Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel Page A
Authors: Studs Terkel
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roastin’ ear on it. But in the next ten years you’re gonna see good farm land that’ll be bought up by the coal companies. You’re gonna see some good topsoil move because the companies are gonna pay prices. They’re gonna get this coal.
There’s ground that doesn’t look too good now, but that’s all gonna be changed. The companies are makin’ the money to go and do this. They’re gonna level it. I can take you to a place right now where they’re throwin’ banks up eighty feet high. They have tractors up there running twenty-four hours a day and it’s leveler than my yard. That ground is in much better shape than it was before it was turned over.
Don’t misunderstand me. For years these things went on and the companies have been at fault. Hell, they’re just like you and me. They done got the gravy, and when they have to go puttin’ it back, it’s just a dead cost to them. But hell, they can afford to do it, so there’s no problem. They’re gonna do this. I’m no operator, I’m a workingman, but I don’t think it’s fair to the industry for this kind of talk to go on.
There’s a lot of things I don’t like about my work. I’ve never really appreciated seeing ground tore up. Especially if that ground could be made into something. I think about it all the time. You tear somethin’ up that you know has taken years and years and years . . . and you dig into rock. You get to talkin’ about the glacier went through there and what caused this particular rock to come out of the bank like it does. You see things come out of that bank that haven’t been moved for years. When you see ‘em, you have to think about ’em.
“Only about fifteen percent of strip miners are veterans. See, in 1954 mining industry was dead. Hell, everybody quit burnin’ coal. Everybody went off to gas and oil. Coal mines were dead. Then in 1954 we had a few power plants that started bringin’ it back. Up till the last three years, your natural gas people consumed that tremendous rate. They don’t have natural gas hardly to last a century. All right, look at your oil. The cheapest thing in this world right now is coal. This is for heat, light, anything. So now coal minin’s boomin’. From the time we got our last contract three years ago, companies were gettin’ three dollars a ton for coal power plants. Now they’re gettin’ six, six and a half a ton. And they’re not even diggin’ their coal out.”
You go on a piece of equipment and say it’s worth ten million, fifteen million dollars. You don’t expect people to go out there and take care of that for thirty or forty dollars a day. If you got that kind of money to spend for equipment . . . it just doesn’t add up. I make more money than anybody at the mine. Still and all, they don’t have the responsibility I have. The difference is maybe eight, ten dollars a day between what I do and the men down there. All he has to do is get his bucket and go to work and come home. But if I don’t uncover the coal, nobody’s gonna work.
Aw no, I don’t feel tense. I’ve been around this stuff ever since I was a kid. I started working a coal mine when I was in high school back during the war. I started in the laboratory and then went to survey. These are company jobs. A miner is a UMW man. I don’t think there’s a union man that wants to see the ground torn up.
I don’t think anybody’s gonna say their work’s satisfyin’, gratifyin’, unless you’re in business for yourself. I don’t think you’re satisfied workin’ for the other person. But I make a good livin’ at it. I’ve been offered better jobs. But I’ve got a year and a half to go, I’ll have my pension time in. Then I’ll go company-wise. I entertain the idea of being an operator, put it that way.
HUB DILLARD
A lower-middle-class suburb south of Chicago. It is a one-family brick dwelling with a two-car garage in the rear. “This one next door is a contractor. The fella across the
There’s ground that doesn’t look too good now, but that’s all gonna be changed. The companies are makin’ the money to go and do this. They’re gonna level it. I can take you to a place right now where they’re throwin’ banks up eighty feet high. They have tractors up there running twenty-four hours a day and it’s leveler than my yard. That ground is in much better shape than it was before it was turned over.
Don’t misunderstand me. For years these things went on and the companies have been at fault. Hell, they’re just like you and me. They done got the gravy, and when they have to go puttin’ it back, it’s just a dead cost to them. But hell, they can afford to do it, so there’s no problem. They’re gonna do this. I’m no operator, I’m a workingman, but I don’t think it’s fair to the industry for this kind of talk to go on.
There’s a lot of things I don’t like about my work. I’ve never really appreciated seeing ground tore up. Especially if that ground could be made into something. I think about it all the time. You tear somethin’ up that you know has taken years and years and years . . . and you dig into rock. You get to talkin’ about the glacier went through there and what caused this particular rock to come out of the bank like it does. You see things come out of that bank that haven’t been moved for years. When you see ‘em, you have to think about ’em.
“Only about fifteen percent of strip miners are veterans. See, in 1954 mining industry was dead. Hell, everybody quit burnin’ coal. Everybody went off to gas and oil. Coal mines were dead. Then in 1954 we had a few power plants that started bringin’ it back. Up till the last three years, your natural gas people consumed that tremendous rate. They don’t have natural gas hardly to last a century. All right, look at your oil. The cheapest thing in this world right now is coal. This is for heat, light, anything. So now coal minin’s boomin’. From the time we got our last contract three years ago, companies were gettin’ three dollars a ton for coal power plants. Now they’re gettin’ six, six and a half a ton. And they’re not even diggin’ their coal out.”
You go on a piece of equipment and say it’s worth ten million, fifteen million dollars. You don’t expect people to go out there and take care of that for thirty or forty dollars a day. If you got that kind of money to spend for equipment . . . it just doesn’t add up. I make more money than anybody at the mine. Still and all, they don’t have the responsibility I have. The difference is maybe eight, ten dollars a day between what I do and the men down there. All he has to do is get his bucket and go to work and come home. But if I don’t uncover the coal, nobody’s gonna work.
Aw no, I don’t feel tense. I’ve been around this stuff ever since I was a kid. I started working a coal mine when I was in high school back during the war. I started in the laboratory and then went to survey. These are company jobs. A miner is a UMW man. I don’t think there’s a union man that wants to see the ground torn up.
I don’t think anybody’s gonna say their work’s satisfyin’, gratifyin’, unless you’re in business for yourself. I don’t think you’re satisfied workin’ for the other person. But I make a good livin’ at it. I’ve been offered better jobs. But I’ve got a year and a half to go, I’ll have my pension time in. Then I’ll go company-wise. I entertain the idea of being an operator, put it that way.
HUB DILLARD
A lower-middle-class suburb south of Chicago. It is a one-family brick dwelling with a two-car garage in the rear. “This one next door is a contractor. The fella across the
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