Trump’s Mine-Safety Nominee Ran Coal Firm
Cited for Illegal Employment
Practices
EDITOR’S NOTE: The work of the US Mine Safety and
Health Administration has served Charlestown area residents well as MSHA is one
of the ONLY federal, state or local agencies that polices local quarries and sand pits. It was through MSHA records that we could first document the misconduct of the infamous COPAR quarry and monitor the numerous other extraction operations around the area. So we have a stake in making sure the next MSHA chief is not in the pocket of the mining industry – Will Collette
The coal mining company run by
President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s top mining regulator has
already come under criticism for weaknesses in its safety record.
It turns out the company was also found by the government to have illegally retaliated against a foreman who complained about sexual and ethnic harassment from supervisors, unsafe conditions and drug use at one of its mines.
It turns out the company was also found by the government to have illegally retaliated against a foreman who complained about sexual and ethnic harassment from supervisors, unsafe conditions and drug use at one of its mines.
The little-noticed case involved a
foreman at a mine operated by Rhino Energy WV. At the time, the president of
the mine’s parent company, Rhino Resource Partners, was David Zatezalo, who is
now Trump’s nominee to run the Mine Safety and Health Administration. A Senate
committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination.
In the West Virginia case, Michael Jagodzinski, a foreman at the mine located near the town of Bolt, complained in 2011 that he was the target of ethnic and gay slurs.
The company illegally retaliated
against him, falsely accusing him of sexual harassment, and then fired him, the
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found.
As a result, Rhino Energy WV entered
into a five-year consent decree last year, agreeing to pay $62,500 to
Jagodzinski and implement reforms, including a policy against harassment and
training for all managers and employees on prohibitions against discrimination
and retaliation.
The company also agreed to report
how it handles any internal complaints of discrimination to federal regulators,
and post notices about the settlement at all mine sites.
Zatezalo retired from Rhino in 2014.
If confirmed to his new post, he would run an agency that is part of the Labor
Department. It conducts regular inspections, trains the industry on best
practices and levies penalties against mining companies for violations.
Democratic senators have questioned
Zatezalo’s record in the industry, citing safety issues at mines he oversaw in
West Virginia and Kentucky. One of his mines received two consecutive “pattern
of violations” citations from the mining safety agency — a rare sanction used
for repeat offenders.
Based on those citations, Sen. Joe
Manchin, D-W.Va., who often throws his support behind the mining industry’s
priorities, announced he would oppose Zatezalo’s confirmation, saying he is
“not convinced” the former coal executive “is suited to oversee the federal
agency that implements and enforces mine safety laws and standards.”
Zatezalo did not respond to a
request for an interview about the harassment case. A spokeswoman for the mine
safety administration declined to comment about the allegations.
The problems at the Bolt mine were
brought to the attention of federal authorities by Jagodzinski. The EEOC
ultimately found that the company engaged in “unlawful employment practices”
starting in May 2011.
According to the government’s
complaint, Jagodzinski faced a hostile work environment based on his Polish
ancestry, including a barrage of insults and false allegations of workplace
violations. The company allegedly allowed graffiti on the walls of the mine
Jagodzinski supervised, with messages such as “Jag the fag.” Both supervisors
and rank-and-file mine employees referred to Jagodzinski using that slur and
“stupid Polack,” the EEOC said.
“Supervisory personnel failed to
take action to stop the harassment or prevent it from recurring,” the
government’s complaint reads. “Instead, supervisors participated in the
harassment.”
A poster hung in the workplace
likening Jagodzinski to a caveman, with the message: “JAG IS A FAG.” At one
point, according to federal authorities, another employee took Jagodzinski’s
phone and used it to take a photo of his own testicles.
“The harassment was open and obvious
to supervisory personnel,” federal authorities found, “and supervisory
personnel participated in the harassment.”
In a sworn deposition, Jagodzinski
said managers used drugs on the job. In one case, he said managers tipped off
the mine’s employees about an imminent drug test.
Jagodzinski said in an interview
with ProPublica that the harassment started because he was trying to enforce
workplace safety rules. “I was against them breaking rules and doing drugs and
stealing,”
Jagodzinski said. “Oxy, nerve pills, synthetic weed, smoking underground, snorting pills underground. This place was the absolute worst place I’d worked in my entire life.”
Jagodzinski said. “Oxy, nerve pills, synthetic weed, smoking underground, snorting pills underground. This place was the absolute worst place I’d worked in my entire life.”
In a sworn deposition, a company
executive said Zatezalo approved the termination, but denied that the company
harassed Jagodzinski or fired him as retaliation. The company, he said, had
strict policies against drug use.
“These people work in a confined
space, underground in a confined space where large equipment moves. Any
impairment to judgment is a very, very high risk, so we tolerate — we tolerated
zero,” the executive said.
Court filings show Zatezalo was also
scheduled to be deposed, but it appears the company agreed to settle with the
government before he was interviewed under oath.
The consent decree followed other
documented problems at Rhino, which at the end of 2011 operated 11 mines in
four states, with a total of more than 1,000 workers.
One mine, also near Bolt, was hit in 2010 with a “pattern of violations” letter from the mining agency, a sanction that according to the agency’s website is “reserved for mines that pose the greatest risk to the health and safety of miners, particularly those with chronic violation records.”
One mine, also near Bolt, was hit in 2010 with a “pattern of violations” letter from the mining agency, a sanction that according to the agency’s website is “reserved for mines that pose the greatest risk to the health and safety of miners, particularly those with chronic violation records.”
A few months later, rock from a wall
in the same mine pinned and killed a miner. The mine was given a second
“pattern of violations” letter, with the safety agency finding that the company
had not maintained the safety improvements it made after the first letter.
In another instance, government
regulators accused the company of alerting miners underground of an imminent
agency inspection, which would have allowed workers to clean up any potential
violations.
A review of regulatory filings
by The Charleston Gazette-Mail found that during his career
Zatezalo was listed as director of mining operations or as mine general manager
during accidents that resulted in three mining deaths. He was a top officer at
the time of a fourth death.
During a Senate confirmation hearing
earlier this month, Zatezalo acknowledged that at times his local managers were
“not doing what they should have been doing” and that in those cases, he
replaced them. He said that if he was confirmed he wouldn’t weaken mine
regulation.
“Inspections in the mines in the United
States are a necessity,” he said.
Zatezalo began his mining career as
a union laborer, before rising in the ranks to hold top positions at American
Electric Power Coal and Rhino. He also helped lead coal advocacy associations
in Ohio and Kentucky.
Zatezalo was not widely known
nationally before he was nominated. In an interview with his hometown newspaper
in Wheeling, West Virginia, Zatezalo said that industry contacts had urged him
to come out of retirement and put his name in the running for the post. Among
his backers, he said, were Robert Murray, the influential chairman of mining
giant Murray Energy.
“There aren’t a lot of people in the
industry I don’t know, and people said, ‘You’d be great for that position. I’m
going to call Sen. (Mitch) McConnell and tell him he needs to support you for
this,'” Zatezalo recalled.
Zatezalo later clarified and said he
was not sure if Murray had lobbied on his behalf.
Jagodzinski, the mine foreman at the
center of the government’s discrimination suit, said he has been stigmatized
after being falsely fired for sexual harassment, and has had difficulty finding
steady employment since.
“They ruined me, dude. I’ve lost
everything,” he said in an interview. “And now I see Zatezalo’s going to run
MSHA. I cannot believe it.”