"They shouldn't have walked away from the union"

[Mike 03]

"Do you believe that coal mining is more or less safe than it used to be?"

"One thing made miners safer, and that's the one thing that is going away, and that's the union, and the union is going away. My grandfather was a hand loader. He ran the first coal cutting machine that Allen County ever bought. Every coal miner that I talk to today when there's an unsafe condition, the story's always the same: If I open my mouth, I get fired. You don't want to be the guy rocking the boat. The 800 numbers that MSHA says to call, they're a joke, because there's always retribution. When you had union mines it was better. I represent miners that work in union mines and don't work in union mines. The former will literally take on the company. I think coal miners need to realize the value of a union. There is value to a union, and one day they're gonna wake up and realize it. They shouldn't have walked away from the union."

So the soldiers of coal kept fighting to keep the lights on, but the generals called ever fewer of them to that quotidian toil on the mountaintops and underneath the ground. They never stopped dying on the job.

MSHA stands for Mine Safety and Health Administration

This was a short excerpt from "Carbon Ideologies, Volume II, No Good Alternative" by William Vollmann (p. 214)

[rampartc]

1. unions are necessary for safety

work in the shipyard, and i'm sure most environments, is the same.

safety is one of the most important reasons for negotiation.

what passes for safety in a modern shop? if anyone reports an accident everybody loses a "safety bonus."

[riversedge]

2. coal industry is on its way out but a union is needed until its gone