off topic interest... Coal, NRA, Unions, Politics...

Thought this might generate some comments and discussion...
Blacksville #2 Mine Idle After 440 Workers Stay Home
http://www.wboy.com/story.cfm?func=view ... ryid=44752

I certainly don't agree with any group trying to 'coerce' comments from someone who doesn't want to comment..

BUT, If the 'union' has such a strangle hold on the mine workers that they march in lockstep to the union mantra and are fearfull of speakiing their minds.. I wouldn't call the union a union,, I'd call it an oppressor..

I'm sure that in West Virginia there are plenty of mine workers who will NOT vote for Obama... they just can't talk about it, thank God the poll is protected from coersion and oppression. I'd bet that Obama and Biden with their anti-coal stance won't get a majority of the mine workers votes.


Greg L
..

Whole story sounds like BS to me.

BK

Interesting. NRA often sends film crews out to various places around the country to gather comment from people, usually coinciding with a topic or event. For instance doing "man on the street" interviews in and around DC after the Heller decision came down, similar interviews in NYC when Bloomberg was going around suing out of state gun dealers after illegally staging "stings" that he funded privately, etc. This sounds like it was a similar deal, probably focused on Obama's convoluted and conflicting 2nd amendment stances throughout his public life, his support for the Card Check Bill, and their negative to ambiguous stance on the coal industry. I doubt highly that they were coercing anyone to say anything they didn't want to, at most they were a moment's inconvenience to people as they walked by. Nor do I believe they would cut up the segments to twist the answers to meet their own agenda. I say this because they routinely show such video segments on their NRANews streaming website and show plenty of opinions both in support of the NRA position and against it in those video interview segments. They may also have been wanting to film for an upcoming NRA position piece video, such as the ones they made about the New Orleans gun confiscation and the NRA's role in the legal aftermath of it, though those type of segments usually use more formal interviews or interviews with specific aggrieved or particularly passionate people as opposed to a broad swath of impromptu interview clips.

So long as the mine owner signed off on this, then I think he reaps what he sows. I have no particular problem with the decision to grant the NRA access to do this, though I question the wisdom of the decision and of the NRA for doing it in this manner. Seems kind of ham fisted. Better to setup on the streets and catch people after a work shift, or get permission to setup in the parking lot make a public announcement of the setup and the request for comment and let people come to them. Guess I have no real sympathy for anyone in this. Union overreacted (and I suspect trumped up the worker response on this, since Obama is no particular friend of theirs or of the coal industry in general), NRA and mine owner were stupid, offended workers should have simply said no comment or voiced their support for the union position if they felt like it and lodged a complaint with management. I can understand staging a work stoppage event if this was a pattern with management, but I think a union warning to management not to do it again or risk a stoppage would have been more appropriate.

nwaelder wrote:Thought this might generate some comments and discussion...
Blacksville #2 Mine Idle After 440 Workers Stay Home
http://www.wboy.com/story.cfm?func=view ... ryid=44752

There are companies that advretise on THIS forum selling coal mined in China probably for a much lower price due to the TRULY REAL dangerous working conditions in China where THOUSANDS die every year in mining accidents. Haven't these union people learned their lesson yet! If these miners are truly being poor treated, there are thousands of laws to protect them! If they are not making enough money, The anthracite mines in NEPA always need good miners! Just ask all the steel workers from the Fairless Hills works or all the Detroit auto workers now making 10.00 hr at some supply house with a boss telling them its not break time, get back to work you can't read the paper now there are customers waiting. They bit the hand that fed them. Now they are reaping what they have sown!