What's Your Alternative? Part One

{Excerpt from a speech I gave at the March on Blair Mountain}

Lately I think about that big Firestone Tire recall that happened about 10 years ago: the tires were shredding off SUVs and people were getting injured and dying. Turned out the Firestone workers were on strike and non-union workers were the ones on the lines creating these malfunctioning tires.

Could you imagine if Firestone Tires turned to the American people and said, “Look. We need to keep tires affordable. What’s your alternative?”

Instead, we all understood that injury and death were not an acceptable outcome.

Not an acceptable side effect.

We understood that this company was going to be the one to eat the costs—no matter what they were.

And furthermore, we all understood that the company was going to have to figure out how to create a product that did not result in injury and death.

The coal companies and the electric companies need to be held to these same standards!

We need to stand together and demand that these companies go back to the drawing board to figure out an alternative.

And if they are unable to create jobs and create a product in a safe and affordable way, then maybe they are in over their heads.

Maybe they need to stop giving millions of dollars to politicians and start spending that money on hiring some people with the ability to think outside their one-trick-pony box