1,100 Alpha miners in W.Va. warned of layoffs

[theHandpuppet]

This is the second announcement of major layoffs just this week. At least 200 more in Wise County, VA.

The Charleston Gazette
Thursday, July 31, 2014
1,100 Alpha miners in W.Va. warned of layoffs
By Ken Ward Jr.

Alpha Natural Resources said Thursday afternoon that it has warned 1,100 workers at nearly a dozen West Virginia surface coal mines that they could lose their jobs in two months.

The Bristol, Va.-based company said it had provided layoff notices — required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act — to the employees at 11 mines and associated preparation facilities and support operations in six counties.

Alpha cited “sustained weak market conditions and government regulations that have challenged the entire Central Appalachian mining industry” and a “business environment that’s undergone an enormous and fundamental transformation.”

In a news release, Alpha said its actions “are being triggered by persistent weakness in U.S. and overseas coal demand and depressed price levels, along with government regulations that are causing electric utilities to close coal-fired power plants and forgo new construction.”

- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140731/GZ01/140739825/1419#sthash.1xCUV2SH.dpuf

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Kind of surprised.

I'd been reading about Chinese coal demand quite a bit of late.

Their Congressmen should put together a bill to create some subsidies for any corporation willing to set up wind turbine factories in that area, or wind farms on the flat areas on the mountains already leveled by mountaintop removal to help create new jobs there.

[theHandpuppet]

3. A lot of those contracts with India and China have been cancelled

The bottom has literally fallen out of the coal market. I track the information here:
http://www.eia.gov/coal/news_markets/

Our nation should have been reinvesting in Appalachia for decades but it was not in the corporate interests to do so. The rape of Appalachia has been going on for over a century but as long as folks needed coal, no one gave a damn what it was doing to the land and its people. Even a major investment now in reshaping that economy would take decades to truly come to fruition. In the meanwhile, miners and their families will simply starve and many -- even people who consider themselves progressives -- will say they're getting what's coming to them. It's disgusting.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Good grief what will these families do?

I hope they find work.

Thanks for your post, TheHandpuppet.

Love, Peace and Shelter. Lmsp

[theHandpuppet]

4. They'll starve.

And America won't care.