set off another round of patented GOP sulking and barking amplified by our ever-helpful national media.
Let them bark. The White House should press for a direct job creation program anyway.
The CCC put millions of young men to work planting trees, curbing erosion, and generally nurturing the National Park System. Nine years the program lasted. Much of the work done still lives today. A Clean Energy Conversion Corps would not only create jobs but also provide a massive public investment with an impact reaching decades into the future.
* CNN Money has a fascinating article about the new found resistance energy companies are finding to exploration efforts as they move closer to more populated areas: The Domestic Drilling Backlash (thank you to the reader who emailed me this story!)
Most Americans still support increased oil and gas drilling. But opposition is growing, especially when that drilling nears more populated urban areas. Currently there are natural gas booms happening around New York City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Western Colorado, the Midwest, and elsewhere. Opponents fear this new drilling will ruin the drinking water for millions of people, among other concerns.
And energy companies, accustomed to dealing with rural populations familiar with drilling and eager for jobs and lease royalties, are increasingly finding themselves at odds with a more educated and wealthy populace wary of energy development.
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In Western Colorado, public awareness of drilling and the potential dangers has increased as wealthy people from nearby resort towns have become interested in the cause, said Theo Colborn, president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a group studying the effects of drilling chemicals on humans.
Colborn recounted the story of a nearby town where the local officials were considering allowing more drilling. Soon after, residents had their cars leafleted with pamphlets describing the associated dangers. Turns out, a local resident had hired a public relations agency to come in and run the campaign.
"A lot of wealthy people have been affected, and they can afford the lawyers or PR firms to come in and do stuff like this," she said.
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...the days of this industry operating in relative obscurity and with little federal oversight are likely numbered.
What are you reading today?
Eastern Box Turtle in Morgan County, West Virginia
Verizon's plan to sell its local phone businesses in 14 states -- including West Virginia -- to Frontier Communications poses significant risks to consumers, workers and communities.
Update: The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has a complete update on the story at their website, and is asking its members to vote if they should stop using Verizon phones. Please visit their site and offer your support. They did a fabulous job in keeping attention on Verizon's involvement in Don Blankenship's Labor Day rally. Also, see this comment by One Citizen on press coverage of Verizon's 'apology.'
A few days late and a thousand dollars short. That's how I'd describe the belated victory over Verizon Wireless. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, Lowell, but really, this embarrassing episode for your company easily could have been avoided.
Rob lays out what happened (emphasis mine).
Verizon Wireless, which markets itself as environmentally friendly, clearly made a mistake affiliating its brand with this anti-"green" rally. But instead of heeding customer complaints by withdrawing its sponsorship, company officials first tried to play clueless about the overt political aspect of the event, and then stubbornly stayed the course for fear of angering the coal crowd.
Not only did they play clueless, but along the way they even managed to say a few offensive things about environmentalists, too.
Well, yesterday the CEO of Verizon Wireless, Mr. Lowell "Mea Culpa" McAdam, offered a public apology -- in the form of a letter to the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that organized around this issue.
In an effort to "set the record straight," McAdams explains that Verizon Wireless' sponsorship was not meant as an expression of support for the coal industry's political agenda. He insists that the company does not support mountaintop removal coal mining, nor does it oppose federal climate legislation. He goes on to clarify that Verizon Wireless "supports the goals of policy makers who are committed to reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment." McAdams then takes the opportunity to tout Verizon's corporate commitment to sustainability.
So there you have it: Verizon Wireless' belated apology for violating its stated environmental values, undermining its credibility as a "green" company, and breaking its trust with customers.
Kudos to each and everyone of you who contacted the company to voice your views and concerns about the situation. Looks like Verizon Wireless heard you...now.
There are many reasons why sponsoring Don Blankenship's Labor Day event was a bad idea for Verizon Wireless--environmental issues were the ones that got traction nationally.
Finally, a huge congratulations and major kudos to everyone who has been covered this story so effectively at West Virginia Blue.
((Bumped by Clem G. for Labor Day) - promoted by Clem Guttata)
by One Citizen
No doubt you've heard the annual claims of a "war on Christmas" touted by the right wing punditocracy as a means to use hyperbolic rants to smear the left. But now there's a real war against not just another holiday, but the entire movement for which it stands.
Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's hosting of a Labor Day rally to preserve American jobs in West Virginia's southern coal fields isn't just a sick joke. It is his full out declaration of war not just against the UMWA but all families who live in, or near, his precious coal.
Not too long ago Massey Energy was publicly taken to task by United Mine Worker's president Cecil Roberts for trying to get English language standards relaxed so that Mexican immigrants could pass mine certification. He was doing it to specifically keep his company's wage expenses low. And apparently, it wasn't the first time they'd tried it.
In 2001, a labor broker came to the mining board with a request to import 1,000 Mexican and Chilean workers for two unnamed coal companies. source
CEO Blankenship could very well be the most anti-labor person on the face of the planet. If being anti-Labor weren't in his DNA, then why else would a man who reportedly rakes in just under $20 million per year have hired a team of corporate lawyers (Charles Woody, Eric Kinder and Jeffrey Foster, of Spilman Thomas and Battle in Charleston) to beat his ex-maid out of her well-deserved unemployment benefits?
Long ago, America's most popular poet predicted where most all of us might be if it weren't for the American Labor movement.
Company Towns
You live in a company house
You go to a company school
You work for this company,
according to the company rules.
You all drink company water
and all use company lights,
The company preacher teaches us
What the company thinks is right.
Carl Sandburg
The U.S. Labor movement is so important that the first Monday of every September
is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. source
West Virginia has played a very important role in helping to establish the very roots of organized U.S. labor. Most significantly, our state's impact in the development of the UMWA and the AFL-CIO is due to our coal, steel and the railroad. As America's labor force has grown strong, so grew her middle class, as well as West Virginia's economy. Individuals such as John L. Lewis, Mother Jones, and Joe Hill each came here to take part in a struggle which resulted in better pay and working conditions for most all American workers.
Despite the threat of physical harm and economic ruin, miners have constantly struggled against great odds to achieve their goals: the eight-hour day in 1898, collective bargaining rights in 1933, health and retirement benefits in 1946, and health and safety protections in 1969. source
Native West Virginian Bill Blizzard was indicted along with 52 other men for "treason against the State", even though the mobilization of his "Red Neck Army" from Marmet, WV to the historic Battle of Blair Mountain wasn't against the state at all, but the coal companies. In contrast, neither coal operator Quin Morton nor paid mercenary Bonner Hill was ever arrested for the murder of Cesco Estep by their bloody Bullmoose Special at Holly Grove, WV. And not one of Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin's mercenaries, who had been hired by the Logan County Coal Operators Association, were ever charged for killing and maiming miners on Blair Mountain.
During the war (WWI) some mine operators were making up to 600% profit from coal sales and all the while the federal government required a no-strike agreement for the duration of the war. The sudden change in economic conditions had to have been a shock to mine operators.
Coal operators laid off miners and attempted to reduce wages to pre-war levels. In response to the 1912-13 strike, coal operators' associations in southern West Virginia had strengthened their system for combating labor. By 1919, the largest non-unionized coal region in the eastern United States consisted of Logan and Mingo Counties. source
President Eisenhower, the last decent elected Republican president recognized:
"Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country--they are America."
About a dozen citizens picketed Verizon's office in downtown Berkeley Springs at noon today to protest the company's failure to provide Internet Broadband service to Morgan County.
Carrying signs that read: "Verizon Abandons Rural West Virginia" and "Honk for Broadband" and chanting "What do we want? Broadband. When do we want it? Now" -- the citizens protested Verizon's failure to meet Morgan County's growing demand for high speed internet service.
More than 200 drivers traveling on U.S. 522 honked during the hour-long protest.
"Despite a rising tide of consumer complaints, Verizon continues to deny service to the people of Morgan County," said Jennifer Carpenter-Peak, a resident of Morgan County who organized the protest.
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