Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Coal Miners’ Rescue a Reminder of Mining’s Dangers
Just when we’d all had enough bad news for one summer, nine coal miners in Pennsylvania and their tireless rescuers gave all of America a reason to smile and be proud.
The men survived 77 hours — more than three days and nights — after being trapped in a flooded coal shaft 240 feet below the earth’s surface at the end of July. At times, they could barely keep their heads above water. Rescuers drilled a narrow shaft to pump fresh, warm air to the miners while digging a larger shaft to bring them to safety. As each man was pulled to the surface, families, friends and people across the country cheered.
Their story had a happy ending. But mining remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The number of miners killed on the job has risen each of the last three years, with 42 miners dying last year. And abandoned mines are a serious health threat for everyone, as toxins from the mines pollute waterways.
Unfortunately, President George W. Bush has decided to spend even less money than the government has spent in previous years to help keep miners safe on the job and to clean up old mines. The United Mine Workers of America says more money — not less — is badly needed to enforce mine safety and health laws, and the union is urging the president to reconsider his budget.
Mining laws grew out of the grim, deadly experience of immigrant coal miners in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Untold thousands of workers — including many children — were injured and killed in the dank, dark, suffocating mines. Others died in battles with strikebreakers as they fought for union representation to improve their safety, work hours and pay.
Boys as young as 8 years old worked in the mines, even though a 1902 law required them to be 14. The youngest began as “breaker boys,” working six days a week, more than 10 hours a day, in chutes where the coal was broken, cleaned and sorted. They sat hunched over as the coal tumbled down the chute and along a moving belt, picking out rock, slate and other refuse.
Author and reformer John Spargo visited mines in West Virginia in 1901 and wrote vividly of the gloomy, filthy work. About breaker boys, he said, “From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men.” They also suffered many injuries, with cut, broken and mangled fingers commonplace, and breathed deadly dust into their lungs.
Breaker boys often graduated to working underground in even more dangerous jobs, such as controlling the speed of mine cars rolling down steep slopes. Other boys were stationed near heavy doors and had to be ready to open and close them as the cars or mules with loads came through.
“I met one little fellow 10 years old who was employed as a ‘trap boy,’” Spargo wrote. “Think of what it means to be a trap boy at 10 years of age. It means to sit alone in a dark mine passage hour after hour, with no human soul near; to stand in water or mud that covers the ankles, chilled to the marrow by the cold drafts; to work for fourteen hours, waiting, opening and shutting a door, then waiting again; to reach the surface when all is wrapped in the mantle of night, and to fall to the earth exhausted.”
Learn more about children and mining and view photographs of boys in the mines a hundred years ago by going to the Mine Safety and Health Administration website. You’ll find a kids’ page at http://www.msha.gov/kids/kidshp.htm.
Click on “More History: Little Miners” to see pictures.
The men survived 77 hours — more than three days and nights — after being trapped in a flooded coal shaft 240 feet below the earth’s surface at the end of July. At times, they could barely keep their heads above water. Rescuers drilled a narrow shaft to pump fresh, warm air to the miners while digging a larger shaft to bring them to safety. As each man was pulled to the surface, families, friends and people across the country cheered.
Their story had a happy ending. But mining remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The number of miners killed on the job has risen each of the last three years, with 42 miners dying last year. And abandoned mines are a serious health threat for everyone, as toxins from the mines pollute waterways.
Unfortunately, President George W. Bush has decided to spend even less money than the government has spent in previous years to help keep miners safe on the job and to clean up old mines. The United Mine Workers of America says more money — not less — is badly needed to enforce mine safety and health laws, and the union is urging the president to reconsider his budget.
Mining laws grew out of the grim, deadly experience of immigrant coal miners in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Untold thousands of workers — including many children — were injured and killed in the dank, dark, suffocating mines. Others died in battles with strikebreakers as they fought for union representation to improve their safety, work hours and pay.
Boys as young as 8 years old worked in the mines, even though a 1902 law required them to be 14. The youngest began as “breaker boys,” working six days a week, more than 10 hours a day, in chutes where the coal was broken, cleaned and sorted. They sat hunched over as the coal tumbled down the chute and along a moving belt, picking out rock, slate and other refuse.
Author and reformer John Spargo visited mines in West Virginia in 1901 and wrote vividly of the gloomy, filthy work. About breaker boys, he said, “From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men.” They also suffered many injuries, with cut, broken and mangled fingers commonplace, and breathed deadly dust into their lungs.
Breaker boys often graduated to working underground in even more dangerous jobs, such as controlling the speed of mine cars rolling down steep slopes. Other boys were stationed near heavy doors and had to be ready to open and close them as the cars or mules with loads came through.
“I met one little fellow 10 years old who was employed as a ‘trap boy,’” Spargo wrote. “Think of what it means to be a trap boy at 10 years of age. It means to sit alone in a dark mine passage hour after hour, with no human soul near; to stand in water or mud that covers the ankles, chilled to the marrow by the cold drafts; to work for fourteen hours, waiting, opening and shutting a door, then waiting again; to reach the surface when all is wrapped in the mantle of night, and to fall to the earth exhausted.”
Learn more about children and mining and view photographs of boys in the mines a hundred years ago by going to the Mine Safety and Health Administration website. You’ll find a kids’ page at http://www.msha.gov/kids/kidshp.htm.
Click on “More History: Little Miners” to see pictures.