Coal companies battle for workers as prices and demand rise

Coal companies battle for workers as prices and demand rise

PITTSBURGH - Oct 14 (The Associated Press)

While much of the country struggles with a difficult job market, coal companies are in a heated competition for workers. They're raiding each other's employees, renting billboards and even paying for banner-towing planes at beach resorts with generous offers of pay and benefits.

America is looking for coal miners. Demand for coal is increasing, and some of the biggest energy companies say they desperately need help. Despite the dirty, gritty nature of the work, some people are heading back to the mines, drawn by better pay. But recruitment efforts are still falling short of the companies' hopes.

The labor shortage isn't just a problem today; the real crunch, according to coal producers and the U.S. Labor Department, will occur in five to seven years, when the industry faces a massive wave of retirements.

There is no next generation of miners to replace them, according to Tom Hoffman, vice president of investor and public relations at Consol Energy Inc., the nation's largest underground coal producer.

"For the last 15 years or so, we've been able to reach back into a pool of experienced miners that had been laid off or who had lost jobs through consolidation," Hoffman said. "Those guys are now largely gone, either retired or they got out of the business. We're facing a very big demographic bubble."

The number of coal miners nationwide dropped from 159,777 in 1990 to 99,358 the end of 2003, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. And officials with the National Mining Association testified before Congress this summer that more than half of all coal miners are older than 50 and that replacements for them would have to be found before the end of the decade.

Dozens of mining communities saw much of the next generation of miners leave years ago, when there were few prospects for jobs in areas where coal is mined. Now that coal is in demand because of higher prices for oil and natural gas, Consol and other major producers are already smarting from the labor shortage.

Consol, based in Pittsburgh, told investors production was down in some Kentucky mines because operators could not find enough help. And Massey Energy Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. coal company, said last month its third-quarter profits would suffer due to a labor shortage.

"It is a major issue for us now and the most significant restriction we have to growth," said Katharine Kenny, spokeswoman for the Richmond, Va.-based company. "Not having enough people will prevent us from hitting production goals."

In July, when many coal miners traditionally take vacation, Massey sent airplanes over the resort community of Myrtle Beach, S.C., pulling banners that promised big money and better benefits. Myrtle Beach is a popular vacation spot for miners from West Virginia, said Jeff Gillenwater, who heads Massey's recruitment efforts.

The worker shortage is so pervasive, it has reached into the ranks of state and federal agencies, including the MSHA, which needs employees familiar with mine work. The MSHA has been holding recruiting drives.

"MSHA, like others, including the private sector, is facing a significant challenge of how to replace its current work force as they age and retire," said Dave D. Lauriski, assistant secretary of labor.

Miners who dispersed years ago to places hundreds of miles from the coal fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky are the target of recruitment efforts from Gillette, Wyo., to Charlotte, N.C., Massey's Gillenwater said. Many in the industry believe that most miners who left did so out of necessity, and would return home if they knew coal mining jobs were there.

"They didn't leave their homes because they wanted to," said Bruce Watzman, vice president for safety and health at the National Mining Association. "Many of these guys want to get back to where the family is but unfortunately, a lot of the mining support system has disappeared since the early 1980s."

As mining shrank, a number of college programs that trained foreman, engineers, and inspectors also were cut or were greatly reduced, said Joe Sbaffoni, the director of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Deep Mine Safety. He's now meeting with officials at Penn State University to reopen a mining program at its Fayette County campus in the heart of the state's coal country.

The United Mine Workers Career Centers Inc., which retrains displaced coal miners in several states for other jobs, has just applied for federal funding to begin training new coal miners.

The money to be made mining in rural coal areas far outpaces almost all other jobs in those communities and is already drawing young men back. Many are carrying on a family tradition they had believed was lost with their fathers.

"I'm proud to say I'm a fifth-generation miner ... that's on both sides of my family," said Jeff Samek, 21, of Rices Landing, in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. He's now working for Maple Creek Mining Inc., in Bentleyville, south of Pittsburgh.

Samek had trained as a welder, but the pay and benefits were nowhere near what can be made in the mines, he said.

"We're pretty much writing our own check," he said.

Miners can start at $40,000 to $50,000, but can make as much as $100,000 if they work all the overtime that is to be had.

Earl Lewis, 34, of Crucible, quit his job as an emergency medical technician, and, like his father and grandfather, is now a coal miner. Also working for Maple Creek Mining, Lewis said he's putting away money for the first time in 15 years.

Meanwhile, companies like Consol are stepping up recruiting at colleges for mining engineers and at high schools and at what trade schools remain for foreman or miners.

"This is very good news for areas that for years have had a tough time retaining young people," said Hoffman. "If we can get the message out, I don't know how many more town meetings there are going to be in these communities where the topic is flight."

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