West Virginia voted for McCain.
Posted on 08/09/2012 6:57:15 AM PDT by Hojczyk
After giving then-Sen. Barack Obama a full-throttled endorsement in the 2008 presidential election, the United Mine Workers of America has decided not to endorse either Obama or the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, in 2012.
“As of right now, we’ve elected to stay out of this election,” said Mike Caputo, a UMWA official and a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. “Our members right now have indicated to stay out of this race, and that’s why we’ve done that.... I don’t think quite frankly that coalfield folks are crazy about either candidate.”
Both candidates are trying to prove otherwise to voters in coal-intensive swing states. Earlier this week the Obama campaign released in Ohio the first coal-issue ad of this cycle, claiming that Romney has flip-flopped his position on coal. The ad includes comments that Romney made as Massachusetts governor in 2003 standing in front of a coal plant, saying that he wouldn’t support jobs that kill people.
For his part, Romney is claiming Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is waging a war on coal with a slew of regulations.
Caputo also noted that newly discovered resources of shale natural gas found all over the country, including the coal-intensive states of West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have contributed to coal’s decline as low natural gas prices compel utilities to shift from coal to gas as a power generator.
But politically, the EPA is the culprit for the coal industry’s woes. Throughout Appalachia where Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia converge, the coal industry’s disgruntlement with Obama is plastered on yard signs and billboards.
One billboard alongside a freeway near the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border said drivers were entering “The Obama administration’s no jobs zone.” The billboard was sponsored by a coal-industry group,
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
The UMW is a joke.
Too late and too bad for them.
UMWA and their most famous living progeny, Richard Trumka, were and are fully in the tank for the ‘Rats. They fail to acknowledge that it isn’t just Obama, it is the whole progressive commie ‘Rat apparatus of politics, academia, media and law who are killing them. Not supporting Obama will do nothing for their fortunes if they fail to cut off the other heads of the Hydra.
In the grand ‘Rat scheme of things, UMWA is small potatoes who can be safely discarded in the interest of appeasing their other, larger constituencies.
The members of organized labor never get the fundamental truth: The struggle isn’t labor vs. management. Management and labor are in the same corporate boat, they sink or swim together. It is labor vs. labor. When some people will sell their labor more cheaply, someone will take them up on it and gain a competetive cost advantage. Union people like to call them scabs.
Right down the road, IBEW 5 is an enthusiastic Obama fan club. They know that all of these (useless government-mandated) windmills will need to be wired to a massive electrical collection grid. They intend to build that grid (using taxpayer subsidies since the things can’t pay for themselves). Do the UMWA think that IBEW gives a fart whether they prosper or starve? Not for a second.
UNION is not supporting their union workers! Romney supports the coal industry, whereas Ozero wants to put the coal industry “out of business”. But the “Union” will not support Romney! To treat Romney/Ozero the same is asanine!
Closed the barn door, but the darned horse is missing!
Serves ‘em right!
please delete posts #22-24.
Sorry but I have no idea why I am getting multiple posts when I am only hitting the post function once.
Only one candidate has pledged to put you out of a job—Barack Obama.
You can bet the coal workers themselves will not vote for Obama. The Union understands after Obama cost them so many jobs,if they did support him the rank and file would stage a massive revolt and they would lose their cushy jobs.
Idiots. If the rank and file had any sense they’d throw THEIR bums out!
West Virginia voted for McCain.
The coal miners were just one of the biggest saps in America to believe and support King Obama, the dictator and job killer. So suffer, miners. Get the hell out of the Union. You are going to end without anything the Union promised you. The Unions have lived out their usefulness.
So they can turn to Romney?
Earlier this week the Obama campaign released in Ohio the first coal-issue ad of this cycle, claiming that Romney has flip-flopped his position on coal. The ad includes comments that Romney made as Massachusetts governor in 2003 standing in front of a coal plant, saying that he wouldn’t support jobs that kill people.
They don't seem to have anywhere to go.
I wonder if "union solidarity" is going to kick in -- other unions supporting the position of the UMW; well, I mean other trade unions, of course. This is no skin off the nose of public sector unions!
The UMW will find ways to support him one way or another to support their communist Party. There are extra benefits for Party members like him.
Pray for America
From one who detests the NEED for any unions, the coal industry still needs someone on the side of the workers. There are still too many coal companies which cut safety corners and they need to be held in check.
Being hundreds of feet below the surface I want these men to have someone speak for them and, I can’t believe I am saying this but maybe a OSHA rep down in every mine every day.
Other than that, unions suck and in most instances today are nothing more than the result of the success of the communist manifesto.
The fact that the heads of the coal miner’s union would not do everything to assure a self avowed hater of the coal industry is soundly defeated defies logic and common sense.
This is proof positive of how much influence the communist party has in labor unions that they would rather have someone destroy their industry as long as he was a communist.
Yep, one has spent the past three years destroying our industry and livelihood...and the other is a Republican!
So let’s see, the Bamster wants to bankrupt the coal industry and their Union simply says they will sit this one out? Unbelievable. The freaking Union should be working to get this guy out of office so fast it would make one’s head spin.
would have to be an MSHA rep, Mine Saftey and Health Adminsitration oversees coal mine safety.
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