Mine safety enforcer is fired (blow to labor)

[Rose Siding]

The Fletcher administration has fired Tony Oppegard, a state lawyer who prosecuted mining safety cases and is credited by organized labor and others with improving safety enforcement.

Oppegard, 54, said he was given no reason for his immediate dismissal.
...
Kentucky Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet Secretary LaJuana Wilcher said Oppegard was fired as part of a reorganization of state government that started in 2003....

The reorganization led to the firing of the state's two highest-ranking mine-safety officials last year and the downgrading of the mine-safety agency from a department to an office, meaning it will have less authority.
...
Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, accused the Fletcher administration of bowing to pressure from coal operators, who opposed Oppegard's appointment in 2001.

He called the firing a "tremendous blow to the safety of miners throughout Kentucky."

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050528/NEWS0104/505280409/1008/NEWS01

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Yep the corporatists think dead workers are just the cost of

doing bidniss

[maddezmom]

2. Personnel Investigation Haunts Ky. Goveror

By MARK R. CHELLGREN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago



FRANKFORT, Ky. - In a letter to state workers during his 2003 campaign, Republican Ernie Fletcher pledged to end the "good old boy politics" that prevailed during 32 years of Democratic governors. Easier said than done, critics claim.

Fletcher now finds his administration at the center of an investigation into exactly the kind of political tinkering with state employment that he criticized.

The investigation blew up just as Fletcher should have been enjoying some of the best publicity of his 17-month term, after Toyota announced plans to produce gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles in Kentucky.

Instead, Fletcher, who was on a trade mission to Asia, had to conduct a late-night conference call from Japan and explain to a room full of shouting reporters that his administration's hiring practices, while perhaps enthusiastic toward Republicans, were not illegal.


~snip~
more: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050528/ap_on_re_us/political_personnel_2

[Rose Siding]

4. Fletcher's bad news. He's also packing the court

He's about to appt Roach (his real name), his 37 yr old lawyer, who has no judicial experience to the KY Supreme court.

snip>
State Democratic Party officials called Roach's nomination the latest in a string of Republican court-packing moves.

Fletcher appointed Senate President David Williams' wife and Senate President Pro Tem Katie Stine's husband to judgeships.

Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Lundergan noted that Fletcher appointed three new members of the nominating commission in the last two weeks.

"That's the alarming thing to me — the fact that the judiciary, which is supposed to be very independent and which we as citizens rely on so we'll have equal justice, would be stacked," he said.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050517/NEWS01/50517002/1008/NEWS01

[Judi Lynn]

3. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone by now,since he was doing good!

It still seems a shock when this happens, as it contradicts everything we are ALSO supposed to believe makes this country unique and good!

From the article:

Denis Fleming, former general counsel to Patton and now chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, said he "personally and repeatedly encouraged Patton to appoint Oppegard amid extreme opposition of industry."

Fleming said he was convinced that Oppegard would be a tireless advocate for miners.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis Sledd said earlier this month that Oppegard's work had helped Kentucky "bring the hammer down" on mine-safety violators in a way that federal prosecutors could not.

In at least two cases, Sledd deferred criminal prosecution so that Oppegard could seek the revocation of mining papers under the state system, records show.

One of those cases involved Ronnie Charles, who was crushed to death by a rock at a Pike County mine in 1999. Tammy Charles, the miner's widow, said she had given up hope of getting justice until Oppegard made the case the first he filed with the Kentucky Mine Safety Review Commission in 2001.
(snip)

He probably wasn't going to be allowed to stay as long as Republicans have anything to say about it. Since the miners don't have any clout, they're invisible as long as Republicans are clutching the reins of power.

They have not learned that if you try to seize and control things, they will slip away.

[rodeodance]

5. safty has been downgraded to an office with less authority.

The reorganization led to the firing of the state's two highest-ranking mine-safety officials last year and the downgrading of the mine-safety agency from a department to an office, meaning it will have less authority.

[rodeodance]

6. this issue is a window our new Amerika

[Judi Lynn]

8. Apparently Republicans see an unending stream of workers: so many

that any care given specific workers is an unnecessary expense which eats into the profits.

[Straight Shooter]

7. Those coal miners can get pretty radical about their safety.

I hope they raise hell. This is bullsh*t. I lived in coal mining country when I was younger and had nothing but total respect for these people who work in dangerous conditions. Many of them are from generations of coal miners.

My father joined the Army because he didn't want to be a coal miner like his father before him. It's a hard life. Why does Fletcher want to make it even harder?

[spuddonna]

9. I think Biden had it right in his speech before the Senate...

Biden said the reason they want to pack the circuit courts with these nutso judges is to load the benches so that when appointments to the Supreme Court finally happen, they can go about the real work they have in mind: ruling the 'worker's aid' programs from the 1920's and 30's unconstitutional. Bye-bye Social Security, bye-bye 40 hr work week, goodby OSHA!

I honestly don't think this group of neocons gives one iota about abortion or religion... These are great issues to campaign on, but their real agenda is for their 'Patriots' and 'Rangers' who donated millions to get them in there and decimate any regulatory controls that have been put in place the past 100 years...