Alaska Native-owned subsidiary under investigation in Gulf of Mexico oil explosion

[Judi Lynn]

Source: McClatchy

Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2013
Alaska Native-owned subsidiary under investigation in Gulf of Mexico oil explosion
By Sean Cockerham | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A subsidiary of Alaska’s Native-owned NANA Development Corp. is under investigation by members of Congress and federal regulators after the deaths of three workers in an offshore oil platform explosion in November in the Gulf of Mexico.

The NANA subsidiary, Grand Isle Shipyard of Louisiana, also is battling a lawsuit from former workers who allege they were forced into “involuntary servitude” and inhumane conditions after being lured from the Philippines with false promises of good-paying jobs.

“Defendants have in fact for years operated what is essentially a labor camp for Filipino workers,” alleges the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs and other Filipino workers were essentially imprisoned by defendants from the minute they set foot in Louisiana.”

Grand Isle Shipyard owner NANA is one of the 13 regional Alaska Native corporations established to foster economic development for Alaska Natives. NANA, which purchased Grand Isle Shipyard in 2011, is the corporation representing Natives of Northwest Alaska.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/01/24/180996/alaska-native-owned-subsidiary.html#storylink=cpy

[niyad]

1. remind me again when the investigations into the deepwater horizon started.

and remind me of how many companies are being investigated for their workers (I mean, companies that are NOT owned by native americans).

[Ken Burch]

2. I agree that this needs to be investigated

but I'm not sure why it matters that this was owned by a Alaska Native Corporation. It's doubtful that the explosion had anything to do with the fact that a business arm of the Alaska Native community owned the company. For McClatchy(a news organization that at one point owned the Anchorage Daily News) to focus on the Native connection is a bit disturbing...can't quite say it's openly racist but it's something to be suspicious of.

NANA corporation, in all liklihood, wasn't involved in the day-to-day management of the shipyard. And the explosion almost certainly would have happened if the corporate structure involved was totally white.

(not attacking you for starting this thread, Judi-just trying to point out something to be wary of in the article's, and especially the McClatchy headline's phrasing. A lot of rich white folks, in and out of Alaska-I follow this issue as a thirty-year Alaska resident-, desperately want to break up the Native corporations and take all their wealth.)

[Judi Lynn]

4. The tone of the article is strange. The investigators need to look at the people actually running it

creating the ideas, implementing them, knowing how everything works, the ones who are professionally trained to operate the corporation.

The LAST people I would question would be the actual native people who need this business to work correctly, so t continues to be there for their descendants, too.

I don't trust any of the corporate media, literally. You really have to try to work for an overview, to see past the bogus crap they throw out to mold public perception.

The human specimens I've seen through following politics who come from Alaska, like ALL the Republican politicians are about the dirtiest, sorriest, mangiest, slimiest group of people I've ever seen. It would drive decent people insane having to share a state with so many racist grifters.

[Ken Burch]

5. I know YOU wouldn't put it on the Native communities(up here a capital "N" is used in this context)

But this is a textbook example of manipulation of news to suit a corporate agenda..in this case, taking the heat for the Gulf oil disaster off of BP and the rest of the petrocracy, and blaming "the Other"...in this case an economic arm of a group of Native Americans...which also helps stoke resentment against this Native American group and can help build pressure to take away its resources(yet again)by letting white corporations buy control of Alaska Native corporations.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Well expressed. Never ask for whom the "news" story spins, it spins for thee.

Hope people will think over your comments.

No reason we should keep taking these things at face value, especially when a lot on the surface suggests something strange is going on.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

7. Considering that the petrocracy is multinational

It ties in perfectly as push back against the hell that INM has raised in Canada over land, resource and treaty rights too. The PTB are getting nervous.

[Ken Burch]

8. Good analytical catch, there.

Last edited Fri Jan 25, 2013, 07:52 PM - Edit history (1)

This DOES look like backlash-bait...and, since this deals with the Gulf Coast, it gets backlash bonus-points for potentially stirring up shit between Native Americans and African Americans(and, with the labor camp allegations at the base of the story, allegations that are horrific if true but also solely the responsibility of the subsidiary if true. also intended to drive a wedge between Alaska Natives and Filipinos-Alaska has a large Filipino immigrant community going back to the Klondike Gold Rush era and the creation of the fish canneries in the early 20th Century, and those two communities have historically been in tension with each other, although those tensions have eased a lot in recent years).

[Arctic Dave]

3. Not sure how this ties into the Deepwater fiasco.

Last edited Thu Jan 24, 2013, 11:20 PM - Edit history (1)

Interesting.


Edit:

Oops, retread it. Not about Deepwater but another rig explosion.

[Ken Burch]

9. It's probably about DISTRACTING us from the Deepwater fiasco.

And getting white people to be angry about people who aren't white having a little economic clout.