People are not strictly bound to work in coal related jobs for their entire lives. The coal industry will die, and accepting that is necessary. It is not an attack on the people that work these jobs to recognize that. Rather than propping this up, we should be finding new work for people currently in coal related jobs (possibly in alternative energy) so they're not left holding the bag when the inks hits the fan.
True. The middle class got its idea of what coal mining was like from the hit "Sixteen Tons"... that with the hard work and danger one still endured poverty. After hearing that song they wanted to do anything other than coal mining as a career. Of course Tennessee Williams related the conditions before the once-powerful United Mine Workers were able to get collective bargaining and good wages. The mine owners wanted miners' kids to consider coal mining a suitable career, so it had to have adequate pay to compensate for the consequences. The politicians who depended upon the votes of miners and their families could concur with the coal barons that minimal expenditures in public education (why teach kids to be accountants or veterinarians when they might as well work in the mines?) or long-distance roads (why build good roads that allow people to leave for Chicago or Cleveland and seek their fortunes elsewhere?)
People who get jobs as coal miners will be lucky to keep them. But for those who live in Coal Country and never get a job as a miner -- inadequate education might stick one in Wal*Mart or Waffle House. Republicans have been kissing up to the coal barons while kicking the miners.
A parallel is to "Detroit" -- if by "Detroit" one means the Big Three American automakers. OK -- there were four before Chrysler bought out American Motors, five when Studebaker was alive, and six when Packard was making a go of it. But Michigan has better universities than does West Virginia, and the automakers could never make the state fully dependent on automobile manufacturing (Michigan has big agriculture). Auto workers made enough money to send their competent kids to college to become teachers, accountants, and medical professionals, etc. Michigan has a strong tourist trade. Michigan still reels from the decline of the auto industry, but it is doing better than West Virginia and Kentucky from the demise of coal.
Coal is a commodity; one can't really make it better. One cannot extract more once the seams are spent. Automobiles are products that could be improved from the awful gas-guzzlers from the 1970s. Yes, people are keeping their cars longer, so they don't buy or lease cars as often. But the cars that we now have are more economical in space, safer, more comfortable, and more fuel-efficient. Coal mining is still a dangerous industry destructive to the health of those who toil in it. If I had to choose between working in an auto plant and mining coal -- I'd work in an auto plant. That is an easy choice.
People may be adapting better than the politicians and business executives.
