Labor, in Coalition, Fights for CEO Accountability for Disasters -- TxAFLCIOEnews
1--Texas AFL-CIO, Other Groups Back Ability to Depose CEOs in Disasters
2--House Fails to Override Bush on CHIP Vote
3--Early Voting to Start Monday
4--No E-Mail News on Friday
1) Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller today joined other progressive
activists in a news conference in front of the Texas Supreme Court building
to oppose an effort by the former CEO of BP to avoid giving a deposition in
a lawsuit stemming from the March 2005 explosion that killed 15 contract
workers.
The hearing before the high civil court concerned whether a legal doctrine
allows Lord Browne simply to refuse to submit to questioning regarding the
tragedy. A slew of corporate CEOs joined BP in arguing that CEOs should have
immunity from such questioning.
The Supreme Court heard arguments and will rule on the case in the future.
Based on campaign contributions to the Texas Supreme Court cited by Texans
for Public Justice and the ever-widening pro-corporate trend on that court,
it would be unwise to bet the mortgage that the injured workers will
prevail, but there's always hope.
Here is the news release from the coalition, followed by President Moeller's
remarks at the news conference:
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Oct. 18, 2007 Contact: Becky Moeller,
AFL-CIO
(512) 477-6195
Alex Winslow
Texas Watch
(512) 381-1111
Craig McDonald
Texans for Public Justice
(512) 472-9770
Glenn Smith
Texas Progress Council
(512) 322-0700
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When No One Is Accountable, No One Is Safe
Today the Texas Supreme Court takes up an issue that goes to the heart of
what it means to be a Texan: Are we accountable for the consequences of our
behavior? Texans believe we are. Lord Brown, former CEO of British Petroleum
and his special interest peers say no. They argue that they are above the
law. They are too important to be accountable.
Lord Brown argues that he should not have to answer questions about the
decisions he made that contributed to the tragic deaths of 15 Texas workers
and the injuries of hundreds more in the explosion at Texas City. But this
is about much more than whether one man will have to answer a few questions.
It's about accountability and responsibility.
And it's about the Texas Supreme Court receiving millions of dollars from
special interests it then swaddles in blankets of immunity from civil
prosecution for the harm they do to Texas workers and families. When
wrongdoers are not held accountable, public safety and security is
threatened.
When no one is accountable, no one is safe.
"The decisions made by corporate CEO's in board rooms all around the world
threaten the safety of communities right here in Texas," said Alex Winslow,
executive director of Texas Watch. "Children on their way to school,
families who breathe our air and drink our water, and small business owners
who serve the plant and its workers all face a greater danger when CEOs are
allowed to avoid accountability for the decisions they make."
"When you go to work, you should get to come home in one piece," said Becky
Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. "Are we as a state going to require
that corporations take responsibility for getting workers to their homes and
families safely? Or will we stand by as the Supreme Court continues to erect
shields protecting corporate leaders from that accountability?"
Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, said that more than
175 corporations and CEOs have joined BP to fight against corporate
accountability. "On any given day this court is teeming with conflicts of
interest, but perhaps none greater than in the BP case. A review of the
justices' campaign records shows they have taken $2 million from interests
are that are arguing for BP," McDonald said.
"Glib sound bites and special-interest double-talk about our judicial system
can no longer hide the agenda of some irresponsible corporate interests,"
said Glenn Smith, director of the Texas Progress Council. "That agenda is
nothing less than the goal of permanent immunity from civil prosecution for
negligent and willful practices that maim and kill.
-----------------------------------------
"BP 'Apex Deposition Doctrine' News Conference
Comments of Becky Moeller
Oct. 18, 2007
Welcome to this news conference. I'm Becky Moeller, president of the Texas
AFL-CIO, and I'm joined by a number of fine friends and organizations to
discuss a hearing this morning before the Texas Supreme Court. The issue is
whether the former CEO of BP must submit to a deposition concerning a deadly
explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City. We will be happy to answer
questions after making brief statements.
One of the most basic missions of the Texas AFL-CIO is to promote a simple
principle for workers in this state: When you go to work, you should get to
come home in one piece.
On what should have been an ordinary day in March of 2005, 15 contract
workers who went to work at the BP refinery in Texas City never came home.
And more than 170 additional workers suffered serious injuries in a deadly
explosion that later investigations showed to be completely preventable.
The legal hearing taking place today may on its face be about the
technical issue of whether the "apex deposition doctrine" frees a former CEO
from answering a subpoena to testify. But the hearing is really about
accountability. Are we as a state going to require that corporations take
responsibility for getting workers to their homes and families safely? Or
will we stand by as the Supreme Court continues to erect shields protecting
corporate leaders from that accountability?
Our regulatory system has failed. Because of a long-standing budgetary
starvation diet and warped priorities, the federal Occupational Safety and
Health Administration will do a preventive inspection of a Texas workplace
on the order of once every 100 years unless a complaint is filed.
Texas has no state OSHA to pick up the slack. Moreover, the Legislature
terminated a promising worker safety program that was part of the Texas
workers' compensation system not long after it went into effect in the early
1990s.
We are therefore reduced to regulatory post mortems. When someone dies,
OSHA shows up and may impose fines that are for practical purposes regarded
as a cost of doing business. In the case of the BP explosion, the U.S.
Chemical Safety Board issued an objective report that took BP's management
to task. But it was the civil justice system that invoked the most serious
consequences for BP and laid bare the cold calculations BP made in trading
worker safety for short-term profit.
Without access to the civil justice system, we would never know how
corporate executives at the highest level of the company actively considered
and rejected safety protocols that would have prevented the explosion. The
victims of the blast have been able to publicize reams of information fully
detailing a cost-benefit analysis that went horribly awry, to the tune of
more than $1.5 billion to date.
The legal action has produced evidence that the former CEO of BP, Lord
John Browne, has relevant information that could bring out the truth. But
the corporate community in Texas believes the higher principle in this case
is suppression of the truth.
Others at this news conference will discuss details of the case. All I
want to say is that every Texas worker has the right to go home after work
in one piece, and the position that the corporate community is taking today
will make that harder to do.
I'll now turn the podium over to Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, who will
discuss specifics of today's hearing.
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2) On a 273-156 vote, the U.S. House today failed to override George W.
Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The large majority was 16 votes short of the two-thirds margin needed for an
override.
What the next step in the bipartisan majority's strategy will be remains to
be seen, but here is the breakdown of the Texas delegation:
Voting to Override Bush (in agreement with the AFL-CIO position) was every
Democrat in the Texas delegation except Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who did
not vote.
The votes to override included: U.S. Henry Cuellar, Lloyd Doggett, Chet
Edwards, Charles Gonzalez, Al Green, Gene Green, Ruben Hinojosa, Sheila
Jackson Lee, Nick Lampson, Solomon Ortiz, Silvestre Reyes and Ciro Rodriguez
The votes to uphold the veto included every Republican in the delegation
(meaning U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was the only Republican from Texas
to back the CHIP bill). Those who sided with George W. Bush and U.S. Sen.
John Cornyn on the CHIP vote include: U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, Kevin Brady,
Michael Burgess, John Carter, Mike Conaway, John Culberson, Louie Gohmert,
Kay Granger, Ralph Hall, Jeb Hensarling, Sam Johnson, Ken Marchant, Mike
McCaul, Randy Neugebauer, Ron Paul, Ted Poe, Pete Sessions, Lamar Smith and
Mac Thornberry.
Hensarling deserves a particular dishonorable mention for arguing in a floor
speech that CHIP benefits would go to "the wealthiest among us". Yeah,
that's the ticket.
3) Early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 general election begins on Monday,
Oct. 22, and runs through Friday, Nov. 3, so this is a good time to touch
base on Texas AFL-CIO endorsements.
Constitutional amendment elections are almost never high-turnout affairs,
and the 2007 slate doesn't seem to offer any likely draws that will make an
exception to that rule. We change the Texas Constitution about as often in
two or three biennial election cycles as all Americans have changed the
Constitution in 218+ years, so it's perfectly understandable that the
routine amendment doesn't get the kind of scrutiny one might hope for as we
edit the state's most fundamental legal document.
Whether Texas abolishes the office of hide inspector is a clerical decision,
not one of any serious import, and there are too many of those types of
technical amendments and too few of those that truly make a statement about
who we are as a state.
The extent of local elections varies around the state, but every Texan will
have an opportunity to vote on 16 propositions that would change the Texas
Constitution. The Texas AFL-CIO took positions in support of six of those
amendments and took no position on the remaining ones.
These are the ones on which the Texas AFL-CIO recommends a "yes" vote:
Proposition 2 -- $500 million in bonds for student loans.
Proposition 8 - Clarification of rules on home equity loans.
Proposition 9 - Resident homestead tax exemptions for disabled veterans.
Proposition 11 - Requiring record votes in Legislature on final passage of
bills and publication of those records on the Internet.
Proposition 13 - Authorizing denial of bond to persons who violate certain
orders in family violence cases.
Proposition 15 -- $3 billion in bonds to create a Cancer Prevention and
Research Institute and to fight cancer over the next decade
4) I will be out of the office on business through Friday. The e-mail news
resumes Monday.
Ed Sills
Director of Communications, Texas AFL-CIO
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