According to emails and phone calls received by WWVA-AM West Virginia talk show host David Blomquist, miners said they were told that attendance at the Romney event would be mandatory and unpaid.

As first reported by The Plain Dealer in Cleveland on Tuesday, mine owner Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore told Blomquist that managers “communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend.” He said that people who did now show up to the event, which organizers say drew 1,500 miners and family members, were not penalized for their absence.

Blomquist said during the radio show that current and former employees had called and emailed him saying they feel they were forced to go, had to take off a day without pay and a roll call was taken, which caused some employees to believe they would lose their jobs if they didn’t show up.

“Just for the record, if we did not go, we knew what would happen,” Blomquist read from an email he had received. “It is wrong what we were made to do because of the outcome if we don’t.”

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Murray Energy Corp. founder Robert Murray attended the Tuesday breakfast hosted by the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention. Murray told the newspaper that the decision to close the mine was made at the request of the Secret Service.

Murray disputed the report that miners weren’t paid for the day, saying they were compensated for the hours they spend underground, from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. The mine was re-opened for a second shift at 4 p.m.

“They were all there voluntarily,” Murray said of the miners who attended the Romney event, which was also attended by Republican U.S. Senator Rob Portman and Ohio Treasurer and Senate candidate Josh Mandel.

“You don’t pay people to go voluntarily to a political event. If I would’ve paid them you would be saying you want it the other way. This is all a bunch of nonsense,” Murray told The Dispatch. Federal law prohibits the paying of private employees to attend a political event.

Murray blames layoffs at some of his mines on Obama’s policies. His companies have had a history of environmental and safety violations, and its Political Action Committee has held fundraisers for and donated to Republican causes.

Romney’s Ohio campaign spokesman disputed that the Secret Service had the mine shut down, telling The Dispatch in an email that “It was Murray Energy’s decision to close the Century Mine, not the campaign’s or the Secret Services.” His comment echoes what Murray CFO Moore said on the radio show, that management wanted to attend the event and they couldn’t have miners underground without management present.

For his part, radio host Blomquist took issue with the fact that the miners lost out on a full eight hours of pay because of a political event.

“My whole point is that nobody should be pressured into attending anyone’s political event,” he told The Plain Dealer. “If they shut the mine down, why should they lose a day’s pay? There are some guys that just want to go to work, feed their family and go home.”

Jim Hopkins' Gannett Blog and some local sources are reporting The Enquirer has laid off between 5 to 7 people this week.

Two of the casualties were the person in charge of the incessantly promoted Moms Like MeWeb site and the assistant managing editor of operations, who performed the administrative functions in the newsroom.

Read More

Supporters of stricter gun control laws have long alleged that Ohio is a primary center for illegal firearm purchases, and a recent investigation by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears to confirm the point. 

Bloomberg’s office conducted a sting operation at a Sharonville gun show in late May and found that four sellers sold weapons to undercover investigators even though they told the sellers they probably couldn’t pass required background checks, which is a violation of federal law.

Read More

Fresh from a successful effort at stopping a budget amendment to block the replacement of a deteriorating Cincinnati bridge, State Rep. Denise Driehaus (D-31^st District) will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the Ohio budget with constituents.

Driehaus marshaled forces in the Ohio House this week after she noticed an amendment that affected the $66.5 million project had quietly been added to the state budget bill by State Rep. Bob Peterson (R-85^thDistrict).

Read More

Read More

Carolyn Washburn has been hired as editor and vice president at The Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaper announced today. A Greater Cincinnati native, Washburn currently is editor at The Des Moines Register in Iowa.

Washburn, 48, previously worked with Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan while both were at The Idaho Statesman. Buchanan will be Washburn's new boss and made the selection. Washburn begins her new job Jan. 10.

Read More

The Pleasant Ridge Community Council wil get words of advice and inspiration tonight from environmental activist Lois Gibbs, who was instrumental in the fight to clean up Love Canal in New York during the 1970s.

Gibbs will speak to the group at 7 p.m. at the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church.

Read More

A coalition of progressive groups will hold a national convention later this month in Madison, Wis., the site of a hard-fought political battle to protect collective bargaining rights for public-sector labor unions.

Democracy Convention 2011 is scheduled for Aug. 24-28, and is envisioned as the inaugural session of what will become an annual event. It will feature several conferences on topics like community organizing, curtailing corporate influence in politics, economic democracy, independent media and constitutional reform.

Read More

The National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) is urging the Obama administration to use a law signed by President Abraham Lincoln against BP, as a method to circumvent any limits on damages it can seek from the company.

Read More