I’ve often stated that younger coal miners have a tendency to get themselves into large amounts of debt. It’s easy to do when you grow up in a low income household, start making decent money, and your coal company pay stub acts as instant credit with many local banks and auto dealerships. When the coal markets are up and mining jobs are plentiful, so are local billboards advertising bank loans for everything from homes to vacations and recreational vehicles.
Regardless of whether coal miners are exceeding their means or staying frugal, little if anything comes without a debt sentence. We still live in a company town, we just have more choices of where to live and where we can spend our money. At the end of the day, coal miners are still financially bound to their mining jobs and become very scared when told the industry they work for is under attack and their jobs are at stake.
Most of the guys I worked with were good-hearted men, even some of the foremen. They were hard workers and most had families that loved them. Of course there are men who’d find every opportunity to plunge a knife in your back to get ahead, a practice which seems to have become more and more prevalent in recent years, but it’s understandable. Coal miners are now forced to survive a work environment in which the company makes regular men compete for their job security, constantly hinting that “performance based” layoffs could be around the corner.
Coal miners also have a lot to be proud of. Not many people can say they work miles underground with the constant danger of roof falls and explosions. Courage begets pride and some days it takes a lot of courage to take a man trip into the mines, especially when conditions on the section are terrible. Most miners realize a large piece of draw rock can take them out of this world at any moment, but they are still driven because they know the risk comes with a paycheck capable of feeding, clothing, and sheltering their family in an area with few—if any—additional opportunities for living wage employment.
One such coal miner I worked with started in the mines at age 18. When I left he was still working after spending fifty years in the mines. His work ethic amazed me as he put in a hard twelve hours everyday, six days a week. He didn’t slack either. Why was he still working the mines? He was doing it to send his granddaughter through college after he’d already sent his own children through college. Now that’s someone who’s looking to their children’s future.
I myself felt that coal miner’s pride until life threw one hell of a curve ball at me and I began to reflect on everything that led me to stay in the mountains and continue the family tradition. I began to realize just how much mountain people (especially coal miners) were being taken advantage of by the wealthy, at least, beyond the labor exploitation. I found there is a dark side to the industry we were working for, one that we often ignored or just didn’t know about as coal miners.
I found the work we were doing was causing cancer, not just in us, but in our families living in the coalfields, people living around coal fired power plants, and anywhere else coal is processed and used. The coal industry doesn’t want people to know. They are trying to hide it, just like Pacific Gas and Electric tried to hide the hexavalent chromium contamination of the Hinkley, California municipal water supply. I began doing my own research and found out such things as….
- Diesel exhaust breathed by miners is being linked to lung cancer
- Coal Slurry Injection into abandoned mines is contaminating ground water
- Cancer rates and birth defects are increasing near mining operations
- Cancer rates are increasing for people living near coal fired power plants
- Toxins from mining are being found in our mountain streams
The list goes on and I found out quickly these things weren’t lies being embellished by wacko environmentalists. They were truths and the people who stand to lose profits are willing to spend money to deny it. Coal corporations and their suppliers were funding political campaigns and lobbying our politicians, ordering that the laws meant to protect people from such harm be removed or reconfigured to allow for business as usual.
Its is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair 1934
The coal industry has invested enormous amounts of money into public relations campaigns and organizations to convince mining families that all is well in their coalfields. They tell us that without their industry, our local economies would be devastated, economies mind you, that already have some of the highest poverty rates in the nation. They are diverting our attention away from a much bigger picture as mining families are caught in the middle of an information battle between the well-funded coal industry and the often underfunded non-profit environmentalists.
It’s hard to swallow but the truths are out there, even if cleverly hidden by the coal industry. Coal is keeping people in the coalfields poor and sick and if you don’t believe me, just start asking these questions…
- Why don’t the coalfields get more of the coal severance tax money?
- Why do coal communities keep coming up last in everything from education to healthcare?
- Couldn’t some of that tax money be put back into our communities for better roads, more economic development, education, etc?
- Why do coal and natural gas companies keep getting all the subsidies?
- How come cancer rates and birth defects are higher in the coal fields?
- How will the coal industry plan on finding coal miners in the future?
It bothers me at night and I keep asking myself, why do good hearted, hardworking coal miners keep giving everything while the coal industry keeps taking everything… taking their health, taking their children’s future, and even taking the mountains we call home?
This is why I write, this is why I keep talking and acting, hoping that one day everyone in the coalfields will finally stand up and start getting what they deserve…. better schools, better roads, better health care, better job opportunities, clean water (once again), and maybe even the chance to show their children the mountains we’ve loved and survived in for generations. It’s a lot better than taking them up on a reclamation site and telling them what used to be there, don’t ya think?
I’m sure many will read this and say, “He’s just another full of sh*t tree hugger.” I hope not. The truth is the truth. Don’t buy into the company bullsh*t. If you want your kids to lead good healthy lives start thinking about them and what they will face if we keep going in the direction the coal companies want us to. We know where they’ve gotten us so far…
In the end a coal miner is left to wonder who is right and who is wrong, the company who provides them a job or the environmentalists who are often viewed as a bunch of “tree hugging, bongo playing, hippies who don’t know what it’s like to work hard every day and support a family. ”
It’s pretty easy if you just take a moment think of what each side wants and/or stands to lose….
Coal Company seek profits at all costs (often our costs).
Environmentalist seek a healthy future for our children and plenty of clean water to drink.
So, to ask the same question Florence Reece did in 1931, “Which side are you on?”