Coal miners , the world over, have very dangerous jobs.  Besides breathing toxic coal dust, day after day, and over long shifts, miners’ lives are also jeopardized by potential gas explosions and collapsing tunnels.  Government regulations also appear  to only loosely enforce overall workplace safety rules,  as encouraged by coal industry lobbyists.

According “…to an investigation by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity, federal regulators and the mining industry are failing to protect miners from the excessive toxic coal mine dust, which has toxic effects on miners’ health.   That deadly “Black Lung” Disease is now being diagnosed in younger miners, and evolving more quickly into complicated stages.”

Given the irreversible effects of Black Lung,  why don’t the men (and some women) in the region just change careers?   There are other, safer jobs, such as in carpentry, auto repair, welding, etc.  And why aren’t the younger generations, aware of the dirty, hard work, and the dangerous conditions, discouraged from following their fathers and other relatives down into the mines?  Unfortunately, in many of the small towns, especallly in Appalachia, the mines are the economic lifeblood of the area!

When Donald Trump campaigned in Kentucky, West Virginia, and other regions in “Coal Country”, he promised to bring the jobs back.  But, are these the jobs that a rational person should want—for their husbands, their sons, their brothers, uncles, etc?  Didn’t they also hear Trump say that he would eliminate regulations so that business could prosper?  Don’t the miners realize that those regulations were intended to protect them?

Consider just two of the people who he has nominated for his Cabinet.  Wilbur Ross, a billionaire neighbor of Trump in Palm Beach, is his Commerce Secretary.  Mr. Ross amassed his fortune buying distressed businesses, laying-off workers, busting-up unions and reneging on pensions.  An article from the Miami Herald, describes Mr. Ross’ history with the Sago Mine Number One catastrophe.

Elaine Chao, Trump’s nominee for Transportation Secretary, had been George W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor.  Ken Ward, Jr, a columnist with the Charleston Gazette, reported in his “Coal Tattoo” Blog, that Ms. Chao, when she was Secretary of Labor, “ …encouraged regulators to regulate less, and she cooperated more with a highly hazardous industry, with a history of death and disaster.”

The combination of pledging support for jobs, de-regulating industry and—let’s not forget his pledge not to raise the Minimum Wage—surely doesn’t require a genius to figure out who’s going to win, between businesses and labor!  In a situation where the coal industry has deep pockets and labor unions have been virtually emasculated, is there any question as to how safe coal mining will be under {resident Trump?


, , , , , ,

  1. #1 by cheekos on December 6, 2016 - 6:28 PM

    Although this post specifically addressed the hazards that coal miners faces, consider those of men and women who work on oil rigs, and health care workers whose daily work involves moving elderly and invalid people around. There are numerous jobs in America where corporations might take advantage of loosely-enforced regulations.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo



Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: