Safety

Risk of death and injury was a reality that miners and their families lived with every single day. The very nature of the work meant that back injuries and broken bones were a day-to-day hazard. Cave-ins were a constant threat, particularly in operations mining softer coal. A pervasive, long-term health threat came in the form of coal worker’s pneumoconiosis, more commonly known as “black lung,” a respiratory disease that plagued underground miners. Miners who developed the disease suffered from shortness of breath and coughing, and their lungs turned from pink to black. Though mining companies often refused to acknowledge a link between coalmining and “black lung,” miners were fully aware of the dangers posed by inhaling coal dust—oral testimonies and newspaper advertisements yield

evidence of a wide range of home and commercial remedies intended to provide relief. None of these, however, could mediate the long-term health effect of breathing coal dust, and “black lung” remained a pervasive health threat to coal miners through much of the twentieth century. Finally, the most famous threat posed to the health and safety of coal miners was explosion—sparks from pick-axes or falling rocks could ignite pockets of methane gas, killing men instantly and trapping others underground in the resulting cave-in. While the deadliest (and most famous) coal mine disasters in Alberta’s history occurred at Bellevue (1910), Hillcrest (1914) and Nordegg (1941), many other smaller explosions took a terrible toll on the lives of miners in the first half of the twentieth century.

Miners often developed a very stoic attitude about the dangers inherent in the industry. One miner recalled that “if you start to think, today I’m going to get hurt…well, there’d be no one going.” This recognition of danger, however, did not create a sense of passivity among the miners, who organized into unions to push for safer working conditions and stronger government regulation of the industry. The Coal Mines Act, 1906, established a mines branch charged with supervising the industry and required that supervisors be properly certified. The intent may have been good, but the reality of enforcement proved challenging. Insufficient funds were provided for a system that was itself inadequate. The expectation was that each mine would be inspected consistently and without warning, but there were never enough inspectors to surprise all the mines regularly.

Furthermore, the inspectors tended to have close ties to mine management, often being hired directly out of management, and thus reflected the interests of operators rather than of the miners. As well, the interests of operators were driven all too often by the quest for profit rather than by a concern for the safety and welfare of miners, which resulted in situations such as that at West Canadian Collieries in Bellevue, Alberta. An explosion there that killed thirty miners in 1910 has been attributed largely to negligence on the part of both managers and inspectors, although an exact cause was never officially determined, and no criminal charges were laid. The large number of mining disasters in the early twentieth century resulted in some changes to the industry, such as the addition of rescue stations with oxygen tanks, portable breathing units and other equipment at mine sites.