Mount Kellett’s War on Workers

Mark Edward McGoldrick of Mount Kellett

One characteristic of the so-called 1% that are the new economic royalists of the world is that they can afford to kick in serious amounts of money to politicians who they believe will support their economic interests and social agendas. Mark Edward McGoldrick of Mount Kellett Capital Management is one of this new class of nobility who can afford to do just that. For background, see my last post on the issues surrounding Mount Kellett’s foray into the economic morass of Los Angeles, at: http://janbtucker.com/blog/2012/03/16/romneyizing-los-angeles/

When I wrote my last blog on Mount Kellett, I hadn’t yet checked out the records on their top peoples’ campaign contributions to see if they had a political agenda to supplement their strictly economic endeavors. Politics and business go hand in hand at that level. Indeed, one of the eminent Political Scientists of the 20th Century, Harold D. Laswell, wrote his seminal book (1935) on this subject: Politics: Who Gets What, When, How.

So, what is the political bent of Mount Kellett’s top tier? On July 11, 2008, McGoldrick, then residing in the United Kingdom, contributed $50,000 to John McCain’s presidential campaign. Also in 2008, Mount Kellett Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Fiorello made a campaign contribution to Representative (and later Presidential candidate) Michelle Bachmann in her re-election campaign for Congress. Fiorello’s contribution was made on October 21, 2008, four (4) days after Bachmann said of then-Presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama “I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views” and on the very day that she tacitly accused Obama of being a socialist: “I’m very concerned about Barack Obama’s views. I don’t believe that socialism is a good thing for America.”

Also of interest in this discussion is the acquisition by Mount Kellett of over six (6) million shares of stock in Huntsman Corporation — yes, that Huntsman Corporation — whose employees and their family members and political action committee (PAC) contributed over $200,000 to Jon M. Huntsman Jr.’s (son of the founder/owner) Presidential campaign and over $1.8 million to the Our Destiny super-PAC which (supposedly) “independently” campaigned for Jon Jr.

So, in light of my prior blog on Mount Kellett’s assault on the jobs and livelihoods of Los Angeles workers and potentially workers in Canada and Baja California I’ve entitled this blog posting Mount Kellett’s War on Workers. That’s of course in the context of the national Republican attack on the rights of workers and unions in general.

What’s to come? Yesterday, Mount Kellett filed its 13G with the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) announcing its acquisition of over eight (8) million shares in Mueller Water, a national company headquartered in Atlanta, GA. Should Mueller’s investors, employees and other stakeholders be worried, given the corporate culture Mount Kellett’s principals learned in their tenure at Goldman Sachs? I sure would if I were in their shoes.

Mount Kellett also invested $100,000,000 in Masan Resources Group of Vietnam which was announced in January 2011. The attitude of foreign investors towards the rights of workers in Vietnam was expressed point blank at a symposium on Vietnam business opportunities, in which it was noted by the report on the Vietnam Business Forum Annual Consultative Group Meeting of 2008 (Sponsored by the World Bank and the Ministry of Planning & Investment):

(a) Labor strikes have increased through the years, and most if not all of these labor strikes are unlawful – i.e., it did not go through the labor union and give appropriate notice to the employer for discussion.

(b) If this is not addressed properly, this will cause the mind set of the workers to change – i.e., the workers believe that the fastest and easiest way to get what they want is to strike and force the employer to give-in. This will create difficulties and man-hour losses to manufacturers.

Labor relations in Vietnam

Horrors! Working people might get the idea that engaging in what most Americans believe is a human right, the right to strike for better wages and working conditions, is an idea in Vietnam whose time has come. After all, over 58,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese died for something, even though it now appears to have come down to the right of Mount Kellett to profit from Tungsten mining in Vietnam.

This is precisely what we’re afraid of and why the California League of Latin American Citizens is organizing to prevent Mount Kellett from putting small business owners out of business and their employees out of work.

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