DALLAS, West Virginia — Sen. Joe Manchin understands the importance of actually being there. Places and people can have an effect on someone who has never walked in their shoes, in a way abstract arguments never can.
That’s why he personally escorted Labor Secretary Marty Walsh 1,200 feet beneath the surface of the Earth on a tour of the Ohio County Coal mine on Tuesday afternoon.
“He’s the first secretary of labor that I’ve been able to have in my state,” Manchin said after the two had spent several hours in the mine. “For him to come and spend time and talk to our miners and go into the mine to see the working conditions, how hard they work, the energy they produce for this country for the last hundred years and beyond, it’s unbelievable to have him here.”
The Department of Labor manages both the Mine Safety and Health Administration and benefits for black lung disease.
The mine is located deep in the remote Appalachian ridges, where it is easy to twist back and forth between West Virginia and Pennsylvania over the state line. It is a far cry from the urban construction sites that Walsh candidly admits he is more familiar with. “This is my first time down in the mine, and I have to tell you, I come from a construction industry background. People in construction are hardworking people. What I witnessed today, the workers here are the best in the world,” said the former two-term mayor of Boston, the first union leader to run the department in over four decades.
The labor secretary said that to represent miners, he felt he needed to have some experience firsthand what it was like to work in a mine. “I totally have a complete different appreciation for mine workers here in this country, in this world, quite honestly, because of the work they do every day,” he said.
Walsh explained the Mine Safety and Health Administration gave him a class before he went down. They made sure that he had the proper gear — overalls, boots, straps, helmet, lights, glasses, earplugs, gloves, an emergency pack (if you need it, God forbid), and a walky-talky in case you get lost.
“Going down the elevator, I didn’t know really what to expect. It seemed like going down a basement elevator. We got out, we walked over about 20 feet to the little train, and we went 4 miles out to the long wall.”
“I actually had an opportunity to where I was standing next to the machine that was doing the work, and it’s really incredible when you think about the space down there and the work that the workers do and the pride that they have in their work,” Walsh said.
Walsh added that it really got to him not only to watch them work, but also how they viewed their labor as something beautiful. “There’s a young man down there. He was looking at the wall, watching the wall being chopped, and just looked at me and said, ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ I mean, that’s his career, his life. So, it was a great experience,” he said.
Manchin said that, from his standpoint, the coal industry will survive because the country cannot operate without it. “There’ll be a transition period of time,” he said. “We don’t know when that’ll be, but we’re looking at doing it in a systematic way and not just in an accelerated way because somebody doesn’t like fossil fuels or coal.”
Most of the coal mining and most of the coal consumption in the world occurs in Asia, he added. “One country, China, will have over 2,900 coal mines operating today. They’re going to have over 3,500 within the next two years. We only have 500 in the whole country,” he said. “So, the people that believe that the United States coal industry is polluting the world and the climate — it has no effect whatsoever compared to the impact of Asia.”
West Virginia, once the king of coal, has shed a massive number of coal jobs and workers over the last 10 years for two main reasons. One pertains to the politics of climate change, and the other to utilities replacing coal with ever-cheaper and more abundant natural gas. When the jobs go, so do the people.
It only takes 12 hours for coal coming from that long wall Walsh was standing beside to move down the mine, be processed, make its way to a coal-fired power plant, and light a home or a school or a church by evening.
Walsh said of the coal industry that there are a lot of conversations in this country going on right now, and he praised Manchin for looking out for the industry’s well-being. “President Biden has an energy plan,” he said. “He’s working on an energy plan. It’s important for me to come here, important for secretaries to come here to get an understanding of what this industry is and what this industry means. I know there’s goals and opportunities the president wants to meet, and they’re important goals and opportunities. A lot of people want to meet those goals and opportunities. So, we’re going to continue to have those conversations.”
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At a time when climate change politics have taken on a nearly religious fervor, Manchin said it is important to thank miners for the work they’ve done to keep the lights on and the safety achievements they have made in the wake of mine disasters. “I’ve talked to the miners over the years,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point that basically, the rhetoric coming out of Washington, because they don’t know who we are or what we have done and what we do, they feel like the returning Vietnam veteran. We’ve done every tough job. We’ve taken our orders and done everything you’ve asked us. And now, we’re not good enough. We’re not clean enough. We’re not green enough.”
Manchin is one of the few Democrats in this state to have survived today’s liberal Democratic Party’s move leftward; 10 years ago, when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, every statewide elected office was held by a Democrat. Today, he is the last man standing, and he’s only managed that by distancing himself from his national party’s liberal political brand.
Walsh said his job is to make sure that in some way, shape, or form, he represents the workers in this mine. “By making sure they go to work every day, they earn a living, and they go home at night with their family,” he said. “And that’s some of the things that we can do within Labor, working with the senator, working with the company collectively, so it’s a humbling experience.”
