This is a repost of one of my articles from Gideon's Trumpet (http://gideon-macleish.joeuser.com), sharing part of my experience as Miner #43 in American Borate Company's Billie Mine in Death Valley, California:
I know many on joeuser think I'm a walking enigma. And I don't blame them. Many of my thoughts and ideals are seemingly contradictory until you understand how I would go about them. And knowing how I would go about them comes about only as you begin to know me as a person.
So let me tell you about my five months as miner #43.
I moved to this area, and work was incredibly hard to find. The exception is in Vegas, where it's just that many of the jobs are low paying. I received a job offer at the Billie Mine in Death Valley, California...any tourists that have ever been up to Dante's View in Death Valley have seen it; the headframe is a prominent landmark.
Week one consists of the training. It's supposed to be 40 hours: 24 up, 16 supervised down below. It is far less, and the "supervised" time is pretty much cleaning up oil spills in the maintenance shop; there is nobody near you unless word comes down that the MSHA or Cal-OSHA guys are coming.
When you go down, you pray to God you get put on as a driver or a maintenance crew, but they will test you in all areas. The worst job is jacklegging. Jacklegging is taking a sort of large hammer drill and a feed leg with a combined weight of about 100 pounds and drilling into solid rock. There are an air hose and a water hose attached to it, and the "nipper" must handle the hoses and assist the jacklegger. It is hotter than hell (over 160 degree temperatures recorded in the active stopes), and it is extremely dangerous, as you're often working under unsupported rock. It is also unnecessary, as there are machines with canopies that can do the work in a fraction of the time.
In the Billie Mine, only about 25% of the laborers speak any English at all, so those who speak only English are at a horrible disadvantage. This is again extremely dangerous, as you are unable to hear shouted commands, when hearing them might save your life.
My number, 43, was given me because it was the open tag for my shift on the board. There is a large board in the "dryhouse" (where we change and prepare to go down) with hasps for each miner. You flip your hasp to the right when you go down, to the left when you surface. That way, if there's a rockfall, they know precisely how many men are down.
Going down in the cage is an entry into a whole other world. We worked at two levels -- 760 feet and 1120 feet below the surface. A trip to the 760 level takes about two minutes, to the 1120 level, three. A radio intercom system runs throughout the mine and the surface. If an inspector shows up, the men down below are two minutes ahead of them. Machinery is shut down and "red tagged" so that they can tell the inspectors they aren't in use, and the mining tunnels, or "stopes" are closed off. In the one MSHA inspection I witnessed, every piece of machinery was red tagged and every stope was shut off, despite the fact all were in use. Basically, we participated in a lie, because if we didn't we'd instantly lose our jobs, and the majority of men would contradict us to save theirs.
Coming up at the end of the shift is bliss; the feeling of the surface air hitting your face after breathing the stale air of the mine for 8-12 hours is undescribably rich. At first, we worked 4 eight hour days, 1 eleven hour day and 1 twelve hour day per week. Eventually that was cut to 6 eight hour days. We had to drive an hour to an hour and a half in from town, depending on which town we lived in, and there were many days where we'd return home just to sleep for the following day's shift.
We dealt with bosses for whom no job was ever good enough; being yelled at and belittled was part of our daily existence. We took our lives into our hands everytime we went down (by the time I left, I was instructing newbies "it's not IF you'll see rockfall; it's a matter of WHEN and HOW MUCH". We were union, and yet, we weren't even given a single chance to meet with our union representatives; the collective bargaining agreement was approved without one single miner's input. The pay? $9 an hour, with no raises.
This story bears relevance as I have discussions about the working class, and about the unions. The union abandoned us at the mine, and this is a primary reason that I have come to detest unions. This was not a small union either, this was Teamsters. We took our lives in our hands to feed our families (and you can look it up; underground mining is one of the most dangerous professions there is) for a scant $2.25 more than California's minimum (minus state taxes and union dues, of course).
I remain proud, however, to have been miner #43. I did something few dare to do, and I gained an education far beyond my puny paycheck.
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish