Massey opposes tax to fund workers' compensation

摘要

Don Blankenship has parted company with the West Virginia Coal Association, of which his company Massey Energy is perhaps the largest member, over the association's support for Gov. Joe Manchin's proposal to bail out the state's workers compensation fund. In a Jan. 24 letter to the governor and state lawmakers, Blankenship, Massey's chief executive, called the governor's proposal to raise taxes on the coal, natural gas and timber industries, paving the way for eventual privatization of the workers compensation fund, a "bizarre idea" that will do to those industries "what the state has already done to retail gasoline and grocery stores."