Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment
Earl Dotter, Photographer
Essay Sections:
Introduction | Town Life | Health Issues and Healthcare | Working at the Mines | Mining and the Environment | Recommended Resources
Photo Essay: Working at the Mines
In the 1970s, Dotter worked in the coalfields as a photographer for the United Mine Workers Journal. In these photographs, he returns to the working lives of miners. Particularly, he documents changes that have occurred since his earlier engagement with these communities. In the first four images, he outlines contemporary economic, technological, and organizational factors that have altered the face of mining in Appalachia. Symbolized by shuttered union halls with poignant graffiti, the decline of UMWA membership undermines worker control over relations with coal companies. Such control is necessary to combat the changing dynamics of power in the labor force. Coal companies employ legal strategies, such as bankruptcy reorganization, to trim down their labor forces and replace career miners with new ones. Many career miners find themselves without jobs and without the pensions and benefits they worked a lifetime to earn. Although the UMWA has taken some measures to fight these company strategies in court, its dwindling numbers render such struggles difficult.
Another factor hurting union membership is the general downsizing of the labor force with the advent of new surface mining technologies that replace a large mining workforce with a smaller group of machine operators. In the Appalachian region, surface mining technologies for mountaintop removal impact the economy most profoundly. Dotter captures these shifts in technology that have diminished the labor force in a series of images about miners in Boone County, West Virginia. The small group of miners posed with their dragline bucket suggests the impact of mountaintop removal technologies. Later images of individuals operating and repairing machinery testify to the decreased number of working miners.
Dotter's images of new technologies also illustrate the advances in mine safety. In his photograph of the miner operating a roof bolting machine, he points out improvements that allow miners more support in the mine and less proximity to coal dust agents. These are step towards healthier working environments. Yet, these advances have not eliminated mining tragedies, such as the 2006 Sago Mine disaster, and their tragic consequences for miners and their families. Through images of disaster hearings, Dotter documents these human losses. Below, Dotter discusses changes in working at the mines.
Another factor hurting union membership is the general downsizing of the labor force with the advent of new surface mining technologies that replace a large mining workforce with a smaller group of machine operators. In the Appalachian region, surface mining technologies for mountaintop removal impact the economy most profoundly. Dotter captures these shifts in technology that have diminished the labor force in a series of images about miners in Boone County, West Virginia. The small group of miners posed with their dragline bucket suggests the impact of mountaintop removal technologies. Later images of individuals operating and repairing machinery testify to the decreased number of working miners.
Dotter's images of new technologies also illustrate the advances in mine safety. In his photograph of the miner operating a roof bolting machine, he points out improvements that allow miners more support in the mine and less proximity to coal dust agents. These are step towards healthier working environments. Yet, these advances have not eliminated mining tragedies, such as the 2006 Sago Mine disaster, and their tragic consequences for miners and their families. Through images of disaster hearings, Dotter documents these human losses. Below, Dotter discusses changes in working at the mines.
Earl Dotter:
Technological advances in mining: One of the things that is quite different is the fact that there are fewer workers in a mine today than when I first went underground in 1973. I see longwall mining operations, and one worker is at the shear — a football field length long machine that traverses the coal face shearing off the coal. There's just one individual and all that coal is spilling onto an automated belt. That's different. Roof-bolting is a much, much more secure job than it used to be because of these machines that hydraulically support the roof where the roof-bolt is being inserted, so the miners are much better protected than they used to be. The continuous mining operator operates the machine with a remote control device further back from the face so he's much less at risk from roof falls as well as from respirable dust. Those are just a few examples. |
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Mining disasters: My picture-taking strategy is to include family members, spouses, and younger children in the tragic settings because they are devastated by these events. I feel that viewers of the photographs have a better way of relating to the loss when they see other family members included in the scene. For instance, the pictures of the family members at the Sago Mine Disaster hearing in 2006 holding pictures of their lost father and showing the grief that overwhelms them. I feel that these photographs should be seen by individuals outside of the community because I want them to have ways to identify with the tragedy. |
Miners' livelihoods: This photo shows the mine-worker community expressing the stress at their livelihood being at risk, and all that represents — healthcare, a decent income, housing. The backdrop is a house that this miner had acquired. It was designed by a program of Yale architects to provide affordable and substantial rebuilt housing for coal field residents in Cumberland, Kentucky. While this miner was still active and working, he was expressing concern about his neighbors' losing their jobs and their homes. |
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The UMWA: The shuttered union hall is symptomatic of the decline of unionized coal mining in Appalachia. It is under siege. The mine workers union, in its entirety of active miners, is the size of a large local of the Teamsters — around forty thousand today. That's ten percent of what it was when I was first involved with the reform movement in the 1970s. So the shuttered local union hall is a profound symbol for the decline of the UMWA. Its viability is mostly in its retirement protections and the health benefits it offer retirees. Significant political support continues those protections, but active miners who are members of UMWA are far fewer today. |
Essay Sections:
Introduction | Town Life | Health Issues and Healthcare | Working at the Mines | Mining and the Environment | Recommended Resources
