LOGAN, W.Va. — For 51 years he’d lived in the same hollow
and for two decades he’d performed the same job, mining coal from the
underground seams of southern West Virginia. Then, on June 30, Michael Estep
was jobless. His mine shut down, and its operator said “market conditions” made
coal production unviable.
What has come since, for Estep, stands as the new Central
Appalachian economic experience: a job-hunt in a region whose sustaining
industry is in an unprecedented freefall. “I don’t know what to do,” Estep said
as unpaid bills piled up, his cable cut to black, and his wife withdrew the
last $7 from a checking account they’d held for 20 years.
* THESE PEOPLE ARE OUR FELLOW AMERICANS... AND THIS IS
WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT HAS DONE TO THEM.
(*LITERALLY HOLDING BACK TEARS*)
What’s happening now in America’s coal heartland is not
just the typical bust. Those in the industry say it’s more dire, potentially
permanent, caused at once by declining reserves, a cheaper influx of competing
gas and looming environmental regulations.
* IT'S OBAMA'S WAR ON COAL... A WAR HE'S BRAGGED ABOUT...
A WAR HE'S PROUD OF.
More than 10,000 miners have lost jobs over the past
two-and-a-half years in southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, and their
plight illustrates how, even amid an economic recovery, certain segments of the
workforce are being shut out.
* REMEMBER, FOLKS... THIS IS THE WASHINGTON POST - THEY
THINK THERE'S AN "ECONOMIC RECOVERY" GOING ON!
Miners, modestly educated but accustomed to high pay, are
among the hardest group of American workers to retrain. They also tend to
challenge one of the tenets of economics logic — that people will go elsewhere
to find jobs. Even though the economy is growing in northern parts of West
Virginia, driven by a natural gas boom, those in the geographically isolated
southern parts have shown a tendency to stay put, even if it means sliding
toward poverty.
“This is where you grew up; you can fish, you can hunt.
Land is cheap. Chances are your grandfather owned that property,” said Ted
Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.
“So leaving that to go somewhere else where you’ll be stuck in Toledo doesn’t
sound very attractive.”
Mining earned Estep about $60,000 per year. He burned
through it. Bought two small homes side-by-side across from a baseball field.
Bought a 2007 Silverado that guzzled a gallon every 18 miles. Bought a pool
table, guns, food for his hunting dogs, meals out for his family, which
included his younger son, Jobe, 22, and Jobe’s girlfriend, Kristen Goodman. Not
bad for a ninth-grade drop-out, Estep often thought.
* NOPE! NOT BAD AT ALL! AND I'M PROUD HE COULD DO IT HERE
IN AMERICA!
“My dad worked in the mines until he couldn’t pass a
physical no more, and I always thought I’d do the same,” he said.
He had one hope. A representative from the United Mine
Workers of America (UMWA) had called him up and told him about a seminar on
fresh opportunities. All Estep had to do was show up at the meeting. So Estep
told his wife, Vada, that he might get a job back at the mines, and he showed
up one morning at the meeting hall with his reading glasses, a rumpled birth
certificate and a resume that his son’s girlfriend had typed out on Microsoft
Word. Jobe, deciding between mining or a second year of junior college, came
along. They were 45 minutes early.
“I thought I was there for a job interview,” Estep said. He
wasn’t. Instead, he’d walked unknowingly into one of the only programs that
tries to help coal miners leave coal mining.
Until 2012, the UMWA had used its grants from the
Department of Labor to train new miners. But suddenly mass layoffs and
closures, coming as the American gas industry took off, made that mission seem
preposterous. So the UMWA began providing up to $5,000 for miners to finish
degrees or pick up new certifications. Some have used the money to become
$16-per-hour truck drivers, one of the few licenses they can obtain before
unemployment benefits run out.
Twenty-two miners sat in the room, and they fidgeted with
their ballcaps or spit tobacco into empty soda bottles as Joe Murphy, a UMWA
official, told them that “this is about the worst it’s ever been” for the coal
industry. “Coal is what’s made our country the best on God’s green earth,” he
said, but then he told them jobs might not be coming back.
“You’ve got homes, mortgages, bills, and the industry
you’ve worked in all this time is gone. But life, it’s changing. Those who can
adapt can be successful. Don’t sell yourself short. Good hard-working folks,
y’all are.”
Estep glanced toward the door and fantasized about
darting out of a room he never intended to be in. But he didn’t want to make a
scene or embarrass Murphy, himself a former miner. He knew two other guys in
the room, all laid off for weeks, and their experience told them this bust was
different — more permanent — than other, cyclical coal downturns. For one
thing, southern West Virginia coal mines were facing a natural endpoint;
long-gone was the easy-to-access coal, and operators were now spending more
money to access harder-to-reach seams. Second, an Environmental Protection
Agency proposal would target emissions from coal-fired power plants. “Obama’s
war on coal,” some West Virginian politicians called it.
* EVERYBODY CALLS IT "OBAMA'S WAR ON COAL!"
GEEZUS... THAT'S WHAT IT IS! OBAMA HAS NEVER HID THE FACT!
“As a state, we have dealt with [the coal downturn] more
from a state of denial, that it’s all caused by Obama and EPA, and if we just
scream a little harder it will go back to what it was,” said Jeff Kessler,
president of the state senate. “And I’m just not sure that is going to happen.”
* BECAUSE OBAMA WON! (BTW, KESSLER IS A DEMOCRAT! OF
COURSE HE'S GONNA TREAT OBAMA WITH KID GLOVES! FUNNY HOW THE WASHINGTON POST
DOESN'T IDENTIFY HIM AS SUCH...)
(*SNORT*)
Before the miners were allowed to go home, they had to
take a high school equivalency test, just to determine the kind of retraining
for which they’d be suitable. Murphy passed out answer sheets, and Estep felt
his heart rate quicken. If he had to hurdle reading and math just to become a
truck driver, could he manage even that?
When he came to the 25-question math section, Estep
filled in the first six bubbles. Then he came to the algebra and stopped cold.
* AND WE SHOULD ALL STOP COLD! ALGEBRA IS NOT A JOB SKILL
MANY OF US ACTUALLY REQUIRE IN REAL LIFE!
* FOLKS... WHY DOES OUR SOCIETY PERSIST IN TRYING TO
HAMMER SQUARE PEGS INTO ROUND HOLES...?! IT'S COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. AND... IT'S
JUST PLAIN WRONG!
Jobe, sitting next to him, quietly suggested Estep copy
his answer sheet. Estep shook his head no, because he always considered himself
an honest worker, and instead folded up his test, pushing it to the edge of his
desk. He was done.
He went home, drank a generic Mountain Dew, took two
blood pressure pills to calm his nerves, and briefly choked back a few tears.
* RIGHT NOW I WANT OBAMA DEAD...
“A hundred-and-some times 'X'" — I’ve never seen
anything like that,” Estep said soon after while sitting on his porch.
“I’m just embarrassed. I felt so stupid when I sat there.
But like I’ve said, take someone from college and have them do my job
[underground].”
* NO NEED FOR YOU TO BE EMBARRASSED, MR. ESTEP. NO REASON
FOR YOU TO FEEL STUPID. IT'S THOSE WHO CONSIDER THEMSELVES YOUR
"BETTER" WHO DESERVE CONTEMPT... AND WORSE.
* FOLKS... I'M HOLDING BACK TEARS READING THIS. THAT
BASTARD OBAMA...
* THAT BASTARD...
For Estep, the experience reinforced that he couldn’t leave
coal mining. And for the first time he thought about leaving southern West
Virginia.
Even as coal loses ground to gas, some coal-producing
regions — particularly Wyoming and Illinois — still have jobs. And that night,
Jobe pulled out his girlfriend’s laptop and searched for coal positions, Web
sites promising “click here” and “get a job today.” There were openings in
Bagdad, Ariz., and Tyrone, N.M. Jobe made cold calls and got nowhere.
Then he tried another contact, in northern West Virginia,
and here he heard about something just tempting enough.
Yes, said Rick O’Dell, who works for a contract company
that helps fill mining positions, you and your dad can both come up to
Wheeling, W.Va. Nothing promised, but I think I can find jobs for both of you.
Just pass a drug test, a background test, make sure your certifications are up
to date.
Estep pondered the idea for two days. They’d rent or live
in a hotel? No, too expensive. Maybe they’d borrow a relative’s trailer. The
pay was less — $20 per hour instead of $25 — but Jobe would be making money
too, his first mine job. That would roughly double the family income, but it
would also lessen the odds of Jobe ever returning to community college for a
nursing degree.
* YES. IT WOULD LOWER THE ODDS. BUT... THAT WOULD BE THE
KID'S CHOICE. WHEN I WAS HIS AGE I WORKED, WENT TO SCHOOL, PARTIED...
(*SHRUG*)
* WHY CAN'T WE ASK... DEMAND... THAT THIS GENERATION
"MAN UP" AND DO THE SAME?
“Once he starts in the mines, he’ll be a coal miner,”
Estep said. “If he goes farther in school, it will amaze me.”
* THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE "OL' SCHOOL." NOTHIN'
WRONG WITH THAT - FOR YOU. BUT THE "KID" HAS GOT TO BE RESPONSIBLE
FOR HIS OWN CHOICES... HIS OWN DECISIONS.
The Esteps made the first preparations to go. They rented
out one of their homes. Their savings nearly at zero, and still weeks to go
before he could dream of a paycheck, Estep pawned off a $1,200 gun for $200.
* AND IF THAT'S WHAT HE HAD TO DO... THAT'S WHAT HE HAD
TO DO.
(*SHRUG*)
Jobe sold off a pool table for some spending money. Estep
had long considered himself a risk-taker underground, installing rock bolts
into mines and tunnels — a dangerous job — but this was a different kind of
gamble, a bet on a plan that he acknowledged was at best half-formed.
“It ain’t guaranteed or nothing,” Estep said. “I don’t
know if it’s a plan. But it’s the best I’ve got.”
No comments:
Post a Comment