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My grandpa told me stories about working at the mines when he was 8 years old, alongside his brother. The mine would hire young boys like that to pick through the slate piles to find stray coal bits. Once in a while a boy would be killed because he didn’t get out of the way of the slate drop in time. He never smoked a day in his life, but he died from lung cancer, probably from all the coal dust he inhaled. He would probably have died decades earlier had he stayed in the mines as an adult. Child labor laws and the unions have saved many lives in that region.The Union.
I should probably add. I am not anti Union and definitely not anti labor. And I understand need for them early in history.
I watch a great piece on early miners in Appalachia that got me thinking a little differently from the opinion I got from a Union boss I used to deal with.