6 ms·
Bob Murray, Who Fought Regulations as a Coal Operator, Files for Lung Benefits
- notpiika 6y agoIf you haven't already seen them, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episodes on Murray are great watches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw6RsUhw1Q8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw6RsUhw1Q8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU
- jgwil2 6y agoHe really doesn't come off as a good guy here.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoHe is not a good guy. He doesn’t believe in climate change (and actively funded campaigns against it while his company speeded towards bankruptcy [1]), and is deeply committed to coal [2]. This article humorously demonstrates his hypocrisy, and his life’s work (as a coal company executive and ardent champion of the fuel) and beliefs backfiring on him in spectacular fashion. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/climate/murray-energy-climate-denial-coal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/climate/murray-energy-cli... [2] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/a-coal-executives-action-plan-for-trump-is-made-public/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/a-coal-executives...
- binarycrusader 6y agoI have friends and acquaintances that have worked jobs like this and it absolutely destroys your health in the long term. It’s a shame that the both the government and industry have not pursued a better path forward.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI've spoken to Congressional representatives about possible paths for coal miners to bridge them from coal mining to social security or the pension benefit guarantee corp (essentially buyouts, very inexpensive for the number of folks we're talking about), and quite literally have been laughed at. I have no sympathy anymore for anyone in the coal industry except front line workers who are being hung out to dry. It's Bob's turn to be hung out to dry. He's a terrible person (based on his actions, not just in the case of trying to prevent worker health claims but also wiping out pensioners of his company), and the evidence is very public. I’m sorry for your friends and acquaintances. People care, it’s just always an uphill battle.
- larrywright 6y agoI'm always completely puzzled when people talk in positive terms about opening coal mines back up and revitalizing that industry. I get that there are areas where the economy was destroyed due to coal mines being shut down, but there has to be a better way to address it than putting people's lives at risk.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoPeople are hard. Who you are as a person (ego, purpose, identity, and belief systems) are at play and at the core of these issues. It’d be a lot easier if this was just about cutting checks to folks every month for the rest of their lives.
- larrywright 6y agoYeah, I get it. In some places it's part of the cultural identity. It just feels like giving them hope is a bad idea.
- binarycrusader 6y agoThese are informative too. I had no idea that Murray was so publicly visible and involved in politics during the last two presidencies.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoI kinda feel like the Department of Labor should respond to Bob's request by telling him to eat something. The people who endangered miners really shouldn't be entitled to benefits for miners, especially when that person, via bankruptcy, has guaranteed that the government is going to end up on the hook for providing that.
- jgwil2 6y ago> But Murray told NPR in October 2019 that he had a lung disease that was not caused by working underground in mines. > “It's idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF, and it is not related to my work in the industry. They've checked for that,” Murray told NPR. “And it's not — has anything to do with working in the coal mines, which I did for 17 years underground every day. And until I was 76, I went underground twice a week.” How could they have "checked for that," given that IPF seems to be a diagnosis of exclusion (someone more knowledgeable than I can correct me if I'm wrong).
- hinkley 6y agoIdiopathic means we looked at the things we know how to diagnose and it wasn’t those. The exclusion process is an elimination process. Test for all the plausible causes, and if there’s nothing left you shrug and call it idiopathic. So either he was tested, or the doctors thought his symptoms were very atypical and didn’t run the test. (I know two people and a pet with idiopathic something or other. In the cat’s case, the treatment was the same as the least invasive treatments for the common cause. The humans are just SOL.)
- StavrosK 6y agoThey could have excluded that specific cause, perhaps? Odd, though, since "idiopathic" means "we don't know why this happened".
- AaronFriel 6y agoIf he attested in October 2019 that his disease was unrelated to working in coal mines, it's curious that he's a black lung claimant under a statute that requires the miner to have or have had pneuomoconiosis and for some causal link to exist between that and their work as a miner. Seems he wants to have it both ways. Jeopardizing the safety of his employees with his opposition to regulations is justified - except when it affects him personally. Then, he should be entitled to benefits and remedies under the law.
- larrywright 6y agoYou're correct. In fact, it seems odd to me that a doctor would have diagnosed IPF in someone who had worked in coal mines for that long. As far as I know, the symptoms of black lung are basically indistinguishable from IPF. I'm not a doctor, but my father died of IPF, and his father died from black lung (steel industry, not coal, but they have the same risks).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- woeirua 6y agoI see Bob Murray is personifying the old tycoon motto: socialism for me, rugged capitalism for thee.
- glitchc 6y agoWhy is this being downvoted? Murray is scum. For decades he tried to discredit black lung as a valid disease. His claim for black lung disease benefits should be denied on principle, for all the pain and suffering he has caused to date.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoHe may not justly deserve the benefits. But do you want to act on the same level as him? Or do you want to be better?
- glitchc 6y agoBetter is for saints and prophets. I’m human, so I’ll settle for getting even and creating a strong deterrent to dissuade others like him.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoYou call him scum. And you'll settle for getting even, rather than being better. Sure you don't want to re-think that?
- glitchc 6y agoOh please, save your sanctimony. We have laws for good reason. If I really wanted to get even, he’d be dead (capital punishment). He deserves it. He fought hard against the well-being of his employees just save some money and boost his own compensation. Now I’m against capital punishment, so I don’t want him dead, nor do I want treatment withheld for the disease he’s suffering, even if he did the same for many others. But I’ll be damned if I see him get a penny of that money before he spends his own first. That’s justice enough, and I think that’s downright generous, far more generous than he deserves. And that, my friend, is what makes me the better man.
- kingkawn 6y agoAll the people working to deregulate environmental and health controls will burn in hell.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]