If you lived in Mayberry in the 1960’s and you picked up the telephone to make a call, you first talked to Sarah, the switchboard operator. She was never seen, never heard, knew everyone in town, liked to gossip, very often listened in on calls and this amazing woman seemed to always be on the job. No matter the time of day when the citizens of Mayberry used the latest in technology, their interface was Sarah.
Sarah was an early technology wizard, not only responsible for connecting people to each other, but also for making many repairs to the advanced and highly complex equipment under her charge. Sarah, working on the cutting edge, making the world a better place, paving the way! No Sarah, No Bill Gates. Could this be a previously unknown and unpublished photo of Sarah?
Switchboard operators in those early days basically were required to complete the appropriate circuit, connecting electrically, one device to another. It was not considered a job that required high level skills, so the very first ones hired were teenage boys. As you can imagine, it quickly became apparent that this was not the best business strategy due to the propensity of teenage boys to play pranks and be what my mother called a smart aleck. Women became the preferred choice; they were more pleasant and friendly to the customers, less likely to be rude and could be paid as little as 25% of what a man would make for the same job. No brainer.
As the telephone, became available to the middle class, call volume increased dramatically and the job of switchboard operator became one filled with a high level of stress. Operators worked long hours, got few breaks and needed constant and intense focus. By 1940 there were 350,000 operators working for AT&T in the United States. Advances in automatic switching began to reduce the demand for operators to the point that today it is considered an extinct job. I wonder if Sarah had a 401K.
How did Sarah feel as she looked over her shoulder to see the oncoming train of progress barreling toward her quaint little workspace in Mayberry? It must be a very unsettling feeling to know that your employer is devoting extreme effort and resources to make your job obsolete. Sorry Sarah, good luck in your future endeavors. My favorite is, its not personal, its business. Is there anything more personal than your job?
Industries and jobs come and go. Milkman is no longer a job, thanks to refrigeration. Knockers (people that used a stick or shot peas at your window to wake you up) gave way to the alarm clock. The only place I see an elevator operator is at the Titans stadium. Still a job I guess but not enough to be statistically relevant. The typewriter industry is gone altogether as is the one you hear about most, the buggy whip industry. Lawn darts would still be around if not for unnecessary over burdensome governmental regulations; perhaps that is not a good example.
Today the world is changing faster than ever and we should expect many more industries and jobs to be crushed by the same train of progress that made Sarah become a ward of the state. Get a job Sarah! A big one in the news right now is the coal industry. I believe it took center stage because of comments made by both candidates in the recent un-pleasantness we call the 2016 election.
Hillary said this in March of 2016.
“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?”
Uh-Oh. Looks like Hillary is actually driving the train of progress into the coal industry. She spent a good deal of time and energy in the subsequent days trying to explain that one. 45 saw an opening.
“Let me tell you: the miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week and Ohio and all over, they’re going to start to work again, believe me. You’re going to be proud again to be miners.”
Game on! Give the man his due, this is a promise he seems intent on keeping, believe me.
It is fairly well documented that humans have used coal for over 3500 years as an energy source. The early use was primarily fueling fires for metal work and heating. As the industrial revolution took hold in the 19th century coal became the primary energy source for almost all industries and the primary fuel for heating homes and other buildings. America is blessed with an abundance of coal and our country became a major player in the worldwide coal industry. Coal is typically the cheapest energy source available and will remain a part of the world’s energy mix well into the future. This is especially true in the developing world where more expensive forms of energy are out of reach from a cost standpoint. But it will probably never return to its position of supremacy in the energy hierarchy.
Historically, coal-mining jobs in this country have been high paying and secure jobs with good benefits. The kind of job a man could support a family on. This was certainly true after the birth of the United Mine Workers Union. In 1980 the UMW had 160,000 members and in 2005 its membership had fallen to 16,000. Employment in the coal industry peaked in 1923 when there were about 823,000 coal miners in the United States. Oil and gas have been a major factor in the decline in the demand for coal for at least 100 years and with the recent development of fracking the price of natural gas has fallen to new lows. Natural gas has replaced coal as the fuel of choice for electric generation, smelting and other industrial uses. Demand for coal continues on its downward trajectory.
In 2015 six major coal-mining companies filed for bankruptcy, including Alpha Natural Resources, one of the world’s largest coal companies. Currently coal is used to produce about a third of the country’s electricity and this number will continue to fall. Too much coal is already being taken out of the ground and there are numerous stockpiles around the country that are overstuffed and unused. Supply has out stripped demand. A free market calamity.
Just like Sarah, coal miners have watched as machines and technology have transformed their industry and taken their jobs. At the start of 2017 there were only 77,000 coal miner jobs left in the United States with over 60,000 jobs having been lost since 2011.
On Tuesday March 28, 45 signed the Energy Independence Executive Order designed to review the Clean Power Plan. This plan, put in place by President Obama, caps the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted from power plants. Why would we want to reduce job creating greenhouse gases?
Upon signing the order 45 made these heartfelt remarks:
“We love our coal miners, great people, I made them this promise: we will put our miners back to work. Today, I’m taking bold action to follow through on that promise. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal. We’re going to have clean coal, really clean coal.”
The war on coal? I guess Sarah felt exactly the same way. The war on switchboard operators. We had a milkman when my kids were young but I don’t remember there being a war on milkmen. I will ask the elevator operator at the Titan’s stadium if there is a war on elevator operators. Who won the typewriter war?
Between 1900 and 1945 the United States averaged over 1000 coal miner deaths per year for a total of over 90,000. Between 1900-1930 the average was over 2000 per year. Today the numbers are obviously much better with an average of less than 50 deaths per year in the last decade. That is better, but this is still a dangerous occupation. Could this be the real war on coal?
So, here’s my question. Why is 45 trying so hard to save an industry that at best has a dubious future, is dangerous to those involved in it and is currently relying on the slogan “Clean Coal” when we are not even sure there is such a thing? Does this strategy even comport with good conservative principles? Let’s take a ride in the way-back machine to 2008 when President Obama was trying to rescue another failing industry.
Alabama Senator Richard Shelby: “Companies fail every day and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down,”
Arizona Senator Jon Kyl: “They’re not building the right products,” he said. “They’ve got good workers, but I don’t believe they’ve got good management. They don’t innovate. They’re a dinosaur in a sense. “Just giving them $25 billion doesn’t change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning.”
Mitt Romney: “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”
Got it! Republicans are opposed to assisting dying industries. Let the free market run its course, let coal companies fail, something will take their place. By the way, the American auto industry set a sales record in 2016, selling 17.5 million vehicles, breaking the record of 17.4 million in 2015. Good call Mitt, I guess the demise begins after the record setting years.
Whether or not climate change is real will have to wait for another day. But what is clear is that eliminating environmental regulations on the emissions from coal fired plants is in no way going to save this industry or the towns that have suffered as a result in the collapse of demand.
Perhaps a better agenda would be to assist and re-train the coal miners to participate in the 21st century economy. The drawback here is that coal mining pays very well. A miner can make anywhere from $70,000-$90,000. That’s going to difficult to replicate in other industries, but working in solar or wind or becoming a lineman is better that nothing and may have a better future, more security and more opportunity than coal mining.
There is a company in Kentucky called Bit Source that is teaching former coal miners how to write computer code. Here is a link to an article about this company in Bloomberg News. I hope you will read it.
Why can’t we focus on these types of solutions?
I am reminded of a Jethro Tull song.
“Your wise men don’t know how it feels to be THICK AS A BRICK!”
Love to All!