276 Comments
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Lamashtar's avatar

Its horrifying what people don't know!

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pianoplayer1's avatar

Buggy whips.

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Zyxomma's avatar

The LES Tenement Museum is not far from my home. I'm the granddaughter of a union garment worker. Both my parents were in unions, as was elder sister (until her retirement) and her late husband. I've never been able to find a union job, and right now, I'd take any job that would help keep the roof over my head.

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Zyxomma's avatar

Yum.

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Zyxomma's avatar

Why won't you share? Oh, never mind. I'd rather a silversmith or a goldsmith, anyway.

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Zyxomma's avatar

That's one of the saddest things I've seen today.

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Martini Glambassador's avatar

I've been to the museum. It's amazing to see how people worked and lived back then.

Best of luck on the job search.

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Shananigan's avatar

Come on! Leather aprons...sparks...sweaty biceps. You don't get that with silversmiths and goldsmiths, do ya?

And I would share.

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brucej's avatar

But doncha understand? Solar power is dirty hippie commie power and it gets icky dirty hippie commie all over you when you use it.

REAL 'Murricans roll coal!

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dshwa's avatar

Even before the decline due to automation, price declines in other energy sources, and the move to greener sources, coal mining areas were amongst the poorest in the nation. There's no economic boom for the masses there. There never was.

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Vagenda and Pee-ara's avatar

That's different, because they "earned" it!

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Aquaria's avatar

My grandfather was the last experienced blacksmith in our town. It simply cost too much to keep the forge lit and hot enough for people who needed his services only once every few months, so he shut it down, but didn't break it down. After that, he charged a premium for custom horseshoes for thoroughbred horse breeders. Nearly all of the costs came not from forging the shoes, but from firing up the forge itself.

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Aquaria's avatar

Well, considering that he has a much smaller murder toll than his opponent, yeah, it's clear who's on our side:

http://www.patheos.com/blog...

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Aquaria's avatar

Or the bobbin lace sweatshops?

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Aquaria's avatar

According to the Department of Energy, there are only 74,931 coal workers in the entire US, as of 2014:

http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_em...

Granted, they don't count contract workers at small facilities, so the numbers could get close to 80,000.

But I doubt it.

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Aquaria's avatar

The Craig Nelson defense!

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