Heading off to college? Banking 101 Part II – National Consumers League

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By Alex Schneider, NCL LifeSmarts and Public Policy Intern

Let’s pick up right where we left off—college is expensive and making smart banking choices can save you a lot of cash in the long run. Here are a few more tips:

Put your dollars to work
Sometimes, despite college loans and large expenses, students find they actually make some spending money.  If that applies to you, you may want to consider saving some of it for long-term planning.  While interest rates today make savings accounts, money market accounts, and CDs unappealing for student investors with modest savings,  stock and mutual fund investing is more promising.

As an aside, a general rule of investing is that your first $5,000 – $10,000 of investments should be mutual fund investments, due to the risk involved with individual stocks.  But putting a few hundred dollars per quarter or per year into stocks can be a valuable way to learn about the stock market.

When opening a brokerage account, make sure to review all fees and investing rules.  Some discount brokers don’t charge monthly fees and don’t require customers to make regular purchases.  Before opening an account, consult a fee schedule and decide whether you can afford to pay the fees listed.

Don’t give in when studying abroad
I recently had the chance to study in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I am proud to report I never paid a bank fee to do so.

So how’d I do it?

American banks and credit card companies like to charge foreign transaction fees of 1%-4%, and they also tack on fees when withdrawing money at an ATM abroad.

Some banks have special deals for travelers, but many of those deals are for prominent bank customers, not students without much money in savings.

When heading abroad, I used information at https://www.flyerguide.com to decide which bank to use.  As of this writing, TD Bank, a northeast bank chain, offers banking with no foreign transaction fees, as do all Capital One credit cards.  Starting in March, a few months after my return home, TD Bank started charging $2 per ATM transaction.  Still, by taking out larger sums of money at a time, students abroad can avoid paying the withdrawal fee too often.

Bank of America has a network of banks that includes Barclays in the UK and BNP Paribas in France and does not charge fees to use those affiliated ATMs.

In general, search for a bank with the lowest transaction fees and ATM fees.  And if you have to decide between a 3% transaction fee or a $2 ATM withdrawal fee, save yourself some money and – as long as you can do so safely – pay with cash. 

Avoid at all costs
For all the savings already listed, students will save the most if they remember to say one thing when opening their bank account: opt-out.

Under new federal guidelines, banks must allow customers to opt-out of overdraft protection.

Overdraft protection is a service that costs customers about $40 each time they become overdrawn, or spend more money than they actually have in their checking account. By opting out of overdraft protection, you won’t just save on overdraft fees, you’ll learn to manage your money and only spend what you actually have in your account.

Heading off to college? Banking 101 Part I – National Consumers League

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By Alex Schneider, NCL LifeSmarts and Public Policy Intern

For high school students heading off to college, there’s a lot to think about.  There’ll be new friends, new classes, and for many, a new place to call home.

Researching what bank to choose probably won’t be high on the list of priorities.  But when you consider all the expenses that build up throughout college, not to mention the difficulty of securing even a minimum wage job in this economy, every penny counts. Taking some time to consider your options could save you hundreds of dollars a year.

Ask about fees
The rumors are true: free student checking accounts still exist.  Don’t even think of walking into a bank unless they have a free student account.  It doesn’t matter how conveniently located the bank is or how many lollipops they have in the lobby, it just is not cost effective for students to pay banking fees when so many other banks offer free student accounts.

When opening that free account, remember to ask about the basics so you won’t be caught with hidden fees: What is the cost of out-of-network ATM withdrawals?  How much does it cost to order checks? Are there any minimum balance requirements?  Is a debit card free with the account?  Are you required to have a savings account, too? Are there other costs associated with the checking account?

When it comes to fees, weigh the positives and negatives.  Purchasing 100 checks for $4 isn’t a big deal, but a monthly $8 fee – which amounts to $96 a year and $384 for four years of school –  can be a considerable, easily avoided expense.

Think local
Most students entering college will find they already have a bank account. The best way to ensure easy access to your money, however, is to open a new account with a local branch near your school.  You’ll have free access to local ATMs and you’ll be able to cash checks more easily. If you try using an Anytown Bank debit card at the ATM on college, you might face fees of upwards of $4 per transaction, half paid to Anytown Bank, half paid to the local bank. Avoid the fees and open a new account.  As a bonus, finding a new local bank will get you off campus to see and learn more about the neighborhood around your school.

Open a credit card
The literature on credit cards is lengthy, but the basic benefits are clear: if you open a student card with no annual fee, you’ll build up your credit history while benefiting from purchase protections offered by credit card companies.  If you know you won’t be able to pay your bills on time, however, don’t open the card.  Graduating college with a poor credit history is the worst financial mistake a student can make.

Stay tuned for the next blog post on college banking later this week!

We should have listened to Sheila Bair – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The New York Times Magazine recently ran a profile of outgoing Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chair Sheila Bair. Its written by a business columnist whom I’ve come to revere – Joe Nocera. I blogged a while back about Nocera’s wistful interview with a heroic banking CEO who believes that his industry has become greedy and exclusively interested in making money by engaging in transactions for fees, and not by ending money.

In this piece, Nocera talks about why Bair played a heroic role in the finance world over her five-year term. “Alone among the regulators… the FDIC began to home in on subprime lending. By 2006 the subprime industry was running amok, making loans – many of them fraudulent – to just about anyone with a pulse. Most subprime loans had adjustable interest rates, which started low but then jumped significantly after a few years, making the monthly payments unaffordable for many homeowners. The lenders didn’t care because they sold the loans to Wall Street, which bundled them into mortgage-backed bonds and resold them to investors.”

I don’t think I’ve read such a clearly stated, short, and concise description of what caused the collapse of our financial system. Nocera makes all the critical points in the span of a few sentences:

a) none of the regulators but FDIC were paying attention to subprime loans

b) there was fraud involved in many subprime loans – for eg, paperwork altered to make the buyer appear to have a higher salary and take out a bigger loan

c) the adjustable interest rates that kicked up high after a year or two and made the mortgages unaffordable

d) no one had skin in the game – or cared that the loan couldn’t be paid back – because the risk-riddled mortgages were sold to Wall Street almost as soon as the loan was issued

But Sheila Bair and her staff at FDIC knew and they tried to blow the whistle. They called industry players together, pushing them to raise their standards. They wouldn’t do it. She opposed new rules that that allowed reduced capital requirements to cushion against losses. She lost that battle. Bair tried in a number of ways to stem the tide of subprime loans.

Sheila Bair has always stood out to me as a lone voice for strong oversight and regulation of the markets. You cannot live in capitalist economy without strong regulation. Bair maintained her standards and never tired of raising her concerns, even though she often lost her battles. Her term expired on July 8 and she is moving on. With her departure, we lose a highly skilled, outspoken and principled public servant; had we listened to her from the beginning, we might have avoided the terrible economic calamity of the last three years.

The benefits of unionization: a case study – National Consumers League

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By Benjamin Judge, NCL Public Policy Intern

Let’s pretend that there are two factories that make the same products for the same company. In one factory the workers are paid $19 dollars per hour and get five weeks of paid vacation. In the other factory the workers are paid $8 dollars an hour with zero paid vacation. Now, what if I were to tell you that the only difference between the factories is the countries in which each factory is located?  That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Well this is a very real example between an IKEA factory in Sweden, which offers good pay and vacation, and an IKEA factory in Danville, Virginia, which does not.

The workers stronghold
IKEA pays its Swedish workers a much higher wage because its workers are unionized and are able to collectively bargain with the executives of the company. Although some in the media considers Sweden a “socialist” state, it should be acknowledged that Sweden is one of the most capitalist nations in the world. The reason it’s now being considered “socialist” is because of its huge social welfare programs and its dedication to worker protections. As stated on the Swedish government’s website, “Employment security and stability are highly valued in Sweden.” It is because of this dedication to labor that Swedish workers are paid well, have safe working condition, and good job benefits.

 The struggle for equal rights
Compared to the Swedish workforce, the average US worker has a harder time unionizing and collectively bargaining, making it much more difficult for employees to improve working conditions. To use the Danville factory as an example, poor working conditions have lead to 1,536 days of work being lost over a 30-month period because of workplace injuries. To combat this, workers in the Danville factory are starting to support the idea of unionizing and have filed for union elections. This is an important step towards getting the wages, benefits, and work conditions that the Virginia workers deserve and would bring American workers more in line with their Swedish counterparts. However, IKEA has employed some dirty tactics in order to stop the workers from unionizing. IKEA recently hired the firm Jackson Lewis, who specialize in employment law, to hold meetings to sway workers against unionizing.

What needs to be done
As supporters of fair labor, we cannot allow IKEA to keep underpaying and undervaluing its employees. Let IKEA know where you stand by signing the Change.org petition urging IKEA to allow their workers to unionize. The petition can be found here.

Committee investigation confirms advocates’ worst fears about “cramming” – National Consumers League

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By Alex Schneider, NCL Public Policy Intern 

For more than a decade phone bill cramming has been costing consumers millions of dollars.  But until the recent release of the Senate Commerce Committee’s report on cramming, few knew just how pervasive and insidious this problem has become.

“Cramming” is defined as the placement of unauthorized third-party charges on a consumers’ monthly phone bill.  The charges could be for anything from yoga classes to fax or voice services to credit protection plans.  But overwhelmingly, they have one thing in common: consumers were charged without ever asking to be signed up for the service.

Since the mid-1990s, third parties have crammed these illegal charges onto monthly phone bills, relying on the concept that consumers will pay their bill without painstakingly analyzing each and every line item.  The phone industry said it would clean up its act, but, as Senator John Rockefeller made clear at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee last Wednesday, these voluntary fixes just haven’t worked.

“I plan to introduce legislation that will a put a stop to this,” Rockefeller said. “I simply cannot find any grain of sense in us having to have a hearing like this.”

Astonishing findings

The committee report extends 50 pages and reveals that cramming hurts individuals, government agencies, and businesses of all kinds (including the phone companies themselves!).  The following are a sampling of the committee’s new findings:

  • Verizon, AT&T, and CenturyLink/Qwest earned $650 million since 2006 in $1 and $2 incremental fees as a kickback for permitting third-party phone bill fees.
  • Crammers have doctored authorization forms to charge consumers in egregious ways, including listing deceased relatives as those who signed up for the services and charging unlikely phone numbers, including dedicated lines used for ATMs, alarm systems, modems, and emergency calls.
  • Companies allegedly offering third-party services operated out of fake mailboxes, fake offices, and fake residences.  In one case, the president of a company had no involvement in the business and had been asked to sign some forms by a friend.  In another instance, the address of a cramming company was listed as “Suite #237,” but the ‘suite’ turned out to be a mailbox at a UPS Store, not the greatest of places to host an office meeting.
  • A gaming service charged to customers by a “company” called EZPhoneBill provided the same games as another free website and had no users despite enrolling 20,000 customers at $14.95 per month.
  • Bill blocking procedures initiated by customers did not 100% guarantee they would not be billed.

Solutions To Cramming Are Within Reach

In a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee, NCL urged Congress to follow the lead of Vermont and pass legislation ban third-party charges on landline phone bills.  As we wrote, the findings of the Commerce Committee as well as those of various state Attorneys General, the FCC, and the FTC highlight that there is little legitimate reason why a consumer would want to be billed for a third-party service on their wireline telephone bill.

Indeed, a FCC investigation released last month found that only 20 out of 17,384 consumers actually used the third-party service for which they were billed, a usage rate of roughly 0.1%.

As assistant Attorney General of Vermont, Elliot Burg, noted at last week’s hearing, consumers don’t expect that they can be billed for unrelated products and services on their phone bills.  Thus they aren’t likely to be on the lookout for cramming charges. Lawmakers in Vermont concurred, took action to ban third-party charges, thus saving consumers in that state from future aggravation due to cramming.

Cramming is a Significant Crime with Real Victims

The Commerce Committee estimates that third-party charges on landline phone bills cost consumers $2 billion every year.  That doesn’t include the time and energy that goes into calling customer service to rectify a bill or the losses to businesses that might be required to take precautionary measures to review employee phone bills for potential fraud.

Cramming is not going away.  The fact that AT&T itself has been crammed 80 times, according to Commerce report, is indicative of a larger problem that requires an aggressive solution.  We believe that banning third-party charges on landline phone bills is just that solution.

Consumer Tips for Avoiding Cramming

Until third-party charges are banned, here are some basic steps you can take to avoid falling victim to cramming:

  1. Contact your phone company and ask to opt-out of third-party billing.
  2. Watch for any changes in your monthly phone bill.  Even a change of a few dollars could indicate a cramming charge.
  3. Be careful about answering phone surveys or Internet surveys that ask for your phone number, or participating in online sweepstakes.  If you do participate, make sure you understand any charges you may incur.
  4. Before paying your phone bill, scan for a “third-party” charges section.  If you do not recognize the charge and if you have any questions, immediately call your phone company.
  5. Learn more from the FTC and FCC about filing a complaint or file a complaint directly with NCL at www.fraud.org.

Consumer advocacy as needed as ever – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

This Saturday’s New York Times is filled with interesting consumer stories, which–once again–confirm that the work consumer advocates do is just as important today as ever.

“Consumer Watchdog Is All Ears for Ideas,” talks about Elizabeth Warren and her work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “After Long Battle, Safer Cribs” is a story about the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) efforts to ensure crib safety, and finally, “Food Companies Act to Protect Consumers from E.Coli Illness,” focuses on Costco and Beef Products Inc decision to test for six additional of the most virulent strains of E.coli pathogens in food.

The CFPB piece is about that new federal agency receiving multiple tweets from people who want it to develop protections that haven’t ever been available on financial transactions from federal agencies. Gail Hillebrand, the associate director of consumer education and engagement at CFPB, (and my former colleague at Consumers Union) said, “We are actively working toward simplifying credit card contracts.” Hallelujah! Its about time someone took at look at these documents that were drafted to confuse and confound, and blew the whistle on their purposeful obfuscation.

In the product safety arena, under new rules adopted by Congress, manufacturers of cribs must undergo 75,000 cycles of testing. It sounds onerous, but as CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum notes, “After dozens of babies had tragically been entrapped and died, and millions of defective cribs had been recalled, the actions of this commission to ensure the swift movement to market of only safer cribs undoubtedly was justified.” Commissioner Nancy Nord disagreed in the Times and said, “We rushed the standard out without doing the hard work upfront to understand the impact of regulation.”

As a rejoinder to Commisioner Nord’s skepticism, three families who lost babies in cribs that proved unsafe wrote poignantly, “You can’t tell the safety of a crib by looking at it, and you certainly can’t maintain it is safe because it met weak industry standards in place prior to 2010.” The new safety standards should address their well-founded concerns.

Finally, in the story on meat safety, one manufacturer and one retailer, Beef Products Inc. and Costco, are testing for six different strains of E. coli that food safety advocates have wanted for years. The Department of Agriculture has a proposal to require this type of testing but unfortunately, it has dragged its feet. This is a breakthrough consumer protection. Hats off to both companies for their leadership in putting consumer safety first. E. coli poisoning can cause serious illness in victims and is totally preventable with a “hold and test” policy that doesn’t ship the products until the testing on every batch is back and is found not dangerous to consumers.

All three pieces prove once again that there is room for stronger consumer protections in food safety, product safety, especially where children are involved, and in financial transactions for consumers.

New bill addresses confusion over meaning of “4G” – National Consumers League

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By Larry Rose, NCL Public Policy Intern

You’ve probably heard the term “4G” being mentioned a lot recently. And, if you’re like most consumers, you probably have no clue as to what that means. In theory, a fourth generation, (4G) wireless network is a network that offers significantly greater speed than the third generation (3G) wireless networks that most smartphones run on.  The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) used to define 4G services as broadband technology that has a speed exceeding 100 M bit/s.  ITU later changed the definition of 4G to any form of mobile broadband that marks a meaningful improvement over 3G services. This definition is vague and allows the telecommunications industry to refer to many different types of mobile broadband as “4G.”

The four largest members of the telecommunications industry all provide services that are advertised as being “4G.” However, these four companies use the term “4G” to refer to three different types of mobile broadband technology. AT&T and T-Mobile advertise their Evolved High Packet Speed Access (HSPA+) networks as being “4G” despite the former company considering its HPSA+ network to be a mere “transition” to “true” 4G technology.  On the other hand, Verizon uses the term to refer to its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, which typically provides faster speeds than the HPSA+ network. Sprint markets its WiMax technology as “4G” despite being somewhat slower than Verizon’s LTE network. These three services are considerably different from one another from a technological point of view, but they all operate under the same marketing label.  This creates difficulties for consumers who are trying to determine which wireless service to purchase.

Fortunately, consumers have found themselves a champion in Congress. Last month, Representative Anna Eshoo of California introduced H.R. 2281, the Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act.  This bill requires wireless service providers to disclose information about the speed, reliability, price, network management policies and the terms of the wireless service, as well as costs for the service that are not included in the stated price and the technology used to provide the service. The bill would also direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create a side-by-side comparison of the speeds and prices of the 4G services provided by the top 10 U.S. wireless carriers.

The telecommunications industry isn’t pleased with this bill. According to the CTIA, the bill adds unnecessary regulation at a time that Congress should be focused on finding more spectrum to devote to 4G technology.

A study from Nielson found that only two out of five consumers understand what the term “4G” actually means. 27% of respondents incorrectly believed that Apple’s iPhone 4 offers 4G technology . That false assumption was most likely aided by the fact that a previous version of the iPhone was called “iPhone 3G,” after the type of mobile broadband that it used.

Last week, NCL, joined the ranks of Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative in endorsing the Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act. In an economy where many consumers rely on mobile broadband for Internet access, it is essential that consumers know what type of mobile broadband service they are purchasing.

The good banker – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

One of the best brains on financial reform is, in my view, Joe Nocera. He writes for the NYTimes and is a frequent guest on NPR. Nocera recently wrote a NY Times piece about a man he calls “the good banker.” Why does this man, Robert Wilmers, CEO of M& T bank, earn Nocera’s respect? Wilmers is a unique critic of his profession. I find that folks in the business community that are capable of self-criticism are rare indeed; most want to ignore or overlook the bad practices that are perpetuated by their companies.

But Wilmers finds plenty of fault in the banking business and it bothers him that bankers have fallen to the “third worst profession” in the public’s mind. He says that much of the money banks earn comes from trading profits “rather than prudent extension of credit that furthers commerce.” We agree. Wilmers believes that derivatives helped bring about the financial crisis and should be regulated. We agree. He says that bank executives are wildly overpaid. Boy, do we agree with that. He says that the biggest banks, the Too Big to Fail Banks – were operating in an “unsafe business model.” We agree.

I’ve said in previous blogs that I wish banks would make money the old-fashioned way – extend loans at 6 or 7 percent and pay depositors 2-3 percent interest. But that’s not big bucks, so that business model – while still in use – is sidelined. Instead, banks use excessive fees – $39 overdraft charges, fees for going over your spending limits – often paid by those with the most limited incomes–the stuff that Elizabeth Warren calls “tricks and traps” – are used to make their executives rich. Or they trade in derivatives and earn big fees for the transactions.

Nocera notes that in 2007, the chief execs of the Too Big To Fail Banks made, on average $26 million. That’s more than double the compensation of the top nonblank Fortune 500 executives. Wilmers himself made $2 million, a great salary by any standard but reasonable relative to his performance (in 30 years he built the bank from a $2 billion operation to assets of $68 billion today).

Wilmers also believes that Glass Steagall Act – the Depression era law that separated commercial and investment banks – should never have been abolished. I couldn’t agree more. The repeal of Glass Steagall is one of the worst disasters of deregulation. Nocera quotes from Wilmers speech at his company’s annual meeting. He said he wants to find “ways to continue to attract deposits, make sound loans and grow in accordance with our historic credit quality standards.”  Someone should give this very unusual CEO an award!

Farmworker Bill vetoed by CA Governor Jerry Brown – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

When a politician who has championed the cause of farmworkers vetoes a bill that would help this vulnerable group of workers organize, something is very wrong. But that’s just what happened this week. California’s Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday vetoed the “Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act”. The bill would have allowed farmworkers to form or affiliate with a union via a petition, rather than through an election held in the workplace, where employees are too often subject to intimidation by bosses.

Three decades ago, Brown signed a bill to give agricultural workers the right to unionize by secret ballot. So what happened in the ensuing 30 years?  In his veto message, Brown said that while he was sympathetic with the aims of the bill, he feared it could adversely affect the framework of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. That’s dubious. The process the bill would have enabled is called “majority signup election” and also known as “card-check.” It also would have allowed the union to bargain for employees without holding an election, by simply collecting signatures from a majority of workers on cards saying they wanted representation. It’s the same argument opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act, the federal legislation backed by unions, used to tamp down support.

The farmworker proposal has been the top legislative goal for years for the United Farm Workers. Brown has spoken– more like bragged – about his friendship with the UFW’s founder and labor icon, Caesar Chavez. Chavez is likely rolling over in his grave after his old friend and champion vetoed this bill.

This is both a sad day for farmworkers and a lost opportunity. California could have lead the way for other states, but instead a governor who was once their champion has failed them. NCL knows from experience that the cause of farmworkers—and their children—flies under the radar. We’ve taken a lead in pushing for the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which would help get children out of the fields and into schools. Farmworker conditions continue to be among the worst in America. These men and women—and children—often spend 12 hour days in the hot sun picking our fruits and vegetables so Americans can have healthy produce on their tables. They live in substandard housing, get no health care, pension or sick leave.

“What never changes in politics is power. Gov. Brown accepted the arguments made by the powerful agribusiness lobby and rejected the cause of powerless farm workers,” United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez said in a statement.

If we can’t count on one-time allies like Governor Gerry Brown to defend the cause of farmworkers, the status of working men and women is more dire than I had thought.

Massey Energy case makes clear: miners need more protections – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

In the 1890’s in America, mine workers faced harsh working conditions. There were few safety mechanisms on machines, pay commonly amounted to less than one dollar for a 12 to 14-hour workday, and mine owners commonly paid their employees in scrip, company-printed money, only usable at company-owned stores, where prices were significantly higher. And especially important to NCL’s history, many mine workers were children, with mine owners commonly hiring boys as young as ten years of age to work in the mines.

Thanks to decades of battles to get union representation by the United Mine Workers union and its many hard-fought battles, conditions have improved in the mines and mineworkers are well paid. But the lives of mineworkers are still too cheap.

Last week, federal investigators looking into the mine explosion in April of last year in West Virginia found that Massey Energy, the owner of the mine where 29 men were killed in an explosion, kept accounts of hazardous conditions out of official record books where inspectors would see them. For example, one internal report from March 1, 2010, shortly before the accident, noted a problem with water sprayers, while the official report stated flatly “none observed” in the column for hazardous conditions.

After the mine disaster, a lot negative information came to light about Don Blankenship, owner of Massey Mines – including how he undervalued the safety of miners, was obsessed with output, checking on mine production every several hours. Now we learn that Massey Mines kept a set of internal books where safety hazards were recorded, out of sight of state inspectors, and off the official books that the law required them to keep.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the team of federal investigators, who spent a year sifting through more than 84,000 pages of documents, interviewing 266 people and examining evidence at the Upper Big Branch mine, where the explosion occurred.

Kevin Stricklin of MSHA, the federal agency responsible for mine safety, at a press conference this week, gave a stinging indictment of Massey practices, saying the federal investigation by more than 100 people had been able to rule out the company’s assertion that the explosion on April 5, 2010, happened because of an event beyond its control: a huge inundation of gas.

His findings matched those of the earlier report, conducted by a former federal mine safety chief which said that coal dust had been allowed to accumulate, spreading what had been a small ignition of methane through the mine and creating the deadliest mine blast in 40 years. Stricklin said this wasn’t simply a theory, “This is our conclusion.”

Falsifying records is a felony under federal mining laws. Though two people have been indicted in the mine explosion, Massey managers, including the former chief executive, Don Blankenship, have not been charged. 18 Massey executives have refused to be interviewed for the federal investigation, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights. Stricklin’s report found that Massey managers also pressured workers to omit dangerous conditions from the official books, Mr. Stricklin said that workers who tried to report risks were intimidated.

What can we do in the future to prevent negligent anti-union mine owners like Don Blankenship from exposing coal miners – who work under very dangerous conditions in the best of times – from continuing to operate? After all, the negligence killed 29 men working in the mine. Federal criminal indictments might help – and once these findings make their way to the US Attorney’s office – prosecutors should press charges against any and all officials whose actions put coal miners at risk.