coal

By Kate Dennehy - Lock the Gate Alliance, August 26, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Things are seriously wrong in a state that allows a hard-working woman to be sacked for having a Coal Dust Free Brisbane sign in her car. But that’s happened to Wynnum West resident, Kym Garrick who was sacked from her security officer job at the Port of Brisbane.

Ms Garrick’s sign from the Clean Air Queensland (CAQ ) group says: “Coal Dust Free Brisbane. No extra coal trains. Lids on wagons. Cover stockpiles.”

She lives on the train line along which 150,000 uncovered coal train wagons pass every year travelling through Brisbane suburbs to the port near Wynnum.

“I had the sign in the car because of all the problems we have with coal dust and coal train noise living so close to the line,” she said. “My washing gets coal dust all over it, I and my animals must be breathing in the dust and I had to install water tanks because I need so much water to wash down my yard and vegetable garden.”

Her termination letter, issued on August 6 on Corporate Protection Australia Group letterhead, stated that her employment contract with the Port of Brisbane “has been terminated, effective immediately” because she refused to remove the sign from her car.

Apparently the Port of Brisbane is claiming the sign made Ms Garrick ‘a security risk’.

By Nick Mullins - The Thoughtful Coal Miner, August 23, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Over the past four years we have witnessed an amazing downturn in the coal industry. Mines all throughout Appalachia have closed, leaving thousands of coal miners and their families in dire straits with difficult decisions to make. For as long as the coal industry has existed they have placed the people of Appalachia at the mercy of their booms and busts. Each time coal companies face a choice between decent profits now or leaving the coal in the ground until they can make excellent profits, we know what they choose, and we see what happens to the decent hard working coal miners who have already given so much of themselves to the company’s bottom line.

Had these layoffs come 75 or 100 years ago, they would have hurt, but the blow to mountain families would not have not been nearly as severe. Our ancestors had been weary of becoming entirely dependent upon coal mining wages for their food supply and shelter. They didn’t trust banks. They’d known the bondage placed on them by company script, company stores, and perpetual debt. For many, it was a matter of pride to be without debt, for others it was a source of freedom.

As my grandfather tried to teach us, “It’s your wants that get you in trouble, not your needs.” But theirs was also a different time. When they lived, there were still enough woods to hunt in and run their hogs. The water coming out of the mountain sides and out of family wells was still good enough to drink. Extended families still owned enough land to graze mule teams and a dairy cow, and they could still plant enough food for themselves and sometimes for their livestock. Today, many of the miners being sent home from the coal mines do not have a farm to go home to. They cannot spend their idle time using their hands to provide for their family in the traditional ways. Each day the mail carrier brings another bill, another reminder of the life they’ve been forced to lead at the mercy of “progress.”