tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/coal-miners-38148/articlesCoal miners – The Conversation2023-12-29T11:41:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196442023-12-29T11:41:56Z2023-12-29T11:41:56ZThree-day week, 50 years on: lessons from a previous Conservative government struggling with a cost of living crisis<p>Midwinter. War in the Middle East. Energy crisis. Rising prices borne disproportionately by low-wage workers, particularly in a public sector squeezed by a “Tories in turmoil” UK government.</p>
<p>Not December 2023, in fact, but December 1973, as Britain prepared for the <a href="https://www.theblackoutreport.co.uk/2023/04/17/three-day-week-1974/">three-day working week</a> that commenced on January 1. It arose after the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), with 250,000-plus members, interrupted the usual supply of coal to power stations with an overtime ban. The union was pushing for an improved pay offer from the miners’ employer, the state-owned National Coal Board (NCB). </p>
<p>Edward Heath’s Conservative government was determined to resist the miners’ claim. Factories, offices and shops deemed non-essential, because they were not providing food, medicines or other everyday vitals, received a government directive to operate either from Monday to Wednesday or Thursday to Saturday. Domestic power was rationed too. Household demand for candles, gas and paraffin heaters, and cooking implements soared. There was also petrol rationing and a road speed-limit of 50mph. </p>
<p>The situation was unprecedented in peacetime Britain. Andy Beckett, in his excellent 2009 book <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571221370-when-the-lights-went-out/">When the Lights Went Out</a>, notes that economic output fell by 20%, while 1 million workers were made temporarily unemployed. </p>
<p>Despite the disruption, the miners enjoyed public support. This became evident when Heath called a general election, held on February 28 1974, seeking a fresh mandate for keeping public pay awards below the rate of inflation. A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/background/pastelec/ge74feb.shtml">tight contest</a> ensued, from which a Labour government emerged led by Harold Wilson. His first actions included resolving the coal dispute on terms closer to the NUM’s claim than the NCB’s final offer, and ending the three-day week.</p>
<h2>What caused the crisis</h2>
<p>The crisis had been caused by the big switch in Britain’s energy market from coal to oil. Coal had been king as late as 1957, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/albion/article/abs/william-ashworth-the-history-of-the-british-coal-industry-volume-5-19461982-the-nationalized-industry-new-york-oxford-university-press-1986-pp-xix-710-9800/AF794D380C7AC27A8C47C3A3B76AAAE1">responsible for 80%</a> of energy consumed in Britain. The situation began shifting, however, with an increase in imported oil from the Middle East. </p>
<p>Oil was cheap, and its energy share shot up to <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?country=%7EGBR">overtake coal in 1970</a>. Accompanied by the rise of natural gas and introduction of nuclear energy, the coal miners felt this transition was unjust. Employment in the mines had halved in the 1960s. Job alternatives in engineering and manufacturing were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history/article/abs/deindustrialization-and-the-moral-economy-of-the-scottish-coalfields-1947-to-1991/73664BE8653D220C05699216805A7F24">not growing</a> quickly enough to absorb further redundancies.</p>
<p><strong>UK energy consumption, 1965-2022</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing UK energy consumption by source since 1965" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564851/original/file-20231211-19-n58nsj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?time=earliest..1983&country=~GBR">Our World in Data</a></span>
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<p>A new generation of leaders including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/feb/01/guardianobituaries2">Michael McGahey</a>, president of the Scottish NUM and vice-president at UK level, resolved to resist further contraction of coal while fighting for improved wages. This appealed to young miners, who were conscious of their vital social role in powering Britain’s homes and workplaces. Their sense of injustice was piqued by friends and relatives earning more in easier factory jobs, assembling cars and consumer goods. </p>
<p>They first mobilised for a <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-miners-strike-pickets-1972-online">national strike in 1972</a>, the first <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/General-Strike-1926/">since 1926</a>. Remembered most for the mass blockade of <a href="https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/stories/the-battle-of-saltley-gate">Saltley fuel depot</a> in Birmingham, this won the miners a big pay increase. By the autumn of 1973, however, with inflation <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czbi">running at 10%</a>, most of this raise had been eroded. </p>
<p>The NUM’s overtime ban and the government’s radical reaction had an important additional trigger: the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Yom-Kippur-War">Yom Kippur war</a> between Israel and various Arab states and combatants in October 1973. The oil producers’ cartel, Opec, which mainly comprised Middle Eastern countries, sought to pressurise Israel and its allies in western Europe and North America by instigating production controls. This accelerated a <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262858/change-in-opec-crude-oil-prices-since-1960/">major price-surge</a> in oil, from US$2 (£1.59) a barrel at the start of 1972 to US$11 (£8.74) two years later. </p>
<p>The 1950s and ’60s had seen the construction of dual-fuel power stations capable of running on coal and oil. Thanks to the surge in oil prices, they began running on coal only. This gave coal a sudden and unexpected advantage which the NUM exploited. Unsatisfied by wage negotiations and undeterred by the three-day week, the union stuck to its overtime ban. At the end of January 1974, members voted overwhelmingly for a continuous strike, starting on February 9. This was what prompted Heath to call the general election.</p>
<h2>The present day</h2>
<p>What is the significance of the three-day week today? Beckett argued that it made visible two important elements of the future of work. One was extended working time, with non-essential factories and offices running 12-hour shifts on their permitted days. This anticipated the intensified work that many employees experience today. </p>
<p>Changes in the gender profile of the workforce were also prefigured. At the time, women workers were disproportionately concentrated in essential services and retail. This meant they were employed normally during the three-day week, whereas there was enforced idleness among the greater clustering of men in non-essential industrial occupations. This trend increased as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13619462.2021.1972416">deindustrialisation</a> gathered pace in the 1980s. </p>
<p><strong>UK employment rate by gender, 1971-2021</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing male vs female employment rates in UK since 1970s" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564879/original/file-20231211-22-f2abeq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/280120/employment-rate-in-the-uk-by-gender/">Statista</a></span>
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<p>Two further observations can be made, reflecting back on the three-day week being related to energy and the insecurity of essential workers. First, the energy supply remains insecure. The 1973 drama, while driven by the coal dispute, was aggravated by the external shock of Opec production controls and the five-fold oil price increase. </p>
<p>Our difficulties in 2023 are similarly multi-causal, but inflation and economic insecurity have been amplified, as in 1973, by oil and gas price hikes. This is partly because of embargoed imports arising from Russia’s war on Ukraine, but also the result of prices imposed on domestic and business users by private-sector energy providers in the UK.</p>
<p>Second, workers in healthcare, transport and other public services in the early 2020s have emulated the miners in disrupting everyday economic and social life through strikes. Just as in 1973-74, this action has <a href="https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/public-largely-supportive-of-the-right-of-public-workers-to-strike-but-also-support-required-minimum-service-levels/">carried public support</a> because it targets the manifest injustice of low and falling levels of real pay among essential workers.</p>
<p>If <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/47879-voting-intention-con-21-lab-44-14-15-nov-2023">the polls</a> are accurate and Labour wins the next general election, likely to be held in 2024, popular unrest arising from wage and fuel insecurity will again have helped to defeat a Conservative government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Phillips has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust..</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, an under-pressure Tory leader’s battle with a powerful union triggered the introduction of restrictions to the working day.Jim Phillips, Professor of Economic and Social History, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1716802021-11-12T09:52:53Z2021-11-12T09:52:53ZClimate finance for a transition away from coal: a chance to change history in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431556/original/file-20211111-21-m7qimq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial photo of a power station and coal stockpile in Johannesburg, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the opening days of the <a href="https://unfccc.int/conference/glasgow-climate-change-conference-october-november-2021">COP26</a> international climate conference, a <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/presidency-international-partnership-support-just-transition-2-nov-2021-0000">financing partnership</a> was announced between South Africa and a consortium consisting of France, Germany, the UK, the US and the European Union (EU). The partnership aims to support South Africa’s just transition to a low carbon and climate resilient economy and society. Essentially a just transition is one where no one is left behind. </p>
<p>The partnership mobilises an initial R131 billion (US$8.5 billion) over the next three to five years. Some of this in the form of grants and some is concessional debt finance (cheaper than commercial debt).</p>
<p>The partnership is intended to enable a range of outcomes. One is to speed up the process of moving away from carbon in the electricity system. South Africa’s power generation depends mostly <a href="https://www.iea.org/countries/south-africa">on coal</a> and the country has committed to reducing emissions in line with the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a>. It has recently updated its <a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/ndcstaging/PublishedDocuments/South%20Africa%20First/South%20Africa.pdf">nationally determined contribution</a> to the international emission-reduction effort. Importantly, the finance will support the workers and communities who will be affected as the country moves away from coal.</p>
<p>Another aim is to support a sustainable solution for the South African power <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2021-09-28-climate-deal-could-save-treasury-billions-and-solve-eskom-crisis/">utility’s debt</a> and ensure its long term financial sustainability in the context of power sector reforms.</p>
<p>Finally, the partnership will channel finance towards the development of the electric vehicle and green hydrogen sectors. </p>
<p>A task force including national and international partners will develop the specifics of the support over the coming year.</p>
<p>The announcement made <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-eu-others-will-invest-speed-safricas-transition-clean-energy-biden-2021-11-02/">international headlines</a> and is highly significant for many reasons. The finance offer is large; it has a strong element of justice; it’s not just about a few individual projects; and it’s for a country that has long been shaped around its dependence on coal.</p>
<p>This partnership represents an important opportunity for South Africa at a critical juncture if it is approached strategically and if the domestic politics can be managed. A failure to engage the partnership strategically will squander the moment, resulting in an incremental outcome that won’t unlock the just transition the country so desperately needs. A failure to tame the politics would put the entire flow of finance at risk. </p>
<h2>Significance of the finance</h2>
<p>Pitched at an initial US$8.5 billion, the partnership has the potential to be one of the largest individual climate finance transactions to date. <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/about">Large Green Climate Fund</a> transactions hover closer to the US$1-3 billion mark.</p>
<p>Its justice element is important. It has an explicit focus on supporting those who face immediate transition impacts, such as the approximately <a href="https://meridianeconomics.co.za/our-work/financial-support-needs-for-mpumalangas-economic-transition-scoping-study-and-press-briefing-march-2021/">80,000 coal miners</a> and the communities who depend on them. </p>
<p>The partnership envisages that the climate finance will enable an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20430795.2021.1972678?tab=permissions&scroll=top">energy sector transition</a>, which is different to the usual focus of climate finance on individual green projects. </p>
<p>Finally, the partnership is significant because it has been announced despite <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2021.1947635">South Africa’s coal legacy and influential incumbents</a>. The country has spent over 100 years building an economy whose competitive advantage is based on coal as its primary energy source. My <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emily-Tyler-9">research</a> reflects on how much flows from this. The legacy of coal is evident in physical infrastructure, the way the energy sector is organised and the form of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2021.1947635">energy sector institutions</a>. It influences the way finance flows and power sector contracts are written. And there are powerful groupings who have vested interests in keeping it all this way for as long as possible. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-power-grid-is-under-pressure-the-how-and-the-why-170897">South Africa's power grid is under pressure: the how and the why</a>
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<p>Ironically it is this legacy that enables South Africa to offer the world significant and globally cost-efficient emission reductions as it changes course. South African electricity is the most carbon intensive <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-ten-charts-show-how-the-world-is-progressing-on-clean-energy">in the world</a>. Because renewable energy is now the cheapest form of power supply, decarbonising the country’s electricity supply by accelerating the phase down of the coal fleet will yield a large volume of emission reductions at very low cost, especially compared to more expensive emission reduction options in other sectors and countries. </p>
<p>But the political and institutional challenges to realising this transition are very real.</p>
<h2>Challenges</h2>
<p>The global <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">target</a> of achieving an average of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is an enormous challenge. It requires rapid and disruptive change as economies and societies globally are decarbonised within three decades. But technology and finance are already driving the transition. This can be seen in the massive decline <a href="https://meridianeconomics.co.za/our-work/a-vital-ambition-determining-the-cost-of-additional-co2-emission-mitigation-in-the-sa-electricity-system-july-2020-for-the-best-quality-display-save-the-file-locally-and-open-it-with/">in the cost</a> of renewable energies and the accelerating <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/fossil-fuel-divestment-supported-by-investors-with-39-trillion?srnd=green-finance">shift</a> of financial portfolios to green investments. Global capitalism is now oriented towards a low carbon economy.</p>
<p>As a small open economy, South Africa can neither resist nor control these forces. And the country is in a vulnerable starting position as one of the world’s <a href="https://www.climate-transparency.org/g20-climate-performance/g20report2021">most carbon intensive economies</a>. There is not much time to avoid being economically marginalised as wealthier and nimbler economies mobilise around net zero goals. South Africa will need all the support it can get to keep up with the pace of change.</p>
<p>Fortunately, as studies by the <a href="https://www.nbi.org.za/public-release-of-the-power-sector-decarbonisation-report-from-the-nbi-just-transition-pathways-project-our-future-is-renewable/">National Business Initiative</a> and <a href="https://meridianeconomics.co.za/our-work/a-vital-ambition-determining-the-cost-of-additional-co2-emission-mitigation-in-the-sa-electricity-system-july-2020-for-the-best-quality-display-save-the-file-locally-and-open-it-with/">Meridian Economics-CSIR</a> show, accelerated electricity decarbonisation has two big pluses. It is the cheapest way of providing a reliable electricity supply <a href="https://theconversation.com/myths-and-truths-around-south-africas-recent-renewable-energy-auction-171329">to the economy</a>. And renewables have the shortest lead time to build. So they are the quickest and cheapest way to lift the country out of its <a href="https://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/load-shedding-will-cripple-our-economic-recovery-we-must-bring-renewables-onstream-fast/">current power cut woes</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/myths-and-truths-around-south-africas-recent-renewable-energy-auction-171329">Myths and truths around South Africa’s recent renewable energy auction</a>
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<h2>Details</h2>
<p>The just transition partnership announcement has achieved both a political space and an implementation platform (the taskforce) to start working out the support details. These details include the type of financing instruments, what the finance will be used for, the mix of grant and debt, and financing terms and conditions. An initial scope of supported actions, financing sources and terms will be identified within six months, with a full partnership work programme and investment plan outlined within a calendar year. </p>
<p>Currently, there are many <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20430795.2021.1972678?journalCode=tsfi20">views</a> on what the details could look like. These include Eskom’s Just Energy Transaction, <a href="https://meridianeconomics.co.za/our-work/the-just-transition-transaction-a-developing-country-coal-power-retirement-mechanism/">Meridian Economics’ Just Transition Transaction</a> and the Presidential Climate Commission. </p>
<p>The taskforce will have to work out how to:</p>
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<li><p>ensure that alternative, attractive and sustainable economic livelihoods are created in the regions that have depended on coal</p></li>
<li><p>prioritise spending on activities that will help to fundamentally re-orientate South Africa’s energy sector as opposed to only achieving incremental change</p></li>
<li><p>ensure that the grant and concessional finance components of the partnership are used to leverage rather than crowd out commercial investment</p></li>
<li><p>achieve a transition pace aligned with South Africa’s international climate commitments.</p></li>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-troubled-power-utility-is-being-reset-ceo-sets-out-how-168097">South Africa's troubled power utility is being reset: CEO sets out how</a>
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<h2>Politics</h2>
<p>But if the technical details are formidable, a recent <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/south-africa/mantashe-calls-on-africa-to-unite-against-coercion-by-global-anti-fossil-fuel-agenda-20211109">address</a> by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, demonstrates that the domestic politics are even more so. In direct opposition to Ramaphosa’s vocal support of the partnership and decarbonisation trajectory, Mantashe argued that South Africa should continue to exploit its coal resources, suggesting that the partnership is an attempt to pressurise the country to conform to an international agenda that is not in the country’s best interest. </p>
<p>Despite the economic realities of a global energy transition well under way, and the increasingly obvious technical, economic and social failings of South Africa’s coal-based energy system, the political challenges to leaving the coal legacy path are clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Tyler consults to Meridian Economics, a think tank working in the climate - energy - finance space in South African and internationally, and received a National Research Foundation bursary for one year of her PhD studies on approaching climate policy in South Africa through the lens of critical complexity thinking.</span></em></p>Pitched at an initial US$8.5 billion, the partnership has the potential to be one of the largest individual climate finance transactions to date. But can a just transition be achieved?Emily Tyler, Honorary Research Associate African Climate and Development Institute, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1415312020-07-02T20:09:40Z2020-07-02T20:09:40Z45,000 renewables jobs are Australia’s for the taking – but how many will go to coal workers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345191/original/file-20200702-2702-13hn8wv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C0%2C5163%2C3470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the global renewables transition accelerates, the future for coal regions has become a big worry. This raises an important question: can renewables create the right jobs in the right places to employ former coal workers?</p>
<p>According to our <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/institute-sustainable-futures/our-research/energy-futures/renewable-energy-employment-australia">new research</a>, the answer in many cases is “yes”. Renewable energy jobs provide a good match for existing coal jobs across a range of blue and white-collar occupations, including construction and project managers, engineers, electricians, site administrators and mechanical technicians. </p>
<p>But about one-third of coal workers, such as drillers and machine operators, cannot simply switch over to renewables jobs. So as our economy pivots to renewables, planning and investment is needed to help coal regions survive. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345193/original/file-20200702-2692-2mr6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some renewables jobs could be filled by coal workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Wimbourne/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Renewables jobs: a snapshot</h2>
<p>Our research, commissioned by the Clean Energy Council, is <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/institute-sustainable-futures/our-research/energy-futures/renewable-energy-employment-australia">the first large-scale survey of renewable energy employment</a> in Australia.</p>
<p>We surveyed more than 450 Australian renewable energy businesses, covering large scale wind, solar and hydro, rooftop solar and batteries. We wanted to find out how many people were employed, and in what jobs. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-devotion-to-coal-has-come-at-a-huge-cost-we-need-the-government-to-change-course-urgently-140841">Australia's devotion to coal has come at a huge cost. We need the government to change course, urgently</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We then projected employment until 2035 using <a href="https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/ISP/2019/Draft-2020-Integrated-System-Plan.pdf">three scenarios</a> for the future of the electricity market, developed by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).</p>
<p>Our results suggest renewable energy can be a major source of jobs in the next 15 years. But the trajectories are very different depending on government COVID-19 stimulus measures and wider energy policy.</p>
<h2>Policy crossroads</h2>
<p>We found the renewable energy sector currently employs about 26,000 people. Temporary construction and installation jobs now comprise 75% of the renewable energy labour market, but as the sector grows, this will change (more on that later).</p>
<p>Australia’s renewable energy target was reached last year, and has not been replaced. According to the <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/mar/renewable-energy-investment-in-australia.html">Reserve Bank of Australia</a> this caused renewables investment to fall by 50% last year compared to 2018. Under a “central” scenario where these policies continued, 11,000 renewable jobs would be lost by 2022. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345197/original/file-20200702-2674-ww84u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Under the right policies, there could be an average of 35,000 renewables jobs annually in Australia until 2035.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Buholzer/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We then examined a “step change” scenario where Australian policy settings were in line with meeting the Paris climate agreement. This would create a jobs boom: renewable energy employment would grow to 45,000 by 2025 and average around 35,000 jobs each year to 2035. Up to two-thirds are in regional areas.</p>
<p>Under all scenarios, job growth is strongest in rooftop solar and wind. Most are in the construction and installation phase, comprising both ongoing and project-based jobs in trades, as well as technicians and labourers. But by 2035, as many as half of renewable energy jobs could be ongoing jobs in operation and maintenance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-need-to-see-the-benefits-from-local-renewable-energy-projects-and-that-means-jobs-138433">People need to see the benefits from local renewable energy projects, and that means jobs</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Renewable energy jobs will be higher than our projections. We excluded employment areas such as building electricity transmission networks, bioenergy, professional services, renewable hydrogen, growth in minerals needed for renewable energy, and jobs in heavy industry such as “green” steel.</p>
<h2>Renewables vs coal jobs</h2>
<p>All up, coal mining in Australia employs about 40,000 people. As mentioned above, renewable energy jobs could grow to 45,000 by 2025 – and more once other sectors are included.</p>
<p>Australia’s renewable energy industry already employs considerably more people than the 10,500 working in the domestic coal sector – mostly thermal coal mining and power generation. </p>
<p>About 75% of coal mined in Australia is <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/sep/the-changing-global-market-for-australian-coal.html">exported</a>. About 24,000 people work in thermal coal mining for both domestic use and export – slightly fewer than the current renewable energy workforce. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344692/original/file-20200630-103673-yokyxv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Employment in renewable energy and coal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New renewables jobs in coal regions</h2>
<p>Around two-thirds of renewable energy jobs could be created in regional areas. These would be distributed more widely than coal sector jobs. </p>
<p>The leading coal mining states, NSW and Queensland, have the biggest share of renewable energy jobs under all scenarios. </p>
<p>AEMO has identified “renewable energy zones” where most large-scale renewable energy is expected to be located. In both NSW and Queensland, some of these zones overlap with the coal workforce. In NSW, the Central West zone could also create employment in the Hunter region. In general, though, many renewable energy jobs will be located in other regions and the capital cities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/really-australia-its-not-that-hard-10-reasons-why-renewable-energy-is-the-future-130459">Really Australia, it's not that hard: 10 reasons why renewable energy is the future</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In terms of occupations, there is overlap between coal and renewable energy. These include construction and project managers, engineers, electricians, mechanical trades, office managers and contract administrators and drivers.</p>
<p>The timing and location of these renewables jobs will influence whether they can be a source of alternative jobs for coal workers. Re-training of coal workers would also be required. </p>
<p>But there is no direct job overlap for the semi-skilled machine operators such as drillers, which account for more than one-third of the coal workforce.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344685/original/file-20200630-103688-1fhvki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Renewable Energy Zones and coal mining employment in Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344683/original/file-20200630-103668-1jclsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Renewable energy zones and coal mining employment in NSW.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Planning for the decline</h2>
<p>Renewable energy can meaningfully help in the transition for coal regions. But it won’t replace all lost coal jobs, and planning and investment is needed to avoid social and economic harm.</p>
<p>Coal regions need industry development plans and investment to diversify their economies to other industries, including renewables. Almost half our coal workers are aged under 40, so Australia will not be able to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-transition-from-coal-4-lessons-for-australia-from-around-the-world-115558">follow Germany and Spain’s lead</a> by relying on early retirement schemes.</p>
<p>At some point, demand for our coal exports will collapse – be it due to the falling cost of renewables, or policies to address climate change. If we don’t start preparing now, the consequences for coal communities will be dire.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345195/original/file-20200702-2674-1i56fyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some coal workers can be retrained to work in renewables, but others cannot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Briggs receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2019-20, funders for research included the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the NSW and Victorian Government and the Clean Energy Council for renewable energy jobs research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elsa Dominish receives research funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2019-20 this includes the federal and NSW governments and the Clean Energy Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Rutovitz receives research funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2019-20, this included the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the NSW and Victorian Governments, the Future Batteries Industry Co-operative Research Centre, and the Clean Energy Council.</span></em></p>Some coal workers have the right skills and work in the right location to get a job in renewables. But many, such as semi-skilled machine operators, cannot.Chris Briggs, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyElsa Dominish, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyJay Rutovitz, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163402019-11-04T12:13:25Z2019-11-04T12:13:25ZAs the coal industry shrinks, miners deserve a just transition – here’s what it should include<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299742/original/file-20191031-187925-b1o4o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5021%2C3074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coal miners return on a buggy after working a shift underground at the Perkins Branch Coal Mine in Cumberland, Oct. 15, 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/When-Coal-Is-Over/92a5b0bc9ba44d30a2cf67c2b9de59d9/162/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Murray Energy, one of the biggest private U.S. coal companies, has become the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/29/coal-giant-murray-energy-files-bankruptcy-coals-role-us-power-dwindles/">fifth coal company to file for bankruptcy in 2019</a>. Union leaders and many elected officials worry that in addition to the 7,000 miners on Murray’s payroll, this step could threaten the solvency of the United Mine Workers of America pension fund, which supports <a href="https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/local-news/2019/10/murray-energy-bankruptcy-spells-woes-for-miner-pensions-lawmakers-say/">over 100,000 retired miners and fully vested workers</a>. </p>
<p>Whether people support or oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/macrons-pledge-to-wipe-out-coal-is-just-as-meaningless-as-trumps-plan-to-revive-it-90729">prop up the coal industry</a>, one point of agreement is that shifting from coal to cleaner fuels threatens <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-policies-will-harm-coal-dependent-communities-instead-of-helping-them-82632">struggling coal-dependent communities</a>. Murray Energy’s bankruptcy is the latest reminder that it is past time to discuss a just transition for coal miners. </p>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2362140">My legal scholarship</a> examines environmental decision-making processes, with a focus on law and the urban-rural divide. In my recent research, I’ve dug into the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3281846">origin and meaning</a> of the idea of a just transition for workers. </p>
<p>My findings suggest that there is a strong ethical case for pursuing just transitions through policy. The challenge is to ensure that these policies nurture programs and institutions with lasting effects, rather than merely offering short-term band-aids.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299744/original/file-20191031-187938-nm2ivr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than half of the U.S. coal mines operating in 2008 have closed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38172">EIA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is a just transition?</h2>
<p>There is no single definition of a just transition, but in the coal context it generally means finding alternative ways to support struggling communities that are losing their traditional livelihoods. </p>
<p>The concept was popularized in the 1970s by progressive labor activist <a href="https://www.uswtmc.org/about/about-tony-mazzocchi">Tony Mazzocchi</a>, who worked in the auto, steel and construction industries before becoming an organizer. He believed that workers who had contributed to the public welfare through hazardous work deserved help in transitioning away from their difficult jobs. He first called for <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3281846">“full income and benefits for life”</a> for such workers, but eventually changed his demand to four years of income and education benefits. Even then, his efforts met substantial opposition.</p>
<p>Mazzochi had ties to labor and the environmental movements, and his activism <a href="https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-man-who-hated-work-and-loved-labor/">blended these concerns</a>. Today scholars are embracing the idea that government should <a href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/elr/vol29/iss2/4/">consider the economic impacts</a> of transitions such as the shift to low-carbon fuels, especially when workers are displaced by public initiatives.</p>
<p>In my view, it’s unfortunate that it has taken so long for mainstream attention to focus on the fate of coal workers. For communities dependent on fossil fuels, particularly in regions like Appalachia with few other major industries, today’s job losses are just the latest phase of a <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/45xed4rh9780252009853.html">long decline</a>.</p>
<h2>No simple formula</h2>
<p>There is no road map for transitioning communities away from coal, but there are lessons from history. For example, American workers faced losses from international competition when the U.S. joined liberalized trade agreements in the second half of the 20th century. </p>
<p>In response, Congress passed legislation in 1974 that established the <a href="https://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/">Trade Adjustment Assistance Program</a>, which still operates today. It provides aid primarily to factory workers who can show that they have lost jobs or wages because of increased international competition. Eligible workers petition the U.S. Department of Labor for benefits administered through state agencies, including cash payments, retraining and assistance with relocation and job searches.</p>
<p>However, research shows that even with this support, affected workers were substantially worse off than they had been before the shift in trade policy. Scholars have criticized trade adjustment programs as <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/rutlr58&div=27&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals&t=1556647639">an ineffective band-aid</a>. In 2008 one of the program’s directors called it “<a href="https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/papers/20081217presidentmemo.pdf">too little assistance too late to those in need</a>.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hYEEBpHJMAQ?wmode=transparent&start=30" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Funding for environmental cleanup and business development can help Appalachian communities diversify away from coal.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another example, the Clinton administration’s 1994 <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fsbdev2_026990">Northwest Forest Plan</a>, was developed in connection with the decision to provide federal protection for the <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/evidence-of-absence-northern-spotted-owls-are-still-vanishing-from-the-northwest/">Northern spotted owl</a>. Officials recognized that restrictions on logging would hurt the Pacific Northwest timber industry, which was already declining. </p>
<p>The plan provided direct federal subsidies to traditional timber counties to offset logging reductions on public lands. However, these payments have been <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/45.7/seeking-balance-in-oregons-timber-country">declining since 2006</a>, contributing to a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2579369">fiscal crunch in rural Oregon</a>. Local opposition to tax increases, which could support local government services and community planning, <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/45.7/seeking-balance-in-oregons-timber-country">hasn’t helped</a>.</p>
<p>Another initiative, the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/02/thousands-farmers-stopped-growing-tobacco-after-deregulation-payouts/32115163/">Tobacco Transition Payment Program</a>, achieved more mixed results. In 1998 the four largest U.S. tobacco companies executed a <a href="https://www.stateag.org/initiatives/the-tobacco-settlement">major legal settlement</a> with states suing them to recover tobacco-related health costs. The agreement required tobacco companies to provide billions of dollars in economic assistance to farmers to ease their transition away from growing tobacco. </p>
<p>Each participating farmer received an average of US$17,000 through the program, which ran from 2005 to 2014. The top 10% of recipients received 75% of the payments. Some assessments concluded that these cash injections <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/02/thousands-farmers-stopped-growing-tobacco-after-deregulation-payouts/32115163/">boosted struggling rural communities</a>. But farmers arguably have more autonomy than many other kinds of workers, since they can opt to grow different crops, so this example may have limited relevance for coal miners.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299751/original/file-20191031-30397-f6po09.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">County economic status in Appalachia, fiscal year 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.arc.gov/research/MapsofAppalachia.asp?MAP_ID=149">Appalachian Regional Commission</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recent transition aid for coal communities</h2>
<p>The most defined federal effort so far to help coal communities economically is the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2017/assets/fact_sheets/Investing%20in%20Coal%20Communities.pdf">POWER Plan</a>, launched by the Obama administration. This program directs funds into Appalachian communities to assist displaced workers, build regional institutions’ capacity and fund economic development programs. </p>
<p>From 2015 through 2019 the <a href="https://www.arc.gov/">Appalachian Regional Commission</a>, an economic development agency supported by federal, state and local governments, has <a href="https://www.arc.gov/funding/POWER.asp">invested over $190 million</a> in 239 projects across Appalachia. Although President Trump often calls himself a <a href="https://theconversation.com/invoking-noble-coal-miners-is-a-mainstay-of-american-politics-94281">friend to coal miners</a>, his first budget request proposed <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/here-are-the-independent-agencies-trump-wants-to-stop-funding/519786/">terminating the commission</a>. Congressional supporters <a href="https://www.wkyufm.org/post/mcconnell-aide-takes-appalachian-regional-commission-role#stream/0">restored its funding</a>.</p>
<p>It is popular for commentators to propose initiatives such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-alternative-to-propping-up-coal-power-plants-retrain-workers-for-solar-101961">retraining coal workers for solar</a> or <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-doubles-coal-west-virginia-lawmakers-natural-gas">natural gas</a> jobs. In my view, this approach is simplistic: A just transition should focus on sustainably rebuilding regional economies, and should be informed by input from people who are affected. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1190002378499604483"}"></div></p>
<p>Subsidies to local governments and benefits for individuals are a start, but should be better funded and implemented than trade adjustment assistance. They should build local institutions, such as schools and planning agencies, that can contribute to sustainable economic diversification – something the Northwest Forest Plan failed to do. And they should distribute benefits more equitably than the compensation program for tobacco farmers.</p>
<p>Along with job retraining programs, POWER is funding <a href="https://www.arc.gov/images/grantsandfunding/POWER2019/ARCPOWERAwardSummariesbyStateOctober2019.pdf">infrastructure development, public services and new educational institutions</a>. But a just transition will require substantial resources and effort. It remains to be seen whether federal efforts will rise to the challenge.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Eisenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Economic and political trends are driving a shift away from coal. What kind of assistance do coal workers and communities need?Ann Eisenberg, Assistant Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1129062019-03-05T11:39:33Z2019-03-05T11:39:33ZThe struggle for coal miners’ health care and pension benefits continues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261958/original/file-20190304-92298-kyftkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coal miner Scottie Stinson, left, talks with foreman Scott Tiller outside a mine in Welch, W.Va., on May 12, 2016, as he prepares to enter a mine 40 inches high.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Divided-America-American-Moments/9cfcceac235540c597ed1c8d513d4c70/28/0">David Goldman/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Coal mining continues to be one of the most hazardous professions in our society. Even today, while the number of large-scale mining disasters and the number of deaths have certainly <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-coal-mining-deaths-20180102-story.html">declined</a>, coal miners continue to face a work environment that is inherently toxic and unhealthy. Coal miners who survive the mines walk away from their profession with significant <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18049995">health impairments</a> and <a href="https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-7954-9-16">shorter life expectancies</a> than most other Americans.</p>
<p>Yet for centuries, miners have braved dangers for the promise of better lives for their families. <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=flr">And since 1946</a> they have been supported by a compact between miners, owners and the federal government, that made health care and pensions an integral part of the profession in this country.</p>
<p>However, structural changes in the U.S. economy have strained, if not unraveled, this compact. And mine owners have consistently sought to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-bankruptcy/peabody-chapter-11-tops-string-of-u-s-coal-bankruptcies-idUSKCN0XC2KQ">shed their obligations towards miners and their families</a>. Most recently, <a href="https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_e2994fcc-b7a3-5640-a274-d0e3b1fac0c5.html">a judge allowed the bankrupt Westmoreland Coal Company to abandon its promise</a> of paying for the health care of retired union workers as well as its union contracts. The company announced March 4, 2019 that a <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/westmoreland-bankruptcy-court-approves-sale-of-assets-under-chapter-11-plan-1028000304">bankruptcy court</a> has approved the sale of many of its assets to creditors and that business will “continue operating in the normal course.” </p>
<p>Except that it won’t for coal miners, of course, who will lose many of their benefits even as creditors at least get some of the company’s assets. And Westmoreland is <a href="http://www.wvpublic.org/post/second-major-coal-company-declares-bankruptcy-during-trump-presidency#stream/0">hardly the only mining company eagerly reneging</a> on its decades-old promises.</p>
<p>Coal miners have literally provided the fuel for the unprecedented industrialization of this country. Living in West Virginia and having written about the plight of coal workers’ health care as a public policy scholar, I believe the way forward involves the nation honoring its commitment to past and current miners. Yet, it also involves an honest acknowledgment that nation’s energy mix of the future will likely feature a diminished role for coal.</p>
<h2>The changing fortunes of the coal industry</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261959/original/file-20190304-92310-b1qwk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coal miners about to descend into a mine in Maidsville, W.Va. in 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/coal-miners-ready-descend-into-mine-242289910">Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the heart of the current situation is an agreement between the federal government and the United Coal Miners of America dating <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=flr">from 1946</a>. Faced with a series of strikes across different industries after World War II, President Truman, in line with a long line of federal interventions in the coal industry, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00236566508583968">took control over the nation’s coal mines</a> in order to keep them operating. The conflict was ultimately settled by the <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=flr">Krug-Lewis Agreement</a> of 1946 which, among other things, established health care and pension funds for union miners.</p>
<p>For several decades, with a large number of union miners contributing, the health care and pension trust funds were sufficiently funded in general. However, over time both trust funds started to incur <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">structural deficits</a> for a variety of reasons.</p>
<p>For one, employment in the coal industry has been shrinking steadily over the past few decades, from more than 850,000 in the 1920s to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/trump-says-the-coal-industry-is-back-the-data-say-otherwise.html">just over 50,000 today</a>. Employment reductions have been driven by <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/americans-used-a-lot-less-coal-in-2016/">efficiency gains, mechanization, a shift toward surface mining, and lower demand</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, of those miners remaining, a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060052929">vast majority are not union members</a>. As a result, there are only a few thousand union coal miners left to pay into these funds, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060052929">while roughly 12 times as many</a> are currently drawing health care and pension benefits. </p>
<p>The Great Recession aggravated the situation. Faced with mounting obligation and declining markets, some of the nation’s largest coal companies <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-coal-bankruptcy-trump-2016-12">declared bankruptcy</a>. This allowed them to shed their obligations to their former employees. The situation has shown <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mission-coal-bankruptcy-marks-5th-coal-company-in-3-years/">few signs of abatement under the Trump administration</a>.</p>
<p>As result, both health care and pension benefits are <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">no longer financially sustainable</a>, potentially affecting more than <a href="http://wvmetronews.com/2016/10/07/thousands-of-retired-miners-widows-receive-letters-announcing-end-of-health-care-benefits-unless-congress-acts/">100,000 retired miners and their families</a>.</p>
<h2>Was there or was there not a federal guarantee?</h2>
<p>There is a debate about the nature of the original compact from 1946. The issue centers around the question whether the federal government made a permanent commitment to coal miners and their families. This is the position of coal miners and the <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/journal/the-promise-of-1946/">United Mine Workers of America</a>. Ultimately, this would entail the federal government serving as a payer of last resort should coal companies and unions be unable to sustain their financial commitment.</p>
<p>Others, like the <a href="http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/government-intervention-coal-mining-seven-decades-ago-no-justification">conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation</a>, have argued that the intervention by the federal government was merely temporary. Moreover, they <a href="http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/government-intervention-coal-mining-seven-decades-ago-no-justification">argue</a> that the UMWA has repeatedly violated the agreement and pushed for changes that accelerated the current funding crisis.</p>
<p>Unquestionably, the issue is complex. However, to my eye the evidence seems to favor the former interpretation, as the agreement was repeatedly reaffirmed by the federal government. This occurred most prominently through the <a href="http://www.emlf.org/clientuploads/directory/whitepaper/Woodrum_08.pdf">legislation in 1996 and 2006</a>.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5985B318-98BB-4157-9656-365FAEF1FA82">Dole Commission, appointed under President Bush in 1989 to evaluate coal miners’ benefits, put it</a>: “The UMWA Health and Retirement Funds is as much a creature of government as it is of collective bargaining … In a way, the original Krug-Lewis agreement predisposed, if not predetermined, the system that evolved.”</p>
<h2>American Miners Act of 2019</h2>
<p>The structural imbalances of the UMWA trust funds described above have inevitably led to a number of periodic crises in which pension and health care benefits for miners <a href="https://theconversation.com/mine-wars-the-struggle-for-coal-miners-health-care-and-pension-benefits-comes-to-a-head-76673">came under immediate threat of running out</a>. So far, Congress has been able to patch together mostly temporary solutions without comprehensively addressing the problems in their entirety.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/27/text">American Miners Act of 2019</a> to shore up pension and health care benefits. The act as introduced also seeks to preserve the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45261.pdf">Black Lung Disability Trust Fund</a>, providing medical and pension benefits to miners suffering from <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lung-disease-on-the-rise-5-questions-answered-91637">pneumoconiosis</a>. This fund is also teetering on financial insolvency if scheduled cuts to the federal excise tax on coal are implemented.</p>
<p>If Congress fails to act, trust funds will ultimately run out of funds, with dire benefits for miners and their families. For one, miners would lose their small pensions, which currently <a href="http://wvmetronews.com/2019/02/16/manchin-capito-push-for-passing-of-american-miners-act-of-2019/">only average US$560 per month</a>. Miners would also need to seek alternative sources of health coverage, or go without. Government would then be on the hook for <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52233">tens of millions of dollars</a> for those miners qualifying for Medicaid, Medicare or ACA marketplace coverage. Equally crucial, the demise of the historically underfunded Black Lung Disability Trust Fund <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/04/616136915/coal-miners-fund-set-for-deep-cuts-as-black-lung-epidemic-grows">paying for pensions and medical expenses</a> would be devastating.</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261960/original/file-20190304-92310-1cmjwcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Child coal worker Lewis Hine pictured in 1908.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/child-laborer-portrayed-by-lewis-hine-239403928">Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the most recent midterm elections, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., has begun to push energetically for a <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez">Green New Deal</a>. While details remain unclear, it is based on a turn away from fossil fuel energy. Unquestionably, we should acknowledge the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/coals-externalities-medical-air-quality-financial-environmental/401075/">significant externalities inherent in coal mining and coal-based power production</a>. These affect not only miners but their entire communities and society at large through water and air pollution as well as global climate change.</p>
<p>Given the vast negative effects of coal, it seems prudent to transition to healthier sources of energy production. Yet in this process, we should not forget about coal miners and their families who have brought us to where we are today. The <a href="http://wvmetronews.com/2019/02/16/manchin-capito-push-for-passing-of-american-miners-act-of-2019/">bipartisan support</a> for the American Miners Act of 2019 and similar bills in the past in the often-polarized U.S. Congress is indicative of this recognition. <a href="http://ohiovalleyresource.org/2017/01/24/competing-bills-on-miners-benefits/">Republican leadership in Congress</a> should end their opposition to a permanent fix.</p>
<p>I believe that any program moving the nation toward greener energy sources must include a lasting solution for coal miners, their families and their communities. This includes both guaranteeing long-term funding for pension, health care and medical programs as well as transitional programs to help them adapt to an economy with a smaller role for coal mining.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon F. Haeder is a Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Program, a national leadership development program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to equip teams of researchers and community partners in applying research to solve real community problems.</span></em></p>As coal companies look for ways to cut costs, many are reneging on their promises for health care for retired miners. Unless Congress intervenes, these miners could face ill health and poverty.Simon F. Haeder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1069282018-12-11T11:41:54Z2018-12-11T11:41:54ZDo climate policies ‘kill jobs’? An economist on why they don’t cause massive unemployment<p>Climate change will hammer the U.S. economy unless there’s swift action to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, according to the latest <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">National Climate Assessment</a> report. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/accuracy-of-national-climate-assessment-questioned-by-trump-administration/">President Donald Trump has dismissed this forecast</a>, even though his own administration released a <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/us-global-change-nca-1.html#bf-toc-0">comprehensive synthesis</a> of the best available science, written by hundreds of climate scientists and other experts from academia, government, the private sector and nonprofits. Like most opponents of policies aimed at slowing the pace of climate change, he has long wanted actions to reduce these emissions off the table because, in his opinion, they are “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-39425693/trump-executive-order-to-unwind-obama-climate-policies">job-killing</a>.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"473895061747695616"}"></div></p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TxYfplkAAAAJ&hl=en">environmental economist</a> who is studying the relationship between regulations and employment, I find this question vitally important both economically and politically. What does the research on this question say?</p>
<h2>Arguments</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/to-save-american-jobs-leave-the-paris-agreement-now/">Opponents of climate regulations</a> embrace a straightforward and long-standing argument. In their view, anything the government forces businesses to do will negatively affect their ability to employ workers. To them, everything from safety regulations to raising taxes makes it costlier and harder for businesses to operate. </p>
<p>Trump has taken this philosophy to heart by pledging to eliminate what he calls “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/president-trump-eliminates-job-killing-regulations/">job-killing regulations</a>” across the board.</p>
<p>Some supporters of strong climate policies counter that the costs of climate change are high enough to justify climate policies even though they might negatively affect workers.</p>
<p>They base this argument on observations that environmental rules and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-public-health-benefits-of-adding-offshore-wind-to-the-grid-98228">clean energy can benefit public health</a>, even by <a href="https://www.alleghenyfront.org/do-regulations-kill-jobs-or-save-lives/">saving lives</a>. They also point out that these policies could counter the economic damage the National Climate Assessment forecasts. </p>
<h2>Evidence</h2>
<p>What about those jobs, though?</p>
<p>The evidence on how environmental policies affect unemployment is generally mixed. The book “<a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15183.html">Does Regulation Kill Jobs?</a>,” edited by University of Pennsylvania professor Cary Coglianese, covers regulations generally. It concludes that “regulation overall is neither a prime job killer nor a key job creator.”</p>
<p>Michael Greenstone, a University of Chicago economist, found that <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/342808">1970s-era environmental regulations</a>, which in some ways resemble the climate-related rules debated today, led to the loss of more than half-a-million manufacturing jobs over 15 years. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009506960191191X?via%3Dihub">Another team of researchers</a>, which reviewed the impact of environmental policies on four heavily polluting industries, found that environmental regulations have no significant effect on employment.</p>
<p>To be sure, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/trump-says-the-coal-industry-is-back-the-data-say-otherwise.html">number of coal mining jobs has plummeted</a>, falling from over 150,000 in the 1980s to about 53,000 in July 2018.</p>
<p>But this mainly has to do with two other factors. Due to <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3136675/it-careers/robotics-driverless-tech-are-taking-over-mining-jobs.html">increasing automation</a>, it now takes far fewer workers to mine coal than it used to. </p>
<p>And a drilling boom has increased not just oil output but natural gas production. The increased natural gas supply cut prices for that fuel, prompting a raft of coal-fired power plant closures. It also eroded coal’s <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36612">market share</a> for electricity generation while creating <a href="https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/news/2017/08/01/10-3-million-us-jobs-supported-by-natura">new jobs</a> in other energy industries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249456/original/file-20181207-128193-4ituzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cramped coal miner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Divided-American-Moments-Photo-Gallery/50567bae96974507bab61e33ae576e22/30/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Greener job growth</h2>
<p>A weakness I often see in the standard regulations-kill-jobs argument is a focus on the regulated industries that ignores the fact that those same regulations tend to spur growth in other industries.</p>
<p>In this case, climate policies are proving to be a boon for jobs in renewable energy industries like wind and solar, as well as in <a href="https://www.eesi.org/briefings/view/102518efficiency">efficiency efforts</a> like weatherization.</p>
<p>For example, the stimulus bill enacted during the Great Recession included provisions designed to bolster renewable energy. </p>
<p>That spending helped spur the creation of <a href="https://www.e2.org/cleanjobsamerica/">millions of new jobs</a>. The <a href="https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, a federal agency, predicts that the number of solar panel installers will increase by 105 percent and the number of wind turbine technician jobs will rise by 96 percent between 2016 and 2026, making those the nation’s two fastest-growing professions.</p>
<p><iframe id="D89tS" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/D89tS/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The power the U.S. gets from wind, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/wind-energys-swift-growth-explained-94626">increased more than 30-fold</a> between 1999 and 2017, now accounts for <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3">6.3 percent of total electricity</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/an-alternative-to-propping-up-coal-power-plants-retrain-workers-for-solar-101961">One study concluded</a> that retraining all coal workers to become solar panel installers is feasible and in fact would mean a raise for most of these American workers. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/experts-say-us-leaving-paris-climate-deal-likely-wouldnt-add-jobs/">More than twice as many Americans</a> work in the solar energy industry than in the coal industry.</p>
<p><iframe id="wngs8" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wngs8/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The whole employment picture</h2>
<p>So what is the net effect on jobs when some energy industries shrink and others grow? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.rff.org/">Resources for the Future</a>, a think tank that researches economic, environmental, energy and natural resource issues, has developed complex computational models of the economy that clarify the whole picture on the connection between regulations and jobs. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.rff.org/research/publications/environmental-policy-full-employment-models-and-employment-critical-analysis">The nonprofit, nonpartisan group</a> assessed the impact on unemployment, something that – believe it or not – these large-scale economic simulations usually don’t do. </p>
<p>The think tank predicts that a hypothetical <a href="http://www.rff.org/blog/2018/job-killing-carbon-taxes">US$40 per ton carbon tax</a>, which would translate into an increase of about <a href="https://qz.com/1132022/the-cost-of-saving-the-world-is-40-per-ton-of-carbon-heres-what-that-means/">36 cents per gallon of gasoline</a>, would increase the overall unemployment rate by just 0.3 percentage points. The effect is even smaller, at just 0.05 percentage points, if the government were to uses the carbon tax’s revenue to cut other tax rates.</p>
<p>This effect is one-third as large as previous estimates, such as a <a href="https://www.nera.com/publications/archive/2017/impacts-of-greenhouse-gas-regulations-on-the-industrial-sector.html">2017 study from NERA Economic Consulting</a>, a global firm, that were not as detailed in their unemployment modeling. </p>
<p>Some studies have even detected a net gain in jobs from climate policies.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/14p0h9mp">University of California, Berkeley</a> researchers found that California’s efforts to cut emissions have bolstered the state’s economy and created more than 37,000 jobs. And the <a href="https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/926-green-versus-brown-comparing-the-employment-impacts-of-energy-efficiency-renewable-energy-and-fossil-fuels-using-an-input-output-model">University of Massachusetts, Amherst</a> Political Economy Research Institute has determined that every $1 million shifted from fossil fuel-generated power to “green energy” creates a net increase of 5 jobs.</p>
<p>Based on my review of the research, I see little evidence that policies to reduce pollution from fossil fuels have or will likely result in widespread job losses.</p>
<h2>Different options</h2>
<p>Different types of policies can have different effects – and some can minimize labor market disruption more than others.</p>
<p>A carbon tax, like other <a href="https://theconversation.com/taxes-and-caps-on-carbon-work-differently-but-calibrating-them-poses-the-same-challenge-104898">revenue-raising policies</a> such as cap-and-trade systems with auctioned permits, has the advantage of generating revenue that can be used to offset any economic harm from job losses. Policies that do not generate revenue, such as <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/renewable-portfolio-standards.aspx">renewable portfolio standards</a>, which require utilities to get a set proportion of their electricity from renewable energy, lack this advantage.</p>
<p>Despite the spread of these efforts in states, there is no federal <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-got-to-vote-on-lots-of-energy-measures-in-2018-and-mostly-rejected-them-105783">carbon tax</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-the-economics-red-states-embracing-wind-energy-dont-do-it-for-the-climate-104899">cap-and-trade system</a> yet. </p>
<p>The evidence suggests that climate policies will cause some industries to lose workers, while others will employ more people and that the overall employment effects are modest. But what is going on with displaced workers? Are solar and wind companies hiring all the jobless coal miners?</p>
<p>My current research is examining how easy – or hard – it is for workers to move between industries due to changes brought on by these regulations. So far, my colleagues and I are finding that when we account for the costs of workers switching jobs, unemployment rates rise slightly more than predicted when ignoring those costs, but the overall effect on unemployment is still just 0.5 percent.</p>
<p>We also are seeing that the effects are much more severe for some workers, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-coal-jobs/exclusive-most-u-s-states-lost-coal-mining-jobs-in-2017-data-idUKL8N1PC6AC">such as coal miners</a>. That is why I believe that the government would be wise to do more to <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/training/dislocatedworkers">train dislocated workers for new professions and help them land new jobs</a> while at the same time implementing climate policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garth Heutel receives funding from the Alliance for Market Solutions and the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Multiple studies have found the overall impact on labor markets to be minor, even if some workers will need new career paths.Garth Heutel, Associate Professor of Economics, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/965942018-09-06T09:01:39Z2018-09-06T09:01:39ZPit Talk: the secret coal mine language that’s now going extinct<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234663/original/file-20180903-41732-uktedk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The words used by Britain's miners are being forgotten.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1037113435?src=9UL_5T56OS4rHOg9s5gjXg-1-19&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>All languages contain different accents and dialects and these aren’t just linked with geographical location. We have other speech registers and these can be linked to social class, ethnicity, sexuality, age or specific occupations.</p>
<p>While I was carrying out research <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/projects/east-midlands-voices-natalie-braber">on language variation in the East Midlands</a>, some of the people I met suggested I speak with some local coal miners, “as they had a funny language all of their own”. And once I did, I discovered that many of the terms and words they used comprised a completely unique – and much overlooked – language variety, which I have since referred to as “pit talk”. </p>
<p>It quickly became clear that the East Midlands had not one, but several different variations of this pit talk. This is the language used by miners in their daily work and allows them to refer to their tools, job descriptions and other aspects of daily life. It is a language which is distinctive but is now at risk of being lost following the widespread colliery closures across the country. Examples include words such as “motties” or “tallies” (the identity discs worn by miners) and the “cage” (used to refer to the lift that led to the mines).</p>
<p>Funding from Nottingham Trent University and The British Academy, helped <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/projects/pits,-props,-and-prose-a-literary-celebration-of-the-coalfields-of-the-east-midlands">build on the research</a>. The <a href="https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2017/april/pit-poetry/">publicity</a> around the project has also attracted the attention of people and local mining groups who wanted to participate. </p>
<h2>Pitmatic</h2>
<p>There had already been some work done on miners’ language in the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pit-talk-Midlands-prepared-R-Forster/dp/B00CWDE360/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536155587&sr=1-2&keywords=south+midlands+pit+talk">the south Midlands</a> and in the north-east of England, where it is referred to as <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pitmatic-Talk-North-East-Field/dp/1904794254">“pitmatic”</a>, but there had been no systematic research in the East Midlands. Research into mining heritage and culture frequently focuses on the tangible (the objects used by miners), but the intangible – the memories and the language used to describe them – is just as important.</p>
<p>The use of this language emphasised and strengthened the miners’ comradeship and “brotherhood” (which they themselves refer to) that was needed to work in such unpleasant and dangerous conditions. Following mine closures in Scotland and north-east England, many miners moved to the East Midlands and took their language with them to mix with the variety already present there. This allows us to see how incoming varieties affected the existing language, with terms such as “marra” (a north-east word for “mate”) now being used by some East Midlands miners.</p>
<p>Together we were able to create a preliminary list of pit talk words and expressions used by miners, published as <a href="https://nottinghamcityofliterature.com/blog/pit-talk-of-the-east-midlands">Pit Talk of the East Midlands</a>. </p>
<p>The book includes information from miners from different areas of the East Midlands. Some mining terms were used in some collieries, but not others, while others, such as “snap” (to refer to lunch or dinner time) were used by all miners in the region. In other parts of the country, meanwhile, “snap” is referred to as “bait” (in the north-east) or “piece” (Scotland). There are other terms which are used by some miners, but not others, such as “dudley”, which describes a water bottle used by miners.</p>
<h2>Stinkdamp</h2>
<p>There are particular differences between the language used by Leicestershire miners and that spoken by those from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Leicestershire’s mines were geographically separate from the rest of the East Midlands coalfield and miners there reported using unique words such as “ringer” (a crowbar) and “stint” (used to describe a length of coal). Words to describe the dangerous working conditions, however, were used more generally. “Afterdamp”, “blackdamp”, “chokedamp”, “stinkdamp”, “firedamp”, “sweetdamp” and “whitedamp” were used widely, for example, to describe the various noxious gasses found in the mines, ranging from carbon monoxide to methane.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234659/original/file-20180903-41723-27bbdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crowbar – or a ‘ringer’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1069354619?src=LSwxj07U_VdCHsSHSnVvZQ-1-3&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were also many words to describe different tools and job descriptions, some of which can also tell us about the modernisation of collieries. The “hostlers”, men who worked the pit ponies, went redundant long before many of the mines closed. “Ganger” was also used as a name for those who mastered the ponies, and was later used to describe the men who moved coal and equipment along the underground roadways in “tubs” (coal containers) or “panzers” (electric conveyor belts) after the ponies were replaced. </p>
<p>Many job terms were descriptive: “Sinkers” were in charge of sinking new shafts, “sparkies” were electricians, “fitters” were mechanics, “powder monkeys” carried the explosives and assisted the “shot firers” who carried out the controlled explosions. “Borers” carried drills and drilled holes, “chockers” put up the roof supports as new tunnels were created, and “back rippers” removed these supports. </p>
<p>Floors in the mine could lift up unexpectedly due to geological faults and those who levelled them out again were called “dinters”. The man in charge of the conveyor belt was the “belt driver”, and the “onsetter” and “offsetter” were in charge of loading and unloading the lifts (which were also called “cages” or “chairs”). The men in charge of the lifts were called “banksmen” while the “bell man” would ring a bell to signal that it was safe to haul the coal or men up or down.</p>
<p>With the closure of the last coal mines and the ageing mining population, we must now collect such data with a greater sense of urgency as it will soon be lost to us forever. This language forms a large part of the identity and camaraderie of the miners and should be preserved for future generations to understand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Braber receives funding from The British Academy and The Heritage Lottery Fund. </span></em></p>Remembering the powder monkeys, sparkies and dinters and their remarkable linguistic legacy.Natalie Braber, Associate Professor, Linguistics, School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942812018-04-25T10:50:01Z2018-04-25T10:50:01ZInvoking noble coal miners is a mainstay of American politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216213/original/file-20180424-57607-1uurfmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coal miner photographed on the job near Richlands, Virginia, in 1974.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/556397">Jack Corn/Environmental Protection Agency</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald <a href="http://wvmetronews.com/2018/04/02/trump-to-visit-west-virginia-on-thursday/">Trump recently visited West Virginia for the fourth time</a> since taking office. He’s <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/226454/trump-approval-highest-west-virginia-lowest-vermont.aspx">more popular there than in any other state</a>, partly because of his avowed passion for coal and coal miners. </p>
<p>As he put it at a <a href="https://youtu.be/RxzraR2R31g?t=5038">campaign rally in Charleston</a>, when he visited in May 2016, “I’ve just always been fascinated by the mines and the courage of the miners.” He also promised “to put the miners back to work.”</p>
<p>For decades, presidents, lobbyists and policymakers have invoked the image of coal miners. In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EjHUH_kAAAAJ&hl=en">researching the history of West Virginia’s coalfield economy</a>, I have found many examples of coal miners being used as symbols of bravery, hard work and manliness to achieve political ends.</p>
<h2>Presidential politics</h2>
<p>And it’s been like that for at least 60 years. The 1960 West Virginia primary, for example, was a milestone in John F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency. At the time, many Americans questioned whether a Catholic could win the overwhelmingly Protestant state. But he did.</p>
<p>There, JFK shook hands with miners covered in coal dust and witnessed the effects of a growing unemployment crisis while his Republican opponent, <a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/1960presidentialcampaign/jfklibrary/19600418fairmontsp.html">Richard Nixon, touted the nation’s prosperity</a>. But, Kennedy said: “He hasn’t been to West Virginia. He hasn’t seen the thousands of miners who want to work and can’t find work.”</p>
<p>Having witnessed suffering in coal towns, Kennedy made fighting poverty a priority. His <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/27/jfk-west-virginia-coalfields/3235311/">first executive order</a> authorized a new <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-fdrs-food-stamps-to-trumps-harvest-boxes-the-history-of-helping-the-poor-get-enough-to-eat-91813">food stamp</a> program. The first American to receive this government benefit was an unemployed West Virginia coal miner.</p>
<p>In May 1961, Kennedy signed a law to <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHA-026-002.aspx">stimulate the economy in areas with high unemployment</a>. He said that the head of the new agency had already investigated “the problem in West Virginia and … in eastern Kentucky, southern Illinois, and parts of Ohio” – all coal-mining areas.</p>
<p>When Lyndon B. Johnson became president, he declared an “<a href="http://www.lbjlibrary.net/collections/selected-speeches/november-1963-1964/01-08-1964.html">unconditional war on poverty</a>,” which would include “a special effort in the chronically distressed areas of Appalachia.”</p>
<p>On a subsequent “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VyZ_vKuY-M">poverty tour</a>,” LBJ traveled to the “roots of Appalachian poverty in Martin County, Kentucky,” where people suffered, according to a White House film, because of the “losses in the coal mining industry.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0VyZ_vKuY-M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">LBJ visited Kentucky and West Virginia on a ‘poverty tour.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Work ethics and whiteness</h2>
<p>Conservatives attacked the <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-we-lose-the-war-on-poverty-35313">war on poverty</a> before it even began. Attorney General <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=msu.31293105729549;view=1up;seq=330">Robert Kennedy</a> had a tense exchange at congressional hearings with William H. Ayers, an Ohio Republican, who claimed that “any set of standards” for benefits eligibility would mean there would not “be any white people in it.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215669/original/file-20180419-163975-11lb1ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The West Virginia Coal Miner statue, located outside the state capitol in Charleston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2015631767/">West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conjuring up the image of noble unemployed coal miners helped protect these new policies. Robert Kennedy replied that if Ayers visited West Virginia, he would find many eligible white people.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=msu.31293105729549;view=1up;seq=338">Rep. David Martin</a> expressed his belief that antipoverty programs would stifle “individual initiative,” the attorney general asked the Nebraska Republican, “Have you ever talked to the coal miners of West Virginia and told them what they needed was individual initiative?”</p>
<h2>The ‘war on coal’</h2>
<p>Lately, coal industry executives – like the poverty warriors of the 1960s – are harnessing the power of the out-of-work miner in the public’s imagination, but for different reasons. </p>
<p>By the 1990s, companies increasingly used <a href="http://wvupressonline.com/burns_bringing_down_the_mountains_9781933202174">mountaintop removal mining</a>, a method of surface mining that uses high explosives and massive 20-story-tall draglines. Mechanization like this decreased <a href="http://www.wvminesafety.org/historicprod.htm">coal employment in West Virginia</a> from a post-World War II high of more than 120,000 to about 14,000 by 2000. </p>
<p>Furthermore, a growing number of people living near surface mines complained about the dust clouds, water pollution and flooding and demanded new regulations.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-coal-mining-declines-community-mental-health-problems-linger-60094">Studies of Appalachian mining</a> areas have found elevated levels of toxic pollutants near mine sites as well as higher rates of mortality and lower health-related quality of life.</p>
<p>Sociologists <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2009.00004.x">Shannon Elizabeth Bell and Richard York argue</a> that as coal employment decreased and protests against ecologically destructive practices increased, the industry intensified its public relations campaigns. In 2002, the West Virginia Coal Association created a group called Friends of Coal. The group held rallies in Charleston and Washington, D.C., to make miners and their families more visible to lawmakers. The organization framed regulations as threats, according to Bell and York, to “men’s status as the sole breadwinners.”</p>
<p>After Barack Obama’s 2008 election, the West Virginia Coal Association said that by imposing environmental regulations on the industry, his administration was waging a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-coal-industrys-rhetorical-playbook-66260">war on coal</a>,” rhetoric that conservative politicians soon adopted. While the War on Poverty promised government programs to help miners through temporary unemployment, the “war on coal” framing cast government as the cause of their joblessness.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yr5vmjsrXlo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s ‘war on coal’-themed campaign ads.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trump administration</h2>
<p>By 2014, <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/473895061747695616?lang=en">Trump was pushing the myth</a> that the Obama administration’s regulations, rather than automation and competition from other energy options like <a href="https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/what-killing-us-coal-industry">cheap natural gas</a> were solely responsible for coal industry job losses.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"473895061747695616"}"></div></p>
<p>Two years later, Trump’s transition team vowed to end this supposed war on coal by slashing regulations. Less than a month after he took office, he signed a House resolution that reversed an Obama administration rule designed to protect streams near mining operations. The next month, when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2017/03/29/trumps-interior-department-says-the-war-on-coal-is-officially-over/#eda97d63d270">ended Obama’s moratorium on coal-leasing on public lands</a>, he said it was a “signal that the war on coal is over.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-track-record/index.html">Scott Pruitt</a>, Trump’s EPA chief, had repeatedly sued the EPA during his time as Oklahoma’s attorney general for what he called “overreach.” As EPA administrator, Pruitt has publicly questioned the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/epa-chief-scott-pruitt.html">the extent to which humans contribute</a> to climate change, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/revoking-clean-power-plan-means-sides">echoing industry executives</a>. He has also loosened regulations on coal ash disposal and said he wants to revoke <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/coal-industry-supporters-celebrate-epa-repeal-clean-power/story?id=50389885">the Clean Power Plan</a>, Obama’s attempt to limit greenhouse gases – steps the coal industry had urged.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.register-herald.com/news/officials-voice-support-of-repealing-clean-power-plan-in-west/article_53241beb-3fcc-5cdb-80cf-7f258c1d5ea8.html">Coal executives are praising</a> what the National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich calls a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-jobs/exclusive-trumps-coal-job-push-stumbles-in-most-states-data-idUSKBN1F81AK">regulatory reset</a>,” but their industry has <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES1021210001">gained at most 1,400 jobs</a> since Trump took office.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the administration has proposed cutting programs to help coalfield communities <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-policies-will-harm-coal-dependent-communities-instead-of-helping-them-82632">diversify local economies and clean up abandoned mine lands</a>, failed to address the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lung-disease-on-the-rise-5-questions-answered-91637">growing black lung crisis</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-confirms-trump-s-controversial-pick-lead-mine-safety-n821081">appointed a coal CEO</a> with a poor safety record to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration and ignored the government’s promise to <a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/gazette_opinion/columnists/john-david-promises-for-tomorrow-still-overlooked-gazette/article_271f3cd4-f6fb-5dcd-9a8d-895d01ba70ce.html">fund miners’ pensions</a>. </p>
<p>While I do believe that miners are brave and hard-working, I am concerned that the White House appears to be taking advantage of Americans’ sympathy for out-of-work miners to justify rolling back regulations. And despite the American obsession with this idealized image, coal miners still face an uncertain future in real life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lou Martin is affiliated with the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum and is an honorary member of United Mine Workers of America, Local 1440. He has also done some advocacy work in opposition to mountaintop removal.</span></em></p>In the abstract, this near-mythic figure represents bravery, hard work and manliness.Lou Martin, Associate Professor of History, Chatham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/916372018-02-16T11:41:49Z2018-02-16T11:41:49ZBlack lung disease on the rise: 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206620/original/file-20180215-131032-1ufco25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coal miner Scott Tiller works next to a drill in an underground coal mine roughly 40 inches high in Welch, West Virginia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Divided-America-American-Moments/1a2120a4c93045849281476fcbf7a72c/88/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: An <a href="http://dx.doi.org/0.1001/jama.2017.18444">article</a> published Feb. 6, 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that researchers from the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/">National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health</a> had identified 416 cases of advanced black lung disease among coal miners in central Appalachia. New cases of black lung had been rare until recently, but this study suggests that the incidence is rising. Anna Allen and Carl Werntz, professors of occupational medicine at West Virginia University who treat miners with black lung, explain what causes this disabling disease.</em></p>
<h2>1. What is black lung disease, and what causes it?</h2>
<p>Underground mining is <a href="https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/osar0012.htm">one of the most dangerous occupations</a> in the United States. Risks include inhaling toxic gases, such as methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide; being crushed by roof falls or mining equipment; drowning when tunnels fill with water; and injury in fires and explosions. Even if miners survive the workplace, they may suffocate to death years later.</p>
<p>Surface and underground mining is associated with two pneumoconioses, or dust diseases of the lung. Black lung disease, also known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, comes from inhaling coal mine dust. The other disease, silicosis, is caused by inhaling silica dust from crushed rocks. Black lung and silicosis often appear together because coal seams are found between rock layers that contain silica.</p>
<p>When miners inhale dust, it deposits along their airways. Their bodies try to remove the dust by sending in special white blood cells called <a href="https://askabiologist.asu.edu/macrophage">macrophages</a> to engulf and chemically digest it. But the cells are unable to break down the dust, so they die and release enzymes that damage lung tissue. This causes problems that include chronic bronchitis, emphysema and fibrosis (scarring). In progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe version of black lung, scarring causes lung volume to shrink, further damaging adjacent lung tissue and making air exchange even worse.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206607/original/file-20180215-131003-1tx9xsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coal worker’s lungs, with black pigmentation and fibrosis due to inhalation of carbon pigment and silica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/8Ur4Ao">Yale Rosen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Miners typically work 10 to 12 hours a day and up to seven days a week. This increases their exposure time and decreases the recovery time their bodies need to heal damage from silica and coal dust particles. Traditionally, black lung was associated with miners who had been working for at least 20 years, with symptoms often appearing after retirement. The recent trend is that black lung, including progressive massive fibrosis, is occurring after a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044371.html">shorter time in mining</a> – as little as five years mining underground. </p>
<h2>2. Are you surprised by the large case cluster described in the JAMA article?</h2>
<p>The “hot spot” described in the JAMA study is in parts of western Virginia, southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. This area includes three of the federal <a href="https://www.msha.gov/about/program-areas/coal-mine-safety-and-health">Mine Safety and Health Administration</a> enforcement districts – areas where the agency inspects coal mines and investigates accidents and complaints from miners.</p>
<p>We see patients in Morgantown in north-central West Virginia and Cabin Creek in south-central West Virginia. We have noticed increased severity of disease in patients in the southern part of the state. During our first year, from June 2016 to May 2017, working in Cabin Creek providing federally authorized black lung exams, the incidence was 16 percent for black lung and about 6 percent for progressive massive fibrosis. In contrast, the same exams in our Morgantown clinic found black lung in less than 3 percent of cases, and only a few progressive massive fibrosis cases in four years.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206611/original/file-20180215-131013-273uc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1974 progressive massive fibrosis affected nearly 3.5 oercent of coal miners with 25 or more years of underground mining tenure. Rates dropped precipitously under new protective rules but have since rebounded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4710586/#r7">Environmental Health Perspectives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. What do you think could be causing more cases of black lung disease?</h2>
<p>The increase is likely the result of several factors. Much of the coal in the area of the JAMA study is so-called “low coal,” with seams that are only 20 to 36 inches high. This “low coal” is hard to mine but profitable because it is metallurgical coal, which has high value for steel production.</p>
<p>Manufacturers stopped producing shorter machines designed for mining “low coal” in about 1990 due to quality control problems. Now mines use taller machines designed for seams that are 32 to 36 inches high. As these machines cut coal from the seam, they must remove at least 12 to 16 inches of sandstone adjacent to the coal.</p>
<p>Cutting that much sandstone significantly increases miners’ exposure to silica dust from the crushed rock. Newer machines also cut through coal and rock much more quickly than older models, generating more dust. Generally, what we call black lung is primarily silicosis in a coal miner, so <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6549a1.htm">silica exposure is significant</a> to the development and progression of disease.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6AYZG5n2VUA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In this video a longwall mining machine can be seen spraying water to control dust.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Working in “low coal” also involves more physical effort than mining “high coal.” Crawling and stooping while carrying mining gear and operating equipment requires more physical effort. Miners breathe more heavily and frequently, which can increase dust exposure. And it is hard to keep air flowing smoothly through these smaller mines, so dust concentrations may be higher in some spots.</p>
<h2>4. What does the coal industry do to prevent black lung?</h2>
<p>Screening is available to current miners through the federal government’s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/cwhsp/cwhsp-xray.html">Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program</a>, which uses x-rays to detect early changes in the lungs. This information is shared with miners so they can decide whether to continue working in coal mining, but is kept private from their employers.</p>
<p>The main way to prevent black lung is to keep miners from inhaling dust. After <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/07/10/155981916/black-lung-rule-loopholes-leave-miners-vulnerable">20 years of debate</a>, recent changes in federal law <a href="https://arlweb.msha.gov/endblacklung/docs/summaryEffectiveDates.pdf">decreased the allowed exposure</a> from 2.0 milligrams per cubic meter of air to 1.5 milligrams. Continuous personal dust sampling has also been implemented so that miners can have real-time data on their exposures. This information is then used to determine whether a mine requires more frequent inspections.</p>
<p>To decrease dust exposure, mine operators can spray water to knock dust out of the air, increase air flow in tunnels to move dust out more quickly, or require miners to wear respirators. </p>
<h2>5. What resources are available for miners who may have black lung?</h2>
<p>Black lung diagnosis can be complicated. Some of the most common symptoms include shortness of breath, decreased exercise tolerance, chronic cough, coughing up phlegm and inability to breathe lying flat. Other diseases can cause similar symptoms, so it is important for miners to talk to their primary care doctors. </p>
<p>Some states have workers compensation programs that offer benefits to workers diagnosed with black lung. The Federal <a href="https://www.dol.gov/owcp/dcmwc/">Black Lung Program</a> provides medical coverage for eligible miners with lung diseases related to pneumoconiosis, along with benefits for those who are totally disabled by it, and for families of miners who die of black lung disease.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206601/original/file-20180215-131016-mrmlv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobile unit for providing coal miner health screenings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/NIOSH_Mobile_Health_Screenings_%2816027817612%29.jpg">NIOSH</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no cure for black lung disease – we can only treat symptoms. Medications, such as inhaled steroids, can help patients breathe more easily. More severe cases can require oxygen and possibly lung transplants. One step patients can take is to stop smoking, which also destroys lung tissue. Smoking does not cause black lung, but it can make the symptoms more severe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Allen, MD, MPH, is the Associate Residency Director of West Virginia University Occupational Medicine, which is funded by NIOSH. She is currently working on a NIOSH funded project assessing PAPR usage in the healthcare setting. She is also on the board of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, which has advocated for worker safety and health. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and should not be attributed to WVU or other affiliated organizations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Werntz is a part-time employee of the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health, although he has not been involved with any of the research mentioned in this article. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</span></em></p>A recent study found the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever recorded among coal miners in central Appalachia. Two doctors who treat black lung patients explain how miners contract it.Anna Allen, Associate professor of Occupational Medicine, West Virginia UniversityCarl Werntz, Associate Professor of Occupational Medicine, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/863442018-01-16T21:21:21Z2018-01-16T21:21:21ZThe “Pitmen painters” of England and Japan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191802/original/file-20171025-25546-1fkv5yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting by Sakubei Yamamoto.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://heritage.unesco.or.kr/mows/sakubei-yamamoto-collection/">Yamamoto Family/Collection Yamamoto Sakubee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Curiously, despite its dangers and mysteries, the subterranean world of coal mines has been a subject of interest to a number of great artists, including
<a href="http://www.vangoghaventure.com/francais/chrono/borinage.html">Vincent Van Gogh</a>, <a href="http://art.famsf.org/th%C3%A9ophile-alexandre-steinlen/la-sortie-de-la-mine-19633010285">Theophile Steinlen</a>, <a href="http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/oeuvres-commentees/sculpture/commentaire_id/industrie-337.html">Constantin Meunier</a>, <a href="http://www.centriris.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=621:lucien-jonas&catid=90:peintures-et-dessins&Itemid=37">Lucien Jonas</a> and Manuel D'Rugama, whose magnificent <em>Genesis Minero</em> (1979) adorns the city hall of El Oro de Hidalgo in Mexico. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186033/original/file-20170914-9003-ysmbg5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>El Genésis Minero</em>, by Manuel D'Rugama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GeneisMineroRucal.JPG">Thelmadatter/Wikimédia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even more intriguing, despite the difficult and exhausting lives that the miners led, a few of them found the inspiration and strength to depict their world in paintings. Some of their works have even made it into museums, both in Britain and in Japan.</p>
<h2>Miners and self-taught painters</h2>
<p>A notable example of what is now known as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/oct/27/arts.artsnews">Ashington group</a>. Its story began in 1934, when the miners’ union in the small Northumberland town asked the local Workers’ Educational Association – an adult-education organisation founded in 1903 – to find them a professor of economics. As none was available at the time, the association instead suggested evening classes in “art appreciation” for workers who wanted to “improve themselves”. </p>
<p>The instructor was Robert Lyon, a professor at King’s College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and an artist himself. He began by showing his students – most of whom lacked any significant knowledge of art – the works of the great Renaissance artists. He then decided to apply the principle that “anyone can paint”, and suggested that the miners choose the subjects of their own pictures.</p>
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<p>In the small house that served as a classroom, the apprentice painters brought their work each week to discuss it with their fellow classmates. These manual labourers, most of whom had never touched a brush to canvas before, were soon hooked. Thanks to the patronage of art collector <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/10/geometric-abstraction-exhibition-whitechapel-gallery-london-malevich-black-square">Helen Sutherland</a>, they were able to travel to London, where they visited the Royal Academy of Art and the Tate Gallery and met with renowned artists. By 1936, the miners’ paintings, exclusively showing aspects of their daily lives, were exhibited in Newcastle, London and Edinburgh. In the 1970s their works were even displayed in China and Germany, and the pitmen painters were the subject of newspaper articles as well as radio and TV programs. </p>
<p>All the paintings of this small group of self-taught artists are now kept in the <a href="http://www.experiencewoodhorn.com">Woodhorn Museum</a> in Ashington. The collection includes works by founding members John Dobson and John F. Harrison, as well as Oliver Kilbourn, probably the best known of all. His series <a href="http://i2.thejournal.co.uk/incoming/article4369119.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/8624DE71-946C-357A-DC6444474A0F36CF.jpg">“My Life as a Pitman”</a> was exhibited in Nottingham in 1977.</p>
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<p>This story of the extraordinary encounter between a group of coal miners and art gave rise in 1988 to an illustrated book by art critic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Feaver">William Feaver</a>, <em>Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934-1984</em>, as well as to a <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/author/william-feaver/">play of the same name</a> that premiered in Newcastle in 2007. It later ran in London at the National Theatre, on Broadway in 2010 and in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2011. The play was written by Lee Hall, best known for the film <em>Billy Eliot</em> (2000) – the story of the son of an English miner who, to the surprise and despair of all in his manly environment, becomes ballet dancer. A French version of the play was presented in Switzerland and France, most recently at the <a href="http://sortir.telerama.fr/evenements/spectacles/les-peintres-au-charbon,223559.php">Théâtre 13 in Paris</a>.</p>
<h2>In Japan as well</h2>
<p>The life and work of Sakubei Yamamoto (1892-1984) are both more unexpected and even more extraordinary than those of the Ashington pitmen. From the age of 7 or 8 he worked as a <a href="https://www.mindat.org/glossary/trammer">“trammer”</a>, hauling ore and materials in the mine, became a hewer at 15 and finally night watchman when he became too old to go down into the mines. Yamamoto worked for more than half a century for almost 20 different mining companies, mostly located in the Fukuoka region, which was on the northern tip of Kyüshü Island, the southernmost of the Japanese archipelago. </p>
<p>As a child he loved to paint and draw, and only returned to his pencils and brushes in 1957, when he was over 60. At the time Japanese mines were closing one after the other, and he was able to tell the story of the coal miners at the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912) and in the first decades of the 20th century.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186410/original/file-20170918-8275-6mplcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sakubei Yamamoto.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He was a prolific artist, turning out some <a href="http://marukanososhi.blogspot.fr/2011/09/yamamoto-sakubei-peintre-des-mines-de.html">700 paintings</a>, mostly watercolours, 45 notebooks of traditional ink drawings, and about 50 manuscripts, notably annotated newspaper articles concerning mining disasters. <a href="http://www.y-sakubei.com/english/paintings/index.html">The collection</a> testifies to the brutality of the mining life, the poverty of the workers and their families, their personal lives, customs and superstitions, and their struggles for a better life. It is now preserved in <a href="http://www.crossroadfukuoka.jp/en/event/?mode=detail&id=4000000001095">Tagawa History and Coal Museum</a>, founded in 1983 on the site of a former mine near Fukuoka.</p>
<p>In 1963, Sakubei Yamamoto’s drawings and their accompanying texts were published by the Coal Mines of the Meiji and the Taisho Eras Publication Committee. While their circulation was modest, an educational program aired on Japanese television in 1967, <em>A Life, a Mountain of Rubble</em>, and two volumes on his paintings were published in 1973. All this contributed to the worldwide recognition of this extraordinary artist and his work: In 2011, it was added by UNESCO to the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/fr/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/">Memory of the World Register</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Cooper-Richet ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Throughout the centuries, a number of coal miners have documented their lives with paintings. Some of their works are now in museums and bring the stories of the “pitmen” back to life.Diana Cooper-Richet, Chercheur au Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) – Université Paris-Saclay Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/761192017-05-31T02:09:25Z2017-05-31T02:09:25ZWhat rural, coastal Puerto Ricans can teach us about thriving in times of crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171529/original/file-20170530-23707-vm9jgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man fishing from a dock in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Puerto Ricans are searching for solutions to the island’s worst economic and social crisis in a long time. </p>
<p>An unprecedented debt level is creating widespread uncertainty about employment and the state’s ability to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/us/puerto-rico-insolvency-business-owners-anxiety.html?action=click&contentCollection=DealBook&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article">provide basic services</a>. This crisis is not going away <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-debt-bankruptcy.html">anytime soon</a>, but solutions may be closer than we think.</p>
<p>As cultural anthropologists, we have spent more than a decade studying how people’s everyday lives relate to <a href="http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/handle/10724/23117">larger social and economic processes</a> and have documented the <a href="http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI3180227/">negative effects</a> of inequality. In doing so, we have also witnessed people in Puerto Rico who “refuse to play by the rules” of capitalism. Some <a href="http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/modernidad/the%20otherwise%20modern-trouillot.pdf">scholars</a> have even argued that <a href="http://libreriaisla.com/el-arte-de-bregar-ensayos-2113.html">Caribbean peoples are experts</a> at living with and resisting the negative effects of modern capitalism because it was there that one form of capitalism was <a href="http://sidneymintz.net/caribbean.php">first tested</a>. Beginning in the 18th century, Caribbean sugar plantations were <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674066212">early models for factory labor management and capitalist trade</a> with the European metropolis.</p>
<p>People on the rural coasts of Puerto Rico are forging good lives without necessarily accumulating material wealth and climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Examining the lives of those who have been “left behind” by the mainstream economy may provide examples of how to live well in troubled times.</p>
<h2>Diversity in times of instability</h2>
<p>Working in a salaried full-time job with a single employer can be a good strategy for survival in times of abundance and stability. However, it comes at the expense of reduced flexibility and resiliency under <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Evolution_in_Changing_Environments.html?id=EsNMDQEACAAJ">conditions of scarcity and uncertainty</a>. People who are poor and live in rural areas, such as many coastal Puerto Ricans, have long relied on <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220389808422553">diverse</a> <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1563_reg.html">livelihoods</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Occupational_Multiplicity_in_Rural_Jamai.html?id=rMWNoAEACAAJ">income streams</a> to adapt to prolonged scarcity and uncertainty.</p>
<p>Puerto Ricans occasionally combine formal and informal labor with taking advantage of benefits offered by the state. Take Juana, a single mother and lifelong resident of Arroyo, Puerto Rico whom we interviewed for a <a href="http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/contentgroups/center_international_human_rights/PR%20Self%20Determination%20Conference%20(Final)%204-12-16.pdf">2016 study</a>. Because our interviews are usually carried out under agreement of confidentiality, we use pseudonyms instead of interviewee names.</p>
<p>Until retiring, Juana worked on and off as a temporary clerk in a local hospital. When she was out of work, she babysat children of working mothers in her community. Now, Juana often barters produce from her small fruit and vegetable garden with neighbors for their labor: for example, a mechanic who fixes her car. One of her nephews, whom she babysat as a kid, is a spearfisher who provides a few fish or a lobster for Juana’s fridge. Juana said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I do not want or need for anything. I often have more than I know what to do with.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Public art depicts the cultural importance of fishing for a coastal town in Puerto Rico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Lloréns</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Central to these arrangements is investment in community relationships by <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Moral_Economy_of_the_Peasant.html?id=qu5KUdN_rDkC">gift-giving, bartering and sharing expertise</a>.</p>
<p>In our work, we have documented repeated instances in which people <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01532.x/abstract">gave away valuable goods</a>, like fresh fish or shellfish, instead of holding on to them or selling them to accrue wealth. <a href="https://app.box.com/s/65t6moiyoxebzr7r68k0">A recent study</a> found that more than 90 percent of fishers around Puerto Rico’s southeast coast routinely separate part of their catch for giving to family, friends or neighbors in need. They choose to invest in community <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Gift/">relationships and solidarity</a>. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=b5WDDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=keeps+no+accounts+because+it+implies+a+relation+of+permanent+mutual+commitment&source=bl&ots=18LhUi6RQm&sig=eSvQ_JGlSHwAZwMquF_B2h1OSFg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj37NS5k6zTAhUBH2MKHasVAR0Q6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=keeps%20no%20accounts%20because%20it%20implies%20a%20relation%20of%20permanent%20mutual%20commitment&f=false">kind of reciprocity</a> occurs in communities where people recognize that their well-being depends on that of others, rather than on undependable labor markets.</p>
<h2>Leaning on community</h2>
<p>In Puerto Rico, as in other places such as New England, fishers tend to have relatively low incomes but <a href="http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her152/pollnacpoggie.pdf?q=poggie">high cultural significance</a> in their communities. Fishers hold an iconic image as independent workers who engage in an adventurous and arduous lifestyle to provide for their communities.</p>
<p>A fisher from Salinas, Puerto Rico explained that he wanted to provide an honorable occupation for his grandson and grandnephew.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Who will employ these kids if I do not? I hardly ever pay to fix my boat, my engine, or my nets. People fix them for me, because I bring them food. Many times I give fish away for free or on credit, and I also provide employment for community members.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These communities often have centers that organize initiatives for residents such as community gardening, solar power, home improvement workshops and summer camps for about 100 children. In 2016, Carmen, the current president of a community board in Salinas, Puerto Rico, told us about their summer camp: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We charge a monthly five dollar fee per child. We recruit volunteers to offer workshops for the children. We get free breakfast and lunch through the Department of Education. Otherwise, we fund the camp with our own money and donations from local businesses. Members of the community board of directors and parents help staff the camp.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When we asked why she felt that hosting the children’s summer camp is important, Carmen answered: “We are a ‘poor’ community, but when we pool our time and resources we are able to offer the children a good summer camp and teach them good values.”</p>
<h2>Lessons from the margins</h2>
<p>The idea with <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.3998/jar.0521004.0071.201">these examples</a> is not to glamorize poverty or lack of access to income. Instead, our work points out that people have exercised their agency in such situations by learning to outmaneuver “the game” by changing the rules and goals so that they stand a better chance to win. </p>
<p>People living in the hinterlands of the modernizing world have long realized the undependable nature of working in industries such as pharmaceutical, energy and corporate tourism, where jobs come and go with economic cycles. Local workers are often the last hired, the first fired and have the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.1992.19.1.02a00040/full">lowest-paying, more hazardous jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is time to look to people who have been deemed outcasts or “backwards” – Caribbean rural fishers and farmers, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Estuarys-Gift-Atlantic-Cultural-Biography/dp/0271019514">mid-Atlantic fishers and pine tar harvesters</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/us/beyond-coal-imagining-appalachias-future.html?_r=0">Appalachian farmers and coal workers</a> – to understand how they have created rich lives in the margins of the mainstream economy. Perhaps we can apply their strategies for our own survival in these turbulent times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos G. García-Quijano has received research funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Sea Grant. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilda Lloréns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At society’s margins, people without access to the mainstream job economy are able to carve out lives rich in other resources and community.Carlos G. García-Quijano, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandHilda Lloréns, Faculty in Anthropology, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766732017-04-26T16:45:40Z2017-04-26T16:45:40ZMine wars: The struggle for coal miners’ health care and pension benefits comes to a head<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166820/original/file-20170426-2834-tijo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">United Mine Workers members rally in September on Capitol Hill for benefits for retired miners that are at risk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/Search?query=coal+miners&ss=10&st=kw&entitysearch=&toItem=15&orderBy=Newest&searchMediaType=excludecollections">Jose Louis Magana/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump repeatedly expressed <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/07/trumps_three_messages_for_pa_i.html">his support for coal miners and their communities</a>. Voters in the country’s old mining regions of Appalachia rewarded these promises with <a href="http://wvpublic.org/post/trumped-coal-s-collapse-economic-anxiety-motivated-ohio-valley-voters">overwhelming electoral support</a>. </p>
<p>Yet on Friday, April 28, more than 22,000 retired union coal miners in seven states whose former companies went bankrupt over the past few years were going to lose their <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/02/25/517181428/benefits-in-jeopardy-for-retired-coal-miners">health care benefits</a> because Congress has been unable to agree on a permanent or temporary fix to funding their health benefits. Then Congress <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/99">gave the miners one more week</a> of coverage until May 5.</p>
<p>The situation is a repeat of the one coal miners were confronted with just <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/02/25/517181428/benefits-in-jeopardy-for-retired-coal-miners">four months ago</a>. Unable to find a permanent solution in December to a shortage of funds to pay health benefits to these retired miners, Congress settled on a temporary compromise. </p>
<p>The situation serves as a harbinger for further troubles for coal miners and their health care and pension benefits. Moreover, the situation could point to troubles ahead for other union-run pension and health care plans.</p>
<p>I study health care policy at West Virginia University. With close to <a href="http://wfpl.org/shafted-dark-future-possible-miners-kept-lights/">30,000 retired union coal miners</a>, West Virginia, a state already suffering from the dramatic changes in the coal industry, would be particularly negatively affected by the failure to find a solution to this issue.</p>
<h2>The changing fortunes of the coal industry</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166821/original/file-20170426-2834-1vgfege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Coal miners in Pennsylvania in April listen to Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Pruitt-EPA-Coal-Mine/5fc044a5dff84a12ba4cb565f85bc2a1/4/0">Gene Puska/AP</a></span>
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<p>At the heart of the current situation is an agreement between the federal government and the United Coal Miners of America dating <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=flr">from 1946</a>. Faced with a series of strikes across different industries in 1945 and 1946, President Truman, in line with a long line of federal interventions in the coal industry, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00236566508583968">took control over the nation’s coal mines</a>. The conflict was ultimately settled by the <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=flr">Krug-Lewis Agreement</a> of 1946 which, among other things, established health care and pension benefits for union miners.</p>
<p>For several decades, with a large number of union miners contributing to the funds, the health care and pension trust funds were adequately funded although several decisions strained resources <a href="http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/government-intervention-coal-mining-seven-decades-ago-no-justification">from the very beginning.</a> Over time both union trust funds have started to incur a <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">structural deficit</a> for a variety of reasons.</p>
<p>For one, employment in the coal industry has been shrinking steadily over the past few decades, from more than 850,000 in the 1920s to about <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CEU1021210001#0">50,000 at the end of 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, of those miners remaining, a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060052929">vast majority are not union miners</a>. As a result, there are only about 10,000 union coal miners left to pay into these funds, while roughly 12 times as many are currently drawing health care and pension benefits. </p>
<p>The Great Recession aggravated the situation. Faced with mounting obligation and declining sales, some of the nation’s largest coal companies <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-coal-bankruptcy-trump-2016-12">declared bankruptcy</a> and shed their obligations to their former employees.</p>
<p>As result, both health care and pension benefits are <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">no longer financially sustainable</a> without government intervention, potentially affecting <a href="http://wvmetronews.com/2016/10/07/thousands-of-retired-miners-widows-receive-letters-announcing-end-of-health-care-benefits-unless-congress-acts/">120,000 retired miners and their families</a>.</p>
<h2>Was there or was there not a federal guarantee?</h2>
<p>There is a debate on the nature of the original federal commitment. The question is whether the federal government made a permanent commitment to coal miners and their families, as the <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/journal/the-promise-of-1946/">United Mine Workers of America</a> argue. Ultimately, this would entail the federal government serving as a payer of last resort should coal companies and unions be unable to sustain their financial commitment to coal miners.</p>
<p>Others, like the <a href="http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/government-intervention-coal-mining-seven-decades-ago-no-justification">conservative Heritage Foundation</a>, have argued that the intervention by the federal government was merely temporary. Moreover, they <a href="http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/government-intervention-coal-mining-seven-decades-ago-no-justification">argued</a> that the UMWA has repeatedly violated the agreement and pushed for changes that accelerated the current funding crisis.</p>
<p>Unquestionably, the issue is complex. However, the evidence seems to favor the former interpretation as the agreement was repeatedly reaffirmed by the federal government (for example, through the Coal Act of 1992 and the Coal Act of 2006). </p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=5985B318-98BB-4157-9656-365FAEF1FA82">Dole Commission put it</a>: “The UMWA Health and Retirement Funds is as much a creature of government as it is of collective bargaining … In a way, the original Krug-Lewis agreement predisposed, if not predetermined, the system that evolved.”</p>
<h2>Current legislation: Health care and pension benefits</h2>
<p>Over the last couple of years, legislation has been <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1714">repeatedly</a> introduced to provide for a permanent resolution to the looming insolvency of the coal miners’ health care and pension trust funds. Most recently, the Miners Protection Act of 2017 (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/175">S.175</a>) introduced by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia seeks to make up in shortfalls in both funds.</p>
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<span class="caption">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/national-harbor-md-march-6-2014-180961292">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>The effort has found large bipartisan support in both chambers, yet was held up by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell has <a href="http://ohiovalleyresource.org/2017/01/24/competing-bills-on-miners-benefits/">repeatedly opposed shoring up the pension fund</a>. Instead, he and several other conservatives are merely willing to provide funding to address the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/176/all-info">health care funding shortages</a>. </p>
<p>Intervention by the federal government is not without cost. The <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52233">Congressional Budget Office has scored</a> a previous version of the bill and pegged direct spending at US$2.2 billion for the health care trust fund and $1.4 billion for the pension trust fund over 10 years.</p>
<h2>What if Congress does not act?</h2>
<p>If Congress fails to act, the most immediate impact will be on the 22,000 miners whose health care benefits are set to expire. These are so-called “orphaned” miners because their companies have declared bankruptcy over the past several years. </p>
<p>These miners would become eligible for Medicaid or subsidized ACA marketplace coverage at a cost of $500 million for the federal government and another <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52233">$110 million for states over 10 years</a>. Others are eligible for Medicare. However, costs to individual miners would unquestionably increase, potentially significantly so.</p>
<p>More importantly, the <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">long-term viability of UMWA trust funds</a> for all union miners and their families is at stake. While the threat to miners’ health care benefits is immediate, the projections for the pension fund have indicated that it will also fall into <a href="http://umwa.org/news-media/press/umwa-board-told-dire-conditions-retiree-health-care-pension-plans/">insolvency within the next few years</a>.</p>
<h2>Other legislation affecting coal miners</h2>
<p>In addition to the issue of solvency of miners’ health care and pension benefits, miners’ health and safety could potentially be affected by a number of other legislation currently under consideration in Congress.</p>
<p>For one, a <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ148/pdf/PLAW-111publ148.pdf">little-known provision</a> in the Affordable Care Act greatly facilitated access to black lung benefits for coal miners and their spouses. Repealing the ACA would roll back these benefits, although <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1912">other legislation </a>addressing the issue has been introduced. It would also affect eligibility for many miners with regard to Medicaid and the ACA marketplaces. </p>
<p>Moreover, the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act of 2017 (S. 854 and H.R. 1903) seeks to improve mine safety and miners’ health. While not addressing the immediate insolvency issue, it holds the potential to reduce health care costs for future retirees.</p>
<h2>Latest developments</h2>
<p>Worried coal miners and their families on Friday April 28 gained another, albeit <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/99">temporary reprieve</a>, when Congress extended their health care benefits for another week until May 5. Proponents of a permanent fix hope that the issue will be resolved as part of a larger bill addressing the looming government shut down. That means a permanent resolution of the miners’ pension issue seems to become less likely.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"857604537003200512"}"></div></p>
<p>President Trump also finally weighed in public on the issue, on <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/857604537003200512">Twitter</a>, blaming Democrats for threatening miners’ health care. However, the face of the efforts to protect coal miners’ benefits has been Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). In addition, while bipartisan, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/175/cosponsors">majority of co-sponsors of the Miners Protection Act in the Senate are Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>More information has became available about an amendment being prepared by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA). The proposal would extend the federal contribution to miners’ health care benefits beyond those miners whose companies have gone bankrupt, the so-called “orphans.” Instead, it would burden the federal government with the health care costs of miners for currently profitable companies at a <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2017/04/20/unionized-miners-retirement-bill-gop-health-care-costs/stories/201704200094">cost of another $2.5 billion over 20 years</a>, on top of the original $2.2 billion. </p>
<p>The United Mine Workers of America and Senator Manchin have come out <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tim-murphy-coal-measure_us_590260a0e4b02655f83b2ee6">in opposition to the measure</a>.</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Coal mining is one of the most dangerous professions in our society. Even when able to retire, coal miners walk away from their profession with significant <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18049995">health impairments</a> and <a href="https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-7954-9-16">shorter life expectancies</a> than most other Americans. </p>
<p>Although the role of coal in American society has diminished for decades, the federal government has long recognized its importance for this country’s economic development. The <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/297020-senate-panel-passes-bill-to-rescue-coal-miners-pension-plan">bipartisan support</a> for the Miners Protection Act, guaranteeing both health care and pension benefits, in the often-polarized U.S. Congress is indicative of this recognition. However, so far <a href="http://ohiovalleyresource.org/2017/01/24/competing-bills-on-miners-benefits/">Republican leadership in Congress</a> has stood in the way of a permanent fix.</p>
<p>It is time to find a lasting solution for coal miners, their families and their communities.</p>
<p><em>This is an update with new details to an article originally published on April 26.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon F. Haeder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Coal miners are often romanticized in our society and held up as examples of hard-working Americans who deserve our respect. In reality, many retired miners could get the shaft this Friday.Simon F. Haeder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.