Published: May 11, 2008 10:48 pm         

Training key for inexperienced coal miners

BECKLEY, W.V. — The key to unlocking the doors to a job in the financially invigorated coal mining industry appears to start with a T — training.

One other fact can be stated with certainty, according to those in the know — coal mining is simultaneously experiencing a hiring boom and a wave of retirements unlike anything seen in the last two decades.

“Yeah, the boom has already started,” United Mine Workers of America Career Center director Brett Dillon declared without hesitation recently. One business manager of a coal company in Boone County calculated the average age of his workforce is in the mid-to-late 50s.

“The problem is that we went 20 years — a whole generation — and hired very few coal miners. We’ve got a generation there left out. Now we’ve got a lot of miners retiring and nobody to fill their shoes, as far as experience. Companies will have to hire trainees — or red hats — to fill the voids created by the retirements,” Dillon predicted.

To the chagrin of many who seek employment in the industry, most advertisements for job vacancies specify the prerequisite of “experience.” Therein lies the catch-22 question confronted by those trying to get their proverbial foot in the door of any job market — how do you gain experience if no one will hire you and give you that experience?

“You will continue to see ads for experienced miners, but you’ll also see more ads looking for apprentice miners. Just a couple of weeks ago, a company was looking for red hats. We’re starting to see those now,” Dillon observed.

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Training — along with loads of patience and dedication — becomes crucial at that point, said Donnie Coleman, president of Southern Safety Inc. in Sophia. Coleman’s advice is to acquire any training or certification possible for starters.

“After six months of experience on the job (as a red hat), the state gives a certification exam and they can wear (if they pass it) any color (hat) they want. If they can continue their education and get in a 60-hour EMT (emergency medical technician) course offered by the state, that helps them with their resume,” Coleman explained.

“The law requires so many EMTs there. I tell students that if you have five or 10 applicants equally qualified, if one has EMT certification, he comes to the front of the group. That’s a big plus.”

Coleman also encourages would-be miners to get in contact with someone who works in the mining industry as a formal or informal reference.

“There’s nothing better than someone already employed to put in a good word to the boss for you. Everybody knows somebody who works around the mines.”

Southern Safety, as Coleman explained, does 80 percent of its services for the mining industry itself. For instance, coal companies often send their employees to him for training in such areas as electrical work, foreman, annual refresher training and mine rescue.

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The UMWA Career Center in Beckley, in contrast, deals more with those who are looking for work as a coal miner.

The center offers a nine-week training program, which includes both 80-hour apprentice training for underground work and 40-hour surface apprentice training required to start working on a surface mine, Dillon stated.

“We kind of pound safety into their heads,” he said. “It’s a 360-hour training program, total, and we put a special emphasis on safety. We go through the requirements for the 40-hour and the 80-hour training.”

The center, complete with a simulated coal mine, takes its recruits through a sample of what they are in for should their pursuit of a coal-mining job prove successful. Students are taught to build cribs, set timbers and learn to become familiar with the lifeline escape routes.

There are even mock fire and rescue situations. “We have a fog machine to smoke up the mine to where you can’t see your hand in front of you,” Dillon added.

The course is offered on approximately a quarterly basis each year, and Dillon explained that the money comes from a $110,000 grant provided annually by the state and administered by Workforce West Virginia over the last two years.

As long as that funding keeps coming, he said, the course is free for recruits who meet eligibility requirements for workforce certification. For those who don’t, he assured there are other funding avenues that can be explored.

All that’s asked of participants is that they bring their own safety-toe boots and gloves. The center provides them with a hard hat, mine belt and safety glasses.

The program itself is sanctioned by West Virginia University Institute of Technology. Upon completion of the course, Dillon said, graduates receive a certificate from the UMWA Career Center and WVU Tech, along with 36 continuing education units that can be converted toward educational credits at WVU Tech.

Dillon is proud of the center’s success rate. Of the 105 who have graduated from the course in the past year, more than 60 are already working in coal mines. The center is set to graduate a class of about 18 students May 16. The next class is likely to start in July, Dillon speculated.

“We also assist in job placement. We recently met with several coal companies and some contracting firms that furnish workers to mines. We have sent resumes to the officials we’ve met with and had people hired from those. Our graduates are way ahead of the others,” Dillon observed.

“Red hats that come to work don’t know anything compared to what they (his graduates) know. They (the center’s graduates) can read maps, identify different gases and check roof conditions. They know how to work around conveyor belts. As far as being taught, they’ve experienced about every hazard there is in coal mining.”



Matthew Hill writes for The Register-Herald in Beckley, W.Va.