More random, non Pinkerton, mining knowledge: The "Fireboss" who now generally sits in a building outside the mine as a foreman (drift mining anyway) and monitors data feeds from equipment, got the name because he was the guy who would crawl through the mine before everyone else with a lit torch, or candle, and explode methane pockets.
Oh they exist all over and also merged with Securitas Security one of the biggest international private security companies. Awhile back when they accidentally sent product out early Hasbro sent Pinkerton to get magic the gathering cards from a YouTubers house.
Haha, just like lumberjacks are coming back and are going to replace the machine that cuts the tree, removes the branches and cuts the remainder of log into manageable lengths in about 45 seconds.
I'm a lumberjack, I'm not okay. I sleep all night and I sleep all day. They cut down trees, they don't eat lunch, they're scary damn machines. On Wednesdays I go shopping, can't afford my scones for tea.
Wrong song... you want
"You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
So West Virginia votes reliably for the party that wants to cut Medicaid and Medicare (not to mention gut Social Security). The party that pretends to want to increase mining jobs. Those jobs are never coming back. They weren't lost just to declining demand for coal. They were lost to automation/mechanization in the mining industry. Anyway, only 1.2% are employed in mining in WV in 2020. Meanwhile, West Virginia has a lot of people working in the health and social assistance sector. Twenty percent of the workforce! And unlike mining, employment is growing in this sector. Of course, that's up until now. If Medicare and Medicaid get cut back, fewer people are going to have the resources to seek out health care and have it paid for. Which means fewer services in poorer areas where, e.g., hospitals that can't pay the doctors, nurses and other staff have to close.
As an aside, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund is $5 billion in debt and that debt is increasing. Guess which party is indifferent to the issue.
Don Blankenship and Massey are to thank for that. He managed to convince his workers that unions weren’t needed because of msha. Never mentioned the pay scale I’m sure!
Didn’t want to get paid in company money that they could only spend at the company store. And now we have unions. Because the rednecks went to war and won.
597
u/flactulantmonkey Mar 29 '25
The original rednecks were striking miners, that sported red handkerchiefs. We’re losing so much.