Posted on 07/03/2005 2:29:58 PM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
Cañon City's streets are empty and homes are silhouetted against the gray sky when Zeke Porter sets off for work.
To save on gas, the 24-year-old car-pools with a fellow miner as they drive 60 miles on a one-lane, bumpy trail partly carved out of a sheer canyon wall to reach the Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine. Porter punches in at 6 a.m.
After a 10-hour shift in the millwright shop where equipment is repaired, he punches out and heads back down the mountain to his wife and 1-year-old son. On a good day, he walks through the door by about 6:30 p.m.
This is Porter's routine, Monday through Thursday for the past five years. He is a rare breed: a new generation of experienced, loyal miners whom robust Colorado mining companies are scrambling to recruit and retain.
The state's mining and natural resource sector employed 15,900 at the end of May, the highest in a decade and a 12 percent jump from a year ago. More jobs are on the anvil as new mines are explored and dormant ones are resurrected.
The boom highlights a long-overlooked dilemma: There aren't enough skilled miners in this generation to fill the growing number of jobs.
For one, the handful of trade schools in the state that train electricians, diesel mechanics, heavy equipment drivers and underground maintenance workers can't keep pace with demand.
Mining schools and state universities that pour out hundreds of engineers and geologists each year typically don't offer training in those blue-collar trades.
Also, mining is a lackluster profession. Average salaries of from $68,000 to $87,000 (for coal miners), health benefits, life insurance and vacations are not enough to lure people to this grime-and-dirt work. Never mind that most mines don't even require a high school diploma.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
BTW, welcome to FR.
I see this a marketing problem. I have to believe that they are not getting the word out well enough.
$87 K doesn't sound like a bad wage.
That has got to be a 90 minute commute, minimum.
One way.
Throw in travel costs and per diem and I might have considered a job like this once upon a time...
The nearest town to this mine is Cripple Creek. Cripple Creek and Victor used to be mining towns that go back to the gold rush days, but now Cripple Creek is the second largest gambling town in Colorado. Most citizens would probably prefer a good job indoors in a casino to a mining job outdoors at 9000ft. This is why they have to get people from Colorado Springs, but if you have a good job in Colorado Springs, why take the commute to this mine? I can see why they have trouble finding people.
Nice way to write an article, lead, lead, but never actually point to an answer but don't be surprised if in some time you see a more deliberate column calling for some kind of pro-illegal immigration solution.
We can and we will because we have no choice. There are numerous economic sectors that are facing severe shortages of workers.
The very small percentage of Americans who oppose immigrants for social reasons are standing in the way of a freight train of Americans whose financial survival depends upon the businesses of America being able to continue operating.
The whining of people who claim that they can't find a job because illegal aliens have all of them is beginning to fall on deaf ears as more and more people realize that we are facing a shortage of workers.
Earth First, We'll mine the other planets later!
"The work is good; there's something new and challenging every day," Porter said. "There's a good group of guys to work with."
The turnover was exceptionally high except among "poor White trash or Mexicans" but the wages were good and you eventually wore the insults as badges of honor. the work was hot, hard, dirty and moderately dangerous. However, it held your interest. I worked days pay for 12 years and salary for 13. The mines closed, I retired and look back with fondness at the people I worked with.
I think you've got that one nailed cold. What other solution is there?
When your mine's out of gold, your mine's out of gold.
And when your mine's out of workers, your mine's out of workers.
Don't come crying to the rest of us.
Go down the mine and dig the gold yourself if it's so important to you.
Screw the social reasons.
We are out of room and resources as it is, without stuffing even more people into this country.
The more people you stuff, the more rules, laws, regulations, taxes, police, etc., etc., etc.--the more freedom we lose.
Not at all. We are in desperate need of people to replace the 40 million of us who were aborted.
We have so much production capacity that farmers have to be paid not to grow crops, dairymen have had to destroy their herds, and intact factories lay dormant.
If you feel crowded its only because you have chosen to live in a high density area. That's your decision, not mine.
Tell them to try growing them naturally, without the poison of insecticide and the pollution of nitrate fertilizer and exhaust from combustion powered machinery, then tell me how much surplus crops we have.
If you feel crowded its only because you have chosen to live in a high density area. That's your decision, not mine.
I feel crowded because people want to live on the shore. That's there decision, not mine.
So the fewer the people, the fewer will move here.
And we won't need all those pollution controls and water saving toilets and a million other limits on our freedoms that come from zillions of people living anywhere in America.
More people means less freedom.
That's not an immigrant problem and you certainly can't blame it on President Bush.
It's a population problem: There's only so much good real estate.
The bigger the population, the fewer of us get to live on it.
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