Vol. 72/No. 25      June 23, 2008

William Hill was killed June 3 at the Myra Coal Mine in Pike County, Kentucky. He was clearing trees when the tree he was cutting down fell and crushed him. Hill was 33 years old and had just started working at the mine the week before.

At the Robinson Run coal mine in Shinnston, West Virginia, Gary Hoffman was killed while operating a locomotive used to haul equipment and workers in the mine. Hoffman, who had 34 years’ experience, was a member of United Mine Workers Local 1501.

Consol Energy, which owns the Robinson Run mine, is one of the largest coal mining companies in the United States. The Associated Press reports the company spent $510,000 in just three months in 2008 for lobbying expenses regarding legislation on “labor matters including mine safety.”

Hoffman is the second miner to die this year while working at a Consol mine. In February, a service technician was electrocuted while working on a mine access road in Pennsylvania. He was 51 years old with only one year’s experience.

A number of this year’s mine deaths have been among younger and less experienced miners. Of the four deaths to occur in the past week, one of them was 18 year-old Adam Lanham who had less than five months’ experience when he was run over by a piece of hauling equipment.

Another was 25-year-old roof bolter Justin Wilkin, who had two years’ experience when he was killed by the fall of a section of the roof at a mine owned by Gibson County Coal in Indiana. Less than a year ago, three others were killed at the same mine while it was under construction.

Brice Watzman, vice president for safety, health, and human resources at the National Mining Association, said in 2004 that over the next five to seven years, half the coal mining workforce will retire and be replaced by newer, younger workers. The newer generations will be confronted with the bosses’ demand for more and more production despite the workers’ lack of experience as the price of coal continues to rise. The price of coal from the Central Appalachian region, for example, has more than doubled in the past year, from $40 per ton in early 2007 to $90 per ton as of this April.
 
 
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