Category: Miners
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Some Things Worth Remembering on National Miner’s Day
While it is certainly important to lift up those who provide the energy and materials necessary for others to enjoy their comforts and conveniences, we must be careful not to allow specific organizations to use this holiday as a way to spread good PR about their . I am speaking of course, about mining companies,…
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Voting against their best interests
People ask me “Why do Appalachians vote against their own best interests?” Some are friends who are honestly trying to understand the situation from a point of concern. I know that they seek the cause for the discrepancy, rather than assume coal mining families are incapable of making intelligent political decisions. The question still stings…
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Appalachians Have Lost More Than Coal, We’ve Lost Who We Are
Over the past few years, we have witnessed an amazing downturn in the coal industry. Mines all throughout Appalachia have closed, leaving thousands of coal miners and their families in dire straits. For as long as the coal industry has existed, the people of Appalachia have lived at the mercy of a boom and bust…
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Maintenance, safety, and the drive for production
I just read an article about Daniel L. Couch Jr., a mine maintenance chief who pleaded guilty to falsifying safety documents. Before people go throwing him under the bus, it’s important to understand a few things about mine maintenance, safety, and the push for production. Certified mine electricians don’t just repair electrical equipment and perform…
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Trump Isn’t Creating Coal Jobs, He’s Helping the Industry Make More Money
Before coal miners rejoice the end of “Obama’s War on Coal,” they should realize the war on their jobs isn’t over—that war began well before Barack Obama took the oath of office. Amid the name-calling, political propaganda, and willful ignorance that came as a result of coal industry’s “War on Coal” campaign, many Appalachian miners…
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Without the Union…
I had been raised union and knew the benefits that came with it, but in its absence, I ended up joining thousands of other young men naive enough to believe we didn’t need a union.
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The Modern Day Company Town
Most Appalachians raised in coal country can easily describe what a “company town” is. They are littered throughout Appalachia, rows of identically built houses with a few larger homes built on the hillsides for the shift foremen and superintendents. Company towns existed during a time in our history when the coal companies ruled our lives.…
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Everything They’ve Taken, Everything They’ve Left
There are many days I think about all that has happened in our mountains, all that we’ve sacrificed, and I can’t help but have a cathartic release. This was one of them. Nick Mullins, June 5, 2025 I recently made the following comment on a story posted by WVNS Channel 59 entitled “Coal Mining: Then…
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Laid Off
Over the past few years, we have witnessed an amazing downturn in the coal industry. Mines all throughout Appalachia have closed, leaving thousands of coal miners and their families in dire straits. For as long as the coal industry has existed, the people of Appalachia have lived at the mercy of a boom and bust…
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The Religion of Coal
I usually avoid religion in my posts, but I can no longer ignore how I’ve hearing some folks apply it to coal and coal mining. “If God didn’t want us to use coal, he wouldn’t have put it here!” I’ve heard it a dozen times from friends and family back home.1 It’s even been preached…
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Present Day Coal Mining: Dishonoring our heritage.
Drive into the central Appalachian coalfields and you’ll see dozens of vehicles with stickers such as “Friends of Coal,” “Coal Mining our Future,” “Friends in Low Places” etc. I am not sure when the change came, but sometime in the last fifteen to twenty years, the ultimate goal of coal miners has gone from working…
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“Coal is all we’ve got”
My father told me and my brother on more than one occasion, “I wish I had’ve got you boys more when you were growing up. A lot of the guys at the mine were buying their kids new four-wheelers and things. They got bass boats and campers and took their families to the lake every…
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Going Against the Grain
Many people consider me to be going “against the grain” when it comes to coal politics. I am, after all, very active in social justice these days and have been known to sit in front of buildings, participate in documentaries, testify at public hearings, and even have Op-Eds published in “The Hill.” In various Facebook…
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Remembering the South Mountain No. 3 Mine Explosion
December 7th, 1992 was a cold Monday morning. My brother and I were getting ready for school when the phone rang a little after 6:45 am. Mom answered and immediately went into the bedroom to wake my father. There had been an explosion at the South Mountain No. 3 mine and there was no communication…
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Fueling the Fires of Ignorance
If you take time to frequent a pro-coal Facebook page such as Count on Coal, you may or may not be surprised by the statements you find there, most of which aimed at the EPA. What is most disturbing however, is the amount of blind support they receive from the coal mining families. There is…