Coal Mining Can Be Risky Ticket to the Middle Class
Jan. 6, 2006 — -- Richard Trumka vividly remembers breathlessly bounding up the back porch steps to tell his dad he had finally found his first real job. But his news was greeted by a stern warning that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
"He looked me square in the eyes and gave me this stare -- what the military calls the thousand-yard stare," recalled Trumka, who was 18 at the time. He is now 56 and a father himself. "He [my father] said: 'The day you lose one drop of blood or one drop of sweat in that coal mine, it will crawl into your soul and you will never be able to shake it.'"
The ominous message did not deter the young man from following in the footsteps of his father, both grandfathers, and countless uncles and cousins in their tiny corner of southwestern Pennsylvania. For generations, they had supported their wives and children working deep underground in treacherous conditions, harvesting coal.
Somehow, the loved ones lost in mining accidents and to pulmonary diseases, such as pneumoconiosis or "black lung," could not keep the young man from what he thought was his destiny.
"Some do it for the money. Some do it for the benefits. But some do it just because you heard your dad and uncles and your neighbors talking and talking about it," explained Trumka, who worked underground for seven-and-a-half years before becoming a union officer and advocate for miners' health and welfare. He served as national president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1982 to 1995.
His story is all too familiar to generations of families across Appalachia, including in Tallmansville, W.Va., where 12 men lost their lives this week when they were trapped underground after an explosion at the Sago Mine. It was the state's deadliest coal mining accident since 1968.
"There is an image that people work in the mines because they can't work anywhere else. It's just not true," said 59-year-old Cecil Roberts, a sixth-generation coal miner who now heads the UMWA. He said the proud tradition and the prospect of a decent wage motivated him to enter the family line of work as a young Vietnam veteran in 1971.
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