Labor Shortage Pinches Many Western Mines

Rocky Mountain News ^ | 2 July 2005 | Gargi Chakrabarty

[Age of Reason]

certainly can't blame it on President Bush.

What are you talking about? You're confusing me with someone else.

[Clemenza]

My great-grandfather was recruited from Galicia (southern Poland, then part of Austria-Hungary) to work in the mines of Dickson City, PA at the turn of the last century.

[bayourod]

"There's only so much good real estate. "

There's so much land we could quadruple the population and not even notice it. Have you not ever looked out the window of an airplane. Most of this country is unused forest.

[Sonny M]

It's a population problem: There's only so much good real estate.

Thats debatable.

I'll concede, I am biased, I work in real estate (In NYC no less).

As has been pointed out, and numerious times (beyond repetition and almost annoyingly so) you could fit the entire population of the earth (over six billion no less) into an area around the size of texas (if you gave each individual person, man, woman and child indiviudally, around 1,1500 feet to live on or as we call it in NYC, a single bedroom apt, bare in mind, the "texas model" assumes no 2nd floor)

In other words, RE wise, over population is a myth, the entire population of the planet, if it so chose, could live in housing in a area the size of a large US state, without going overboard (over that states lines) sinlge story wise and be just as good to go as now (or better).

[HiTech RedNeck]

Beyond that, mines around the U.S. are often in places where housing is scarce (see coal in WV for example) and they aren't necessarily desirable places. So many factors weigh against that salary.

Housing is scarce but nobody wants to live there. A conundrum.

[anniegetyourgun]

A double whammy!

[Age of Reason]

you could fit the entire population of the earth . . . into an area around the size of texas (if you gave each individual person, man, woman and child indiviudally, around 1,1500 feet to live on or as we call it in NYC, a single bedroom apt, bare in mind, the "texas model" assumes no 2nd floor)

Sing Sing and Alcatraz bested you: they wasted only 70 square feet per person.

Of course, some silly people think concentrating people is how you make a concentration camp.

[Age of Reason]

There's so much land we could quadruple the population and not even notice it.

I've seen the population double in my lifetime, and I noticed it plenty.

I'm talking prime real estate, pal.

You can live in some flat, boring, landlocked desert or flatland hell with the rest of your zillion immigrants if you like, just make sure your pollution doesn't drift over my property.

Seventy square miles of salt-water ocean front property for each person in a climate not too hot and not too cold is my ideal.

When you've run out of land for that, you're overpopulated.

And we've long since run out.

Even before Europeans arrived (driven out of Europe by overpopulation there), the Indians were overpopulated.

And it keeps getting worse.

Have you not ever looked out the window of an airplane.

Funny you should mention that.

Looking out the window during my first plane trip, down the East Coast, was a horrific lesson in how fast seemingly vast natural wilderness can be paved over and built upon.

It was houses all the way down, and it hasn't gotten any less crowded in the decades since.

Most of this country is unused forest.

May what's left of our unused forests ever remain so.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

"Here is a job requiring no education, no skills, and paying $ 87,000 a year - and few want it."

No EDUCATION? No SKILLS? Overpaid?

I dare you to say that, face to face to any miner, let alone a hard rock miner.

Besides being WRONG, it's insulting, and "fighting words".

News to you citizen, "education" doesn't ALL come from a frikkin classroom. Disregarding the traditional OJT in the mines, a miner has alot of knowledge that the world of academia has no frikkin clue of, ie., when do you bar the back?

Ever heard of MSHA? How about OSHA? Do you think certifications are just gratis?

Given that there is ALOT of education required to become an experienced miner, mostly traditional mining knowledge passed on in traditional ways, the job is;

1.) DIFFICULT, talking about it don't get it, you have to DO it. Underground, in the dirt and mud, in the dark, etc. etc., the job is HARD, as few jobs are.

1A.) DANGEROUS, people DIE and are crippled, even though we try our best to be safe, accidents always happen, it's PART of THE JOB of being a MINER. MINES are DANGEROUS PLACES.

2.) The job is always REMOTE. They don't usually put mines downtown.

3.) The job is always undependable, the market goes south miners lose jobs, this is nothing new, it's like fishing or timber. BOOM or BUST is the NORM. You better be an independent sort of person.

Re; immigrants, these folks usually want to work, and they can move up in pay if they become experienced miners or support folks. It is honest work for honest wages and you can work your way up and out if you want to.

(It seems that too many Americans today think "work" means going to some office, and punching a clock, while pushing PAPER all day).

(Well I have news for y'all, that isn't "WORK" in the same sense as mining is).

Try to remember that, "If it isn't FARMED, or FISHED, it's MINED!".

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Please see post #29

[anniegetyourgun]

Yep.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

I guess you have never heard of the State of Alaska? Idaho? Montana? North Dakota? South Dakota? Kansas? Oklahoma?....

"People just aren't into self sufficiency these days."

Really?

[Nov3]

It sounds good.

[mugs99]

Really?

Yes really. I live in a mountain mining community sixty miles from the grocery store. We're losing, not gaining residents.

Those of us who are self sufficient are a diminishing percentage of the population.
...

[Miss Marple]

Hi there! I am married to a mining engineer who started out working as a miner on the night shift in the underground coal mines of Kentucky. He's been out of mining 10 years, but he still misses it.

One thing I am wondering...there are plenty of unemployed coal miners in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. I wonder why no company has thought to recruit from those folks, who could be probably be retrained to hard rock mining pretty easily.

[Sonny M]

Of course, some silly people think concentrating people is how you make a concentration camp.

Well, they are pretty silly people for thinking so stupidly, but their naive should not stop us from facing facts. Silly people who are ignorant can either learn or be ignored.

Note, sing sing and Alcatraz were multistory units, I'm using a single story example.

Its a simple mistake.

That said, people prefer living in cities, which is why they have the most populations, if people choose that style, then complain about over population is akin to claiming there isn't enough food to eat, while fasting intentionally.

That said, there is a huge surplus of prime real estate and land, if people choose to use it, this foolhardy notion of a "land shortage" can finally cease being taken seriously.

Its annoying that people really think there is not enought land or to many people, where does such nonsense come from?

[mugs99]

Many hard rock miners come from there already. Most miners are family men and their wives just don't want to live in the isolated areas where the western mines are.
...

[porkchops 4 mahound]

I am sorry to hear that.

Just remember the rule of thirds.

A third of folks won't do nuthin.

A third of folks don't do nuthin right.

The rest of us make the world work.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

I think that in the past there was a larger pool of itinerant miners who would move around the country to where the next boom was happening.

There were more "small" mines and it wasn't so corporate then, meaning folks didn't freak out if a miner moved around some.

I agree with mugs99, nowadays most miners are family folks who just don't move as often or far.

PS My old man escaped the coal mines of PA just in time to join the Navy just before WW2. He always said he'd made the right choice anyhow. Coal mines, thin seams, methane, and flat backs. Nuthin but fun, sure enough. No thanks. I respect coal miners, but I never had any desire to join them.

[mugs99]

Lol...True!