Old King Coal. Not so merry.

Coal miners have been around for a awhile. 

Mining is dirty, dangerous work, that doesn't take a lot of education, just mostly muscle and courage. And a desire to take care of your family.
Especially in rural areas where the coal is found, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, to name just a few. Miners generally have a pretty tough life, filthy, back-breaking work, for long hours. As long as the employer can legally require, that's how many hours a coal miner will work.

I just drove through Ludlow, Colorado where an abomination against humanity took place a while back. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre)

Fortunately, thanks to the unions and the incredible war-like struggles that they went through to get the miners a living-wage and some protections, the miners can enjoy a somewhat normal standard of living. A liveable standard, even though these mines tend to be in horrible, back-woods locations where the boom-town economies inflate all the costs that the miners incur. Many of these miners have worked the mines for generations, so much so that it's the only existence that they've ever known, or that they can even contemplate. The job is so ingrained with the life and the culture, that the miners, not only put up with the horrible conditions that the employers thrust upon them, they defend it against all logic and against their own well-being.
The nation should be getting off coal. And petroleum. And Natural gas.

It's obvious. Coal is a dirty source of fuel and mining kills miners through bad and unsafe practices and disease. There are natural, renewable sources of power generation that we can transition into, and these miners can, with very little adaptation, be transitioned into without the loss of any income. These types of energy can, and will, be in the same rural locations where these workers now live. But there's a catch. Isn't there always? The fossil fuel energy companies have powerful and deep-pocketed lobbies that won't allow that to happen.

Workers need to be educated in these things. (another reason that the rich and the corporations are dead-set against any public education) The Politicians and the corporations aren't your friends. They fought against your rights every step of the way and killed countless miners who only wanted to make life better for their families.

Let's get out there and help these people, because by helping them, we help ourselves.
The best way to get even with the Robber Borons, is to make what they stole from us, and our planet, worthless.
Let's do it.
Baby steps...