These CAC's: Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining
- Thread starter darth frosty
- Start date
I've been saying this since day one
Educating the people that dont want to be educated.
Adapt or die.
I went back to school and might have to do it again. No sympathy for them. When is the last time you went to a full service gas station? How about a blacksmith? Pager store?
The world changes. These dude could be building solar panels or windmills but the oil industry and their cronies keep these idiots lungs black and our air polluted.
I went back to school and might have to do it again. No sympathy for them. When is the last time you went to a full service gas station? How about a blacksmith? Pager store?
The world changes. These dude could be building solar panels or windmills but the oil industry and their cronies keep these idiots lungs black and our air polluted.
There's this fact
European fascism was popular because, for those not persecuted, it was a welfare state
By Sheri BermanMarch 30, 2017
Professor, Barnard College
An analogy is haunting the United States—the analogy of fascism. It is virtually impossible (outside certain parts of the Right-wing itself) to try to understand the resurgent Right without hearing it described as—or compared with—20th-century interwar fascism. Like fascism, the resurgent Right is irrational, close-minded, violent, and racist. So goes the analogy, and there’s truth to it. But fascism did not become powerful simply by appealing to citizens’ darkest instincts. Fascism also, crucially, spoke to the social and psychological needs of citizens to be protected from the ravages of capitalism at a time when other political actors were offering little help.
The origins of fascism lay in a promise to protect people. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a rush of globalization destroyed communities, professions, and cultural norms while generating a wave of immigration. Right-wing nationalist movements promising to protect people from the pernicious influence of foreigners and markets arose, and frightened, disoriented, and displaced people responded. These early fascist movements disrupted political life in some countries, but they percolated along at a relatively low simmer until the Second World War.
The First World War had devastated Europe, killing 16 million people, maiming another 20 million, crushing economies, and sowing turmoil. In Italy, for example, the postwar period saw high inflation and unemployment, as well as strikes, factory occupations, land seizures, and other forms of social unrest and violence. The Liberal Italian governments of the postwar era failed to adequately address these problems. The Liberals’ constituencies—businessmen, landowners, members of the middle class—abandoned them. The country’s two largest opposition parties—the socialist PSI and the Catholic PPI—also offered little effective redress to these basic social problems.
Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party (PNF) stepped into the breach, taking advantage of the failure or ineffectiveness of existing institutions, parties, and elites, and offering a mixture of “national” and “social” policies. Fascists promised to foster national unity, prioritize the interests of the nation above those of any particular group, and promote Italy’s stature internationally. The fascists also appealed to Italians’ desire for social security, solidarity, and protection from capitalist crises. They promised therefore to restore order, protect private property, and promote prosperity but also shield society from economic downturns and disruption. Fascists stressed that wealth entailed responsibilities as well as privileges, and should be administered for the benefits of the nation.
These appeals enabled the fascists to garner support from almost all socioeconomic groups. Italy was a young country (formed in the 1860s), plagued by deep regional and social divisions. By claiming to serve the best interests of the entire national community, it was in fact the fascists who became Italy’s first true “people’s party.”
After coming to power, the Italian fascists created recreational circles, student and youth groups, and sports and excursion activities. These organizations all furthered the fascists’ goals of fostering a truly national community. The desire to strengthen (a fascist) national identity also compelled the regime to extraordinary cultural measures.
They promoted striking public architecture, art exhibitions, and film and radio productions. The regime intervened extensively in the economy. As one fascist put it: “There cannot be any single economic interests which are above the general economic interests of the state, no individual, economic initiatives which do not fall under the supervision and regulation of the state, no relationships of the various classes of the nation which are not the concern of the state.” Such policies kept fascism popular until the late 1930s, when Mussolini threw his lot in with Hitler. It was only the country’s involvement in the Second World War, and the Italian regime’s turn to a more overtly “racialist” understanding of fascism, that began to make Italian fascism unpopular.
Italian fascism differed from its German counterpart in important ways. Most notably, perhaps, anti-Semitism and racism were more innate in the German version. But Italian and German fascism also shared important similarities. Like Italy, Germany was a “new” nation (formed in 1871) plagued by deep divisions. After the First World War, Germany had found itself saddled with punitive peace terms. During the 1920s, it experienced violent uprisings, political assassinations, foreign invasion, and a notorious Great Inflation. Then the Great Depression hit, causing immense suffering in Germany. The response of the government, and other political actors, however, must also be remembered. For different reasons, both the era’s conservative governments and their socialist opponents primarily favored austerity as a response to the crisis. Thus came a golden opportunity for fascism.
Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) promised to serve the entire German people, but the German fascist vision of “the people” did not include Jews and other “undesirables.” They promised to create a “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft) that would overcome the country’s divisions. The fascists also pledged to fight the Depression and contrasted its activism on behalf of the people’s welfare with the meekness and austerity of the government and the socialists. By the 1932 elections, these appeals to protect the German people helped the Nazis become the largest political party, and the one with the broadest socioeconomic base.
When Hitler became chancellor in Jan. 1933, the Nazis quickly began work-creation and infrastructure programs. They exhorted business to take on workers, and doled out credit. Germany’s economy rebounded and unemployment figures improved dramatically: German unemployment fell from almost six million in early 1933 to 2.4 million by the end of 1934; by 1938, Germany essentially enjoyed full employment. By the end of the 1930s, the government was controlling decisions about economic production, investment, wages, and prices. Public spending was growing spectacularly.
Nazi Germany remained capitalist. But it had also undertaken state intervention in the economy unprecedented in capitalist societies. The Nazis also supported an extensive welfare state (of course, for “ethnically pure” Germans). It included free higher education, family and child support, pensions, health insurance, and an array of publicly supported entertainment and vacation options.
All spheres of life, economy included, had to be subordinated to the “national interest” (Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz), and the fascist commitment to foster social equality and mobility. Radical meritocratic reforms are not usually thought of as signature Nazi measures, but, as Hitler once noted, the Third Reich has “opened the way for every qualified individual—whatever his origins—to reach the top if he is qualified, dynamic, industrious, and resolute.”
Largely for these reasons, up till 1939, most Germans’ experience with the Nazi regime was probably positive. The Nazis had seemingly conquered the Depression and restored economic and political stability. As long as they could prove their ethnic “purity” and stayed away from overt shows of disloyalty, Germans typically experienced National Socialism not as a tyranny and terror, but as a regime of social reform and warmth.
There can be no question that violence and racism were essential traits of fascism. But for most Italians, Germans and other European fascists, the appeal was based not on racism—much less ethnic cleansing—but on the fascists’ ability to respond effectively to crises of capitalism when other political actors were not.
Fascists insisted that states could and should control capitalism, that the state should and could promote social welfare, and that national communities needed to be cultivated.
The fascist solution ultimately was, of course, worse than the problem. In response to the horror of fascism, in part, New Deal Democrats in the United States, and social democratic parties in Europe, also moved to re-negotiate the social contract. They promised citizens that they would control capitalism and provide social welfare policies and undertake other measures to strengthen national solidarity—but without the loss of freedom and democracy that fascism entailed.
The lesson for the present is clear: you can’t beat something with nothing. If other political actors don’t come up with more compelling solutions to the problems of capitalism, the popular appeal of the resurgent Right-wing will continue. And then the analogy with fascism and democratic collapse of the interwar years might prove even more relevant than it is now.
Coal is over’: the miners rooting for the Green New Deal
Appalachia’s main industry is dying and some workers are looking to a new economic promise after Trump’s proves empty
Michael Sainato in Matewan, West Virginia
Mon 12 Aug 2019 05.00 BST
Set in a wooded valley between the Tug Fork river and the Mate creek, Matewan, West Virginia, was the site of the 1920 Matewanmassacre, a shootout between pro-union coalminers and coal company agents that left 10 people dead and triggered one of the most brutal fights over the future of the coal industry in US history.
The coal industry in Appalachia is dying – something that people there know better than anyone. Some in this region are pinning their hopes on alternative solutions, including rising Democratic star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
“Coal is over. Forget coal,” said Jimmy Simpkins, who worked as a coalminer in the area for 29 years. “It can never be back to what it was in our heyday. It can’t happen. That coal is not there to mine.”
A coal production forecastconducted in 2018 by West Virginia University estimates coal production will continue to decline over the next two decades. Over 34,000 coal mining jobs in the US have disappeared over the past decade, leaving around 52,000 jobs remaining in the industry, despite several promises made by Donald Trump throughout his 2016 election campaign that he would bring those jobs back.
“A lot of guys thought they were going to bring back coal jobs, and Trump stuck it to them,” said 69-year-old Bennie Massey, who worked for 30 years as a coalminer in Lynch, Kentucky.
The town was at the center of the American labor movement in the early 20th century. At the peak of the coal industry in the 1920’s, about 500,000 minerswere union members. As the coal industry declined, so did union membership, and now the town’s local miners’ union, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1440, consists entirely of retired miners.
Carl Shoupe, a retired coalminer in Harlan county, Kentucky, who worked as a union organizer for 14 years, said people in Appalachia need to start moving away from relying solely on the coal industry as an economic resource for the region.
“What we’ve been doing is trying to transition into the 21st century and get on past coal,” he said.
Those transition efforts are still being impeded by the coal industry, as Shoupe says the majority of property in the area is still owned by coal companies and they have denied his efforts to develop solar panel fields.
The Green New Deal, a resolution proposed by Ocasio-Cortez, calls on the federal government to transform the United States’ energy infrastructure and economy to deal with the climate crisis. The resolution includes a call to create millions of high-wage union jobs through a federal jobs guarantee and a just transition for vulnerable communities.
Republicans – and Fox News – have slammed the proposal. “It’ll kill millions of jobs. It’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm minority communities,” the US president said last month.
Trump wears a coalminer’s hard hat while addressing his supporters at a rally in West Virginia in 2016. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images
Shoupe doesn’t think so. “They have bushwhacked this Green New Deal, told all kinds of lies. For different people in different parts of the country, it means different things,” he said.
Stanley Sturgill, a coalminer for 41 years in Harlan county, Kentucky, explained the Green New Deal would open the door for elected officials to use the plan to render solutions needed in their own communities.
“If it was called the Red New Deal, it would be approved by now,” said Sturgill. “What you’re doing with the Green New Deal is you’re opening the door to infringe on the Republicans’ money and that’s what they’re afraid of. Republicans laugh and say you can’t pay for it. But if you tax everybody what they should be taxed, and I’m talking about the wealthy, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
Sturgill cited the coal companies that receive billions of dollars in annual government subsidies and tax breaks, while hiring expensive lawyers to fight paying black lung benefits to coalminers. “I fought seven years before I got my black lung benefits, and they were hoping I died before getting paid,” added Sturgill.
Thousands of coalminers are currently at risk of losing their pensions. The coalminers’ pension fund is estimated to become insolvent by 2022 as many of the companies that were paying into the fund have filed for bankruptcy. The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund that was founded to provide benefits to coalminers with black lung disease – a progressive diseasethat eventually suffocates sufferers – is also severely underfunded.
On 23 July 2019 about 150 coalminers and miners’ widows visited Washington DC to appealto Congress to pass legislation ensuring these benefits are properly funded. Several retired coalminers who made the trip were unhappy with the response from Republicans, especially the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.
“McConnell came in, never did sit down and said ‘I thank you for being here. I know you’re concerned about your taxes on black lung, I just want you to know we’re going to take care of it,’ and out the door. I said: ‘no he didn’t!’ We drove ten hours to sit with our representatives and talk to them and that’s all we get,” said George Massey, who worked as a coalminer in Benham, Kentucky, for 23 years and has served on the town’s council for 19 years.
“They look at us like we’re something under their shoes. They couldn’t care less about coalminers in south-east Kentucky,” Massey added.
Those sentiments of being discarded by elected officials helped Trump’s promises to bring back coal and “Make America Great Again” resonate with many voters in Appalachia. A substantive amount of political reporting has reinforced these sentiments by dismissingAppalachia as “Trump country”.
“They’re watching their whole livelihood and proud culture disappearing and somebody comes and says ‘I can bring that back for you’ is a powerful message for some, and has a lot to do with holding on to that hope they can keep what they have,” said Adam Malle, an organizer with Southeastern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, a group focused on just economic transition efforts away from extractive industries in Appalachia.
“If we’re talking about a just transition, if these are places used to providing the energy for the country, that’s what we need to do to transition them out. Creating jobs and a pathway to do that is the role that plays,” said Taysha Lee DeVaughan, the president of Southeastern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.
“People identify with the strength and tradition of coalmining. It’s a powerful message. For us in environmentalism, we need a more powerful message, that we’re not going to leave you behind, which is how it feels or has felt going forward.”
Two coalminers hold up souvenirs of their last day of work. Photograph: John Giles/PA
Terry Steele, who worked as a coalminer for 26 years in Matewan and is still an active member of UMWA Local 1440, explained the nostalgic hope behind Trump’s promises are rooted in racism and sexism, while ignoring that the “good old days” where when labor unions were much stronger.
“The good old days you should remember is when we had unions and we could look forward to a future and our kids had a better future,” said Steele. “Now our kids are scared to death of their future. It’s because of greed and everything flowing to the top.”
Steele emphasized the need for renewable energy jobs to concentrate in Appalachia.
“Build something where these people used to work in the mines, and good paying jobs, not having to work three jobs to make what you used to be able to make with one. We want other jobs for our kids to work at,” he added.
Though the coal industry has significantly declined, its historically exploitative practices still persist as coal corporations file bankruptcies that leave workers unpaid, while coal communities are left behind. Several mine sites have even been abandoned with no implemented clean-up. Congress has yet to pass several proposed bills to fund these benefits and clean up projects.
“It’s a racket. Miners are being robbed every day,” said Bethel Brock, who was a coalminer for 32 years in Wise, Virginia. Between 1968 to 2014, an estimated 76,000 coalminers died of black lung disease. He fought coal companies for 14 years to secure his own black lung benefits after he was diagnosed.
“The coal operators don’t care, they just want to take you like a piece of worn out mining equipment and set you out in a field somewhere, that’s their philosophy.”
Brock continues fighting for other miners to receive their benefits in the face of attorneys and coal company doctors who drag out appeals against paying out benefits and intimidate current miners from filing claims.
“We live in a country that tolerates stuff like that,” he said.
Carl Shoupe, a retired coalminer in Harlan county, Kentucky, who worked as a union organizer for 14 years, said people in Appalachia need to start moving away from relying solely on the coal industry as an economic resource for the region.
“What we’ve been doing is trying to transition into the 21st century and get on past coal,” he said.
Those transition efforts are still being impeded by the coal industry, as Shoupe says the majority of property in the area is still owned by coal companies and they have denied his efforts to develop solar panel fields.
The Green New Deal, a resolution proposed by Ocasio-Cortez, calls on the federal government to transform the United States’ energy infrastructure and economy to deal with the climate crisis. The resolution includes a call to create millions of high-wage union jobs through a federal jobs guarantee and a just transition for vulnerable communities.
Republicans – and Fox News – have slammed the proposal. “It’ll kill millions of jobs. It’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm minority communities,” the US president said last month.
Trump wears a coalminer’s hard hat while addressing his supporters at a rally in West Virginia in 2016. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images
Shoupe doesn’t think so. “They have bushwhacked this Green New Deal, told all kinds of lies. For different people in different parts of the country, it means different things,” he said.
Stanley Sturgill, a coalminer for 41 years in Harlan county, Kentucky, explained the Green New Deal would open the door for elected officials to use the plan to render solutions needed in their own communities.
“If it was called the Red New Deal, it would be approved by now,” said Sturgill. “What you’re doing with the Green New Deal is you’re opening the door to infringe on the Republicans’ money and that’s what they’re afraid of. Republicans laugh and say you can’t pay for it. But if you tax everybody what they should be taxed, and I’m talking about the wealthy, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
Sturgill cited the coal companies that receive billions of dollars in annual government subsidies and tax breaks, while hiring expensive lawyers to fight paying black lung benefits to coalminers. “I fought seven years before I got my black lung benefits, and they were hoping I died before getting paid,” added Sturgill.
Thousands of coalminers are currently at risk of losing their pensions. The coalminers’ pension fund is estimated to become insolvent by 2022 as many of the companies that were paying into the fund have filed for bankruptcy. The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund that was founded to provide benefits to coalminers with black lung disease – a progressive diseasethat eventually suffocates sufferers – is also severely underfunded.
On 23 July 2019 about 150 coalminers and miners’ widows visited Washington DC to appealto Congress to pass legislation ensuring these benefits are properly funded. Several retired coalminers who made the trip were unhappy with the response from Republicans, especially the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.
“McConnell came in, never did sit down and said ‘I thank you for being here. I know you’re concerned about your taxes on black lung, I just want you to know we’re going to take care of it,’ and out the door. I said: ‘no he didn’t!’ We drove ten hours to sit with our representatives and talk to them and that’s all we get,” said George Massey, who worked as a coalminer in Benham, Kentucky, for 23 years and has served on the town’s council for 19 years.
“They look at us like we’re something under their shoes. They couldn’t care less about coalminers in south-east Kentucky,” Massey added.
Those sentiments of being discarded by elected officials helped Trump’s promises to bring back coal and “Make America Great Again” resonate with many voters in Appalachia. A substantive amount of political reporting has reinforced these sentiments by dismissingAppalachia as “Trump country”.
“They’re watching their whole livelihood and proud culture disappearing and somebody comes and says ‘I can bring that back for you’ is a powerful message for some, and has a lot to do with holding on to that hope they can keep what they have,” said Adam Malle, an organizer with Southeastern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, a group focused on just economic transition efforts away from extractive industries in Appalachia.
“If we’re talking about a just transition, if these are places used to providing the energy for the country, that’s what we need to do to transition them out. Creating jobs and a pathway to do that is the role that plays,” said Taysha Lee DeVaughan, the president of Southeastern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.
“People identify with the strength and tradition of coalmining. It’s a powerful message. For us in environmentalism, we need a more powerful message, that we’re not going to leave you behind, which is how it feels or has felt going forward.”
Two coalminers hold up souvenirs of their last day of work. Photograph: John Giles/PA
Terry Steele, who worked as a coalminer for 26 years in Matewan and is still an active member of UMWA Local 1440, explained the nostalgic hope behind Trump’s promises are rooted in racism and sexism, while ignoring that the “good old days” where when labor unions were much stronger.
“The good old days you should remember is when we had unions and we could look forward to a future and our kids had a better future,” said Steele. “Now our kids are scared to death of their future. It’s because of greed and everything flowing to the top.”
Steele emphasized the need for renewable energy jobs to concentrate in Appalachia.
“Build something where these people used to work in the mines, and good paying jobs, not having to work three jobs to make what you used to be able to make with one. We want other jobs for our kids to work at,” he added.
Though the coal industry has significantly declined, its historically exploitative practices still persist as coal corporations file bankruptcies that leave workers unpaid, while coal communities are left behind. Several mine sites have even been abandoned with no implemented clean-up. Congress has yet to pass several proposed bills to fund these benefits and clean up projects.
“It’s a racket. Miners are being robbed every day,” said Bethel Brock, who was a coalminer for 32 years in Wise, Virginia. Between 1968 to 2014, an estimated 76,000 coalminers died of black lung disease. He fought coal companies for 14 years to secure his own black lung benefits after he was diagnosed.
“The coal operators don’t care, they just want to take you like a piece of worn out mining equipment and set you out in a field somewhere, that’s their philosophy.”
Brock continues fighting for other miners to receive their benefits in the face of attorneys and coal company doctors who drag out appeals against paying out benefits and intimidate current miners from filing claims.
“We live in a country that tolerates stuff like that,” he said.
Bump
These people are retarded. Industry been shedding job for decades. They have to do something else. 
This is going to get interesting. Although Trump didn't bring the dead jobs back, coal miners kept their jobs steady the last few years. That's said to be ending with lower exports. Just in time for election season folks will be getting pink slips.
Number of jobs around 52,000 right now. Watch that shit the next year. Those numbers stay steady and Trump will trick them again.
This is going to get interesting. Although Trump didn't bring the dead jobs back, coal miners kept their jobs steady the last few years. That's said to be ending with lower exports. Just in time for election season folks will be getting pink slips.
Number of jobs around 52,000 right now. Watch that shit the next year. Those numbers stay steady and Trump will trick them again.
Funny seeing people fight so hard to keep a job that is literally killing them. Then again these same clowns fought the ACA that ensured treatment for black lung.
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WED NOV 1, 2017 / 12:54 PM EDT
Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining
Valerie Volcovici
(Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
"I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal's bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
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Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
"I have a lot of faith in President Trump," Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
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What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation's poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia's coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
"Part of our problem is we still have coal," said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry's main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
EMPTY SEATS
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
"I can't even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office," said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands.
But he knows first the region needs a ready workforce.
Amazon spokeswoman Ashley Robinson said the company the company typically works with local organizations to evaluate whether locations have an appropriate workforce and has no current plans for distribution operations in Western Pennsylvania. Toyota spokesman Edward Lewis said the company considers local workforce training an "important consideration" when deciding where to locate facilities.
SIGNS OF LIFE
For Sean Moodie and his brother Steve spent the last two years working in the natural gas industry, but see coal as a good bet in the current political climate.
“I am optimistic that you can make a good career out of coal for the next 50 years,” said Sean Moodie.
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Coal jobs are preferable to those in natural gas, they said, because the mines are close to home, while pipeline work requires travel. Like Sylvester, the Moodie brothers are taking mining courses offered by Consol’s recruiter, GMS.
Bob Levo, who runs a GMS training program, offered a measure of realism: The point of the training is to provide low-cost and potentially short-term labor to a struggling industry, he said.
"That’s a major part of the reason that coal mines have been able to survive," he said. "They rely on us to provide labor at lower cost."
Clemmy Allen, 63, a veteran miner and head of the United Mineworkers of America's Career Centers, said miners are taking a big risk in holding out for a coal recovery.
He’s placing his hopes for the region's future on retraining. UMWA’s 64-acre campus in Prosperity, Pennsylvania - which once trained coal miners - will use nearly $3 million in federal and state grants to retrofit classrooms to teach cybersecurity, truck driving and mechanical engineering.
"Unlike when I worked in the mines," he said, "if you get laid off now, you are pretty much laid off."
They're rejecting retraining cause they're too old to/fear to learn and most are just stupid basically …. a lot are dead set in their ways also ..... gullible and believe anything ... oh and I forgot .... uneducated
sidebar: fuck the ignorant doofuses that believed Trump, and voted for him ... their world and their money hasn't changed .... yet they're still sucking his dick ... ole country bumpkins …. let them go down with "the Trumptanic"
sidebar 2: copy and paste .... not select all ..... with all the damn advertisements in the post ...
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Yep they're like the 3rd generation hood person who has never been out of their hood. They're living on the dream that they can have it as good as their dad and grandfather but that dream is not realistic. They have never been out of those mountains and the shit they do see on tv scares the shit out of them. Them fuckers are extremely isolated to the world. You know an area is dead when Walmart and shit like that closes. Generations of alcoholism and interbreeding has done them in.
That last sign is, complete fucking fail.
45 did the bait and switch with the steel workers to.
Retired steel worker slams Trump as his town languishes
AT THIS HOUR
President Donald Trump made the steel industry a key focus of his 2016 campaign, but the struggling steel town of Monessen, Pennsylvania, is still waiting for Trump's promises to come true. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich speaks to one retired steel worker who has a message for the President.
Retired steel worker slams Trump as his town languishes
AT THIS HOUR
President Donald Trump made the steel industry a key focus of his 2016 campaign, but the struggling steel town of Monessen, Pennsylvania, is still waiting for Trump's promises to come true. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich speaks to one retired steel worker who has a message for the President.
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Dude …. coalminers ….. even their parents didn't have it good ….. none of those fools even tried to be better in another job field elsewhere …. to them … fucking coalmining ….. goddamn coal mining was as good as it gets … my daddy … and his daddy were proud Murican coal miners ... "Black lungs forever" …. M.A.G.A. !!!
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8 track players are new tech to those fools …. they spend their Saturday nights sitting in the back of their pick up trucks drinking Coors beer, moonshine, skinnin' rabbits/squirrels and saying "Goooolly …looky up there .... there go another one of them there U.F.O.'s"
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You gettin a little too fancy with your Coors beer, sir. We only drink that during the Christmas holiday. We drink Keystone Light year round, sir.
Shit like this reminds me of my pops. He worked at a trophy company back in the late 60s and early 70s. He didn't really have much of an education, because after his dad died, he had to drop out of h.s. and support the family, since he was the oldest. Fast forward to about '76/'77 or so, I started seeing these big ass 3 ring binders with "Ryder" on the cover on our living room table in our apartment, well, pj's actually, and dude would stay up LATE at night studying and going to work the next day. About a year later, he got his CDL and about 2 years after that, we moved into our first house.
I asked him about that years later, and he said, "Son, I realized making trophies wasn't hittin' on shit, and it wasn't gonna get us where we needed to be, so I had to do something different. Bobby Stanley (family friend) was a truck driver, and after talking to him, it sounded like something I wanted to do, so I went for it." My pops ended up retiring after driving for decades, and now has a nice lil' nest egg to sit back on. I say all of that to say this: It's amusing how a "lazy, shiftless black man" in the pj's can see where his dead end job is going, and decides to educate himself on how to do something better for himself and his "3 boys" (what he calls me & my 2 brothers to this day), while the "salt of the earth, hard working American white man" sits around and waits for an unrealistic promise to bring back a dying industry to be fulfilled or a gov't handout, while at the same time, turning down FREE training. White people are all for personal responsibility...until it's THEIR turn to be personally responsible.
I asked him about that years later, and he said, "Son, I realized making trophies wasn't hittin' on shit, and it wasn't gonna get us where we needed to be, so I had to do something different. Bobby Stanley (family friend) was a truck driver, and after talking to him, it sounded like something I wanted to do, so I went for it." My pops ended up retiring after driving for decades, and now has a nice lil' nest egg to sit back on. I say all of that to say this: It's amusing how a "lazy, shiftless black man" in the pj's can see where his dead end job is going, and decides to educate himself on how to do something better for himself and his "3 boys" (what he calls me & my 2 brothers to this day), while the "salt of the earth, hard working American white man" sits around and waits for an unrealistic promise to bring back a dying industry to be fulfilled or a gov't handout, while at the same time, turning down FREE training. White people are all for personal responsibility...until it's THEIR turn to be personally responsible.
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Amen
and props to pops
Smart man right there.
The difference between us and the white people is we never had any expectation of help or felt entitled to shit. Those folks so used to white privilege, they throw fits expecting the government to drop jobs in their laps.
This.
Without the handouts, nepotism, thievery, they’d fall to last place almost overnight.
The best thing Ive read all day!!!
So true.. But you cant tell these zombies that.. A lot of these people still really believe the US is #1!!! And that no longer true, I dont know why people cant see whats going on right in front of their faces!!
This article is a year old, but things havent changed much..
13 ways other countries are leaving the US in the dust
Mark Abadi
Jan. 25, 2018, 8:55 AM
- Technological and social innovations mean things are changing quickly around the world.
- The US is slipping behind other countries in key measures of progress.
- The US trails other nations in areas such as press freedom, passport strength, internet speed, and cost of education.
At the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, US President Donald Trump shared the message that the United States is, and will continue to be, great.
"Will soon be heading to Davos, Switzerland, to tell the world how great America is and is doing," Trump tweeted before he arrived. "Our economy is now booming and with all I am doing, will only get better...Our country is finally WINNING again!"
But in a lot of ways the US is slipping in the world rankings. From the price Americans pay for education to the strength of their passports, there are plenty of ways people from other countries have it better.
Read on to see 13 areas where America has some catching up to do:
Healthcare
While every country does healthcare a little differently, the fact remains that the US is the only wealthy country in the world without universal healthcare coverage.
The US spends about three times as much per capita on healthcare expenditures than other countries with comparable incomes, yet Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in those countries, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The US also leads wealthy countries in preventable deaths. In 2013, 112 out of every 100,000 Americans under 75 died from complications or conditions that could have been avoided with better healthcare, The Times reported.
Social progress
The not-for-profit Social Progress Imperative ranked social progress in 128 countries in 2017 based on three criteria: basic human needs like food, water, and shelter; foundations of well-being such as access to information and environmental quality; and opportunity, including personal rights and freedoms and access to education.
The US came in 18th on the list, while Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland took the first five spots.
Free higher education
The price of college tuition is becoming harder and harder for Americans to afford. Collectively, Americans hold more than $1.3 trillion in student-loan debt.
The daunting prospect of affording college is inspiring some Americans to study in countries with free higher education.
Countries such as Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, and Slovenia all offer free or virtually free college education.
High-speed transportation
High-speed rail is critical to improving a country's economy, boosting productivity, and increasing mobility.
While plans for high-speed transit have been in the works in the US for decades, such a system of transportation is still several years away.
The fastest train in the US, Amtrak's Acela Express, tops out at 180 mph, but its average speed is only 68 miles per hour.
Meanwhile, Japan, France, China, South Korea, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Italy all have trains that regularly push 150 mph.
Internet speed
The US may have "invented the internet," but it lags behind several other countries when it comes to internet speed today.
According to Akamai, an American content-delivery system, the US had just the 10th-highest average internet speed in the world in 2017.
The fastest internet speeds can be found in Western Europe and Asia Pacific: South Korea ranks highest, followed by Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Finland, Singapore, Japan, and Denmark.
Minimum wage
Although some states have set higher benchmarks than federal law requires, minimum wage in the US is $7.25 an hour. That amounts to just over $6 of take-home pay after taxes.
There are six countries where workers take home more than $8 an hour, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Australia tops the list with $9.54 an hour, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, France, and the Netherlands.
Vacation time
The US doesn't offer a federal standard for paid vacation days; instead, it allows employers to decide for themselves.
Most American companies offer about 10 days of paid leave a year, although many workers feel pressured not to use them all.
Kuwait tops the list with 30 paid vacation days a year, followed by the UK with 28, and Austria, the Comoros, Denmark, Djibouti, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sweden offer 25 days apiece.
The US is one of only six countries in the world with no such standard.
Parental leave
The US is also one of the only countries in the world, and the only developed country, that doesn't offer paid leave for new parents, according to Pew Research.
Among developed countries, Estonia leads the way with 87 weeks of paid leave for new parents — that's more than a year and a half. Japan and several European countries — Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, Lithuania, Austria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Norway, and Slovakia — each offer more than a year off as well.
Climate change
When Syria joined the Paris climate agreement in November, it made the US the only country in the world to be left out of the deal.
The absence of the US prompted many world leaders, including France's Emmanuel Macron and the UK's Theresa May, to signal that the US was threatening to give up its leadership position on climate change.
Press freedom
Every year, Reporters Without Borders updates its rankings of press freedom around the world. The US ranks a less-than-stellar 43rd on the list out of 180 countries ranked.
Among the reasons for America's low ranking, according to the organization, were its lack of a federal "shield law" guaranteeing reporters' right to protect their sources, the arrests of journalists covering protests around the country, and attacks on the media and the press lobbed by President Donald Trump.
Norway was rated as having the highest amount of press freedom, followed by Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Jamaica, Belgium, and Iceland.
Passport strength
People who hold a US passport can travel to 158 countries visa-free — a good mark, but not quite the highest in the world, according to Passport Index's annual ranking.
Germany leads the world by this metric, as the German passport allows travelers to enter 161 countries without visas.
Other countries whose passports are stronger than those issued by the US include Singapore, the UK, Denmark, France, South Korea, and 12 others.
Rule of law
The World Justice Project ranked the US 18th in the world in its most recent rule-of-law rankings, judged by criteria like accountability, absence of corruption, respect for fundamental rights, and access to justice.
The top 10 countries were Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK.
Gun violence
When it comes to gun violence, the US is more similar to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean than countries than wealthier countries in Europe and Asia.
The US ranks 31st in the world in gun deaths per 100,000 people, with a rate of 3.85. Singapore and Japan boast the lowest rates, while the UK, Denmark, and Germany are close behind.
A Massive Coal Plant That Asked for Trump’s Help Has Gone Dark
Will Wade,Bloomberg 4 hours ago
(Bloomberg) -- In the end, the unraveling economics of coal proved too much for even a giant among power generators to handle.
At 12:09 p.m. local time on Monday -- after churning out electricity for almost five decades -- the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S. permanently closed, becoming the latest testament to the fossil fuel’s decline. Once a flash point in President Donald Trump’s campaign to save America’s coal industry, the Navajo complex in the Arizona desert will now spend the next three years being dismantled and decommissioned.
The end was a long time coming for the 2.25-gigawatt Navajo plant. Its owners, led by Salt River Project, had initially planned to close it in 2017 but struck a deal with leaders of the Navajo Nation to keep it going for another two years. The facility, which once produced enough power to light up 1.7 million homes, sits on Navajo land in the Four Corners area of Arizona and was a major source of jobs in the region.
Tribal leaders spent years appealing to the Trump administration for help saving the plant, characterizing it as the president’s chance to fulfill his campaign promise to revive America’s Coal Country. The fact that the Interior Department owns a 24% stake in the complex gave him all the more reason to make an example out of it. Then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke vowed to explore all options for rescuing the site.
Cheap Gas
For all its political ties, the Navajo complex proved no match against market forces. The shale boom unleashed record volumes of low-cost natural gas, undermining the economics of coal generators across the U.S. Cheaper and cleaner wind and solar farms also began squeezing the plant’s profits.
Coal, which once supplied more electricity in the U.S. than any other resource, now accounts for less than a quarter of the nation’s mix. Since 2010, power generators have announced the retirement of more than 500 coal-fired power plants with more than 100 gigawatts of capacity, according to government data. A typical nuclear reactor has about 1 gigawatt of capacity.
Salt River Project Chief Executive Officer Mike Hummel described the ultimate decision to shutter Navajo as difficult but necessary.
It would prove to be one of many failed attempts by Trump to help save coal plants.
Last year, his administration’s efforts to subsidize some coal generators supplied by miner and long-time Trump supporter Robert E. Murray fell apart. Murray’s company ended up filing for bankruptcy in October.
In February, the federally operated Tennessee Valley Authority decided to retire an aging coal-fired power plant in Kentucky, despite Trump calling for the utility on Twitter to keep it open.
Read More: Battle to Save a Dying Arizona Coal Plant Goes to Washington
The owners of the Navajo plant -- which also include Arizona Public Service Co., NV Energy Inc. and Tucson Electric Power Co. -- have agreed to make lease payments totaling about $110 million to the Navajo Nation so the site can be decommissioned, monitored and operated as part of the region’s transmission system.
Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, has already shut the Kayenta mine -- on Navajo and Hopi tribal lands -- that supplied the plant.
Salt River said in a statement that it has offered jobs to all 433 of the employees at the Navajo plant. Almost 300 have accepted.
The Navajo plant “will always be remembered as a coal-fired workhorse,” Hummel said in the statement. The complex “and its employees are one reason why this region, the state of Arizona and the Phoenix metropolitan area have been able to grow and thrive,” he said.
(Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority stakeholder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, has committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)
(Adds plant-closing details in sixth paragraph.)
Will Wade,Bloomberg 4 hours ago
(Bloomberg) -- In the end, the unraveling economics of coal proved too much for even a giant among power generators to handle.
At 12:09 p.m. local time on Monday -- after churning out electricity for almost five decades -- the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S. permanently closed, becoming the latest testament to the fossil fuel’s decline. Once a flash point in President Donald Trump’s campaign to save America’s coal industry, the Navajo complex in the Arizona desert will now spend the next three years being dismantled and decommissioned.
The end was a long time coming for the 2.25-gigawatt Navajo plant. Its owners, led by Salt River Project, had initially planned to close it in 2017 but struck a deal with leaders of the Navajo Nation to keep it going for another two years. The facility, which once produced enough power to light up 1.7 million homes, sits on Navajo land in the Four Corners area of Arizona and was a major source of jobs in the region.
Tribal leaders spent years appealing to the Trump administration for help saving the plant, characterizing it as the president’s chance to fulfill his campaign promise to revive America’s Coal Country. The fact that the Interior Department owns a 24% stake in the complex gave him all the more reason to make an example out of it. Then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke vowed to explore all options for rescuing the site.
Cheap Gas
For all its political ties, the Navajo complex proved no match against market forces. The shale boom unleashed record volumes of low-cost natural gas, undermining the economics of coal generators across the U.S. Cheaper and cleaner wind and solar farms also began squeezing the plant’s profits.
Coal, which once supplied more electricity in the U.S. than any other resource, now accounts for less than a quarter of the nation’s mix. Since 2010, power generators have announced the retirement of more than 500 coal-fired power plants with more than 100 gigawatts of capacity, according to government data. A typical nuclear reactor has about 1 gigawatt of capacity.
Salt River Project Chief Executive Officer Mike Hummel described the ultimate decision to shutter Navajo as difficult but necessary.
It would prove to be one of many failed attempts by Trump to help save coal plants.
Last year, his administration’s efforts to subsidize some coal generators supplied by miner and long-time Trump supporter Robert E. Murray fell apart. Murray’s company ended up filing for bankruptcy in October.
In February, the federally operated Tennessee Valley Authority decided to retire an aging coal-fired power plant in Kentucky, despite Trump calling for the utility on Twitter to keep it open.
Read More: Battle to Save a Dying Arizona Coal Plant Goes to Washington
The owners of the Navajo plant -- which also include Arizona Public Service Co., NV Energy Inc. and Tucson Electric Power Co. -- have agreed to make lease payments totaling about $110 million to the Navajo Nation so the site can be decommissioned, monitored and operated as part of the region’s transmission system.
Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, has already shut the Kayenta mine -- on Navajo and Hopi tribal lands -- that supplied the plant.
Salt River said in a statement that it has offered jobs to all 433 of the employees at the Navajo plant. Almost 300 have accepted.
The Navajo plant “will always be remembered as a coal-fired workhorse,” Hummel said in the statement. The complex “and its employees are one reason why this region, the state of Arizona and the Phoenix metropolitan area have been able to grow and thrive,” he said.
(Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority stakeholder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, has committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)
(Adds plant-closing details in sixth paragraph.)
Fuck em.