The company reported Francisco was working alone at the time of the roof collapse and that 45 other miners were then in the mine.

In its preliminary report, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) said Francisco was killed after a 15-foot-long rock fell on him. The report said no other miners were injured in the roof fall. MSHA will release its final report in the coming weeks, which will be available to the public.

One week later, on December 30, Canterbury closed the DiAnne #2 mine, citing "low productivity" and "bad geological conditions." The company refused to say how many will lose their jobs because of the closing. As late as October the company had plans to expand the mine by 16,000 acres and was waiting for approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Canterbury Coal is the ninth largest underground mining company in Pennsylvania. It employed 138 miners. The closing comes in the wake of recent closings of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) mines in the same coalfields.

These mines were owned by Consol Energy, the largest underground coal company in the United States. With the closing of Canterbury, some 1,000 coal miners have been thrown out of work in the past two months. This is a huge blow to this largely rural area where mining has been a mainstay for decades.

An emergency meeting of the Pennsylvania Coal Caucus, composed of 52 state legislators, will meet on January 5 in Indiana County to discuss the recent layoffs.  
 

'We're all fired'

"I'm fired. We are all fired." one young miner told a Militant reporting team at the mine portal December 30. He said this was his first job.

The miners went into work that day with no information on the closing and very little on the death of their coworker. One miner said that when they got ready to go underground they were told that the mine was closed and they were without jobs. Other miners on their way out of the mine stopped by to explain their anger in being told by the company that they were not even entitled to the 60-day notice law.

The law requires companies to give 60 days notice before closing. They said they didn't accept the company's word on this and were going to go and find out if they could do something about it.

One miner explained he was on strike at this mine in 1985 and 1990. In response to the closing, this miner said, "This is not over." Canterbury broke the UMWA at this mine in a long strike in the mid-1980s and has run the mine nonunion since then.

The death of Robert Francisco was the 33rd mine death in the coal mining industry in the United States in 1999. According to MSHA, 11 miners were killed during September and October. The federal agency called it a "dramatic increase in mining fatalities." Twenty-nine miners were killed in mine accidents in 1998.

Diana Newberry is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees in Pennsylvania.  
 
 
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