Putting Profits Before People

There are common threads in the two fatal explosions at the oil refinery in Anacortes, Wash., and the coal mine in West Virginia, which occurred in early April.
The first was the companies’ utter disregard for safety measures. The oil refinery blast killed five Steelworkers and left another Steelworker and a former Steelworker-turned-supervisor critically burned. The West Virginia explosion killed 25 miners at the non-union Massey coal company mine. Four others are missing.
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Chairman John Bresland said of the Washington State explosion that “CSB has 18 ongoing investigations. Seven of these accidents occurred at refineries across the country. This is a significant and disturbing trend the refining industry needs to address immediately.”
As for the Massey Coal mine explosion, the firm was fined $382,000 last year alone for safety violations among its 65 mines nationwide. Total Massey violations since 2005: 1,342. Total fines assessed: $1.89 million. Total paid: Very little. Massey’s appealed virtually every fine, and appeals take more than a year to decide, on average.
But the second common thread is that both companies put profits over people.
For Massey Energy — one of the nation’s largest coal companies — and for Tesoro, owner of the Washington refinery, dollars come first. The same goes for U.S. health insurers, who shrug off the 44,780 killed annually through their denial of coverage and care. The same goes for Wal-Mart, where a worker was trampled to death in a mass stampede of shoppers just after Thanksgiving last year.
For corporate America, these deaths are a routine cost of doing business. The question is why companies act that way. The answer is the nature of so-called laissez-faire capitalism — otherwise known as greed run amok on Wall Street.
Wall Street demands firms sacrifice everything, including people’s lives, to larger short-term profits. Safety measures? “Too expensive.” Decent pay and benefits? “Horrors!” Wall Street says. “Move to China!” it recommends. Those same financiers’ pursuit of constantly increasing rivers of cash produced the riverboat gambling mentality and subsequent crash which in turn plunged all of us into the current Great Recession.
Wall Street’s cash craving also starves Americas  infrastructure, “privatizes” public services and — since penalties are slim and none — lets firms get away with illegally smashing workers who unionize and literally lets some companies get away with murder. Why do you think the health insurers are doing so well in the stock market?
So what’s the solution? How can we force the Masseys, Tesoros, Wal-Marts and Anthems — the insurer which raised rates 39% in California — to put people first?
Short of socialism, many believe the answer is confiscation. Reward companies that put people first, confiscate the profits of those that don’t.
As an example, remember that Massey was assessed $382,000 in fines last year? It pales besides Massey’s 2009 revenues of $2.69 billion and gross profits of $297.8 million. For argument’s sake assume the West Virginia mine, one of Massey’s 65, contributed one-65th of those profits.
That’s $4.58 million in gross profits, from one mine. And now it’s the tomb of 25 miners.
Many believe that’s what the fine should be, at least, from this one explosion: $4.58 million.
Others think since each miner contributed to the mine’s profits, make the fine equal the profits of the mine times those 25 dead miners. That’s $115 million, give or take several bucks!
If Massey faced a fine like that, Massey and every other company that puts profits over people would think twice about doing so.
Wal-Mart would think twice about letting its worker be trampled to death by crazed shoppers, as happened on Long Island, had it faced confiscation of all the profits from that super-center — and not just a minimal OSHA penalty.
It would take legislation to raise fines as high as some propose for any instance of companies putting profits over people. Such legislation is unlikely, given the corporate influence on Capitol Hill — an influence that will be magnified now that firms can pump unlimited amounts of cash into election campaigns, thanks to the recent Citizens United finance ruling by the pro-corporate Republican-named majority on the Supreme Court.
Since the system is so rotten fundamental change is unlikely, the solution may be to make it completely unprofitable for corporate malefactors to continue their depredations upon the rest of us.