BLACK LICK--Al Shirley routinely travels 1,200 miles each week for his job.
Those aren't frequent flyer miles, but long-distance drives he's racking up in his pickup truck--commuting six days a week from his home in Burrell Township to the Loveridge Mine in northern West Virginia.
Shirley is among at least a dozen displaced United Mine Workers in Indiana County who recently have resumed employment in the coal fields, as demand for that fossil fuel has experienced a resurgence nationally.
But, with the mines, which once dominated the county's economy long closed, Shirley and other union veterans have had to look southward to get back in the industry labor force.
"We've had a lot of guys go down there" to West Virginia, said Ron Airhart, an executive board member with the UMWA District 2 office in Lucernemines.
Those who have maintained their UMWA seniority have been able to claim positions which became available early this year among a cluster of union mines operated by Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy in the region around Fairmont, W. Va.
"There are men we've placed in those mines before," Airhart noted.
Though the commute is a major inconvenience, he said, "A lot of them don't want to relocate. They're keeping their homes in Indiana County, so it's not a total loss for the community here."
Other local miners have cut down on their drive time by renting accommodations near their job site, returning to Indiana County only once or twice a week.
A single father, Shirley makes the daily five-hour round-trip trek to maintain his close relationship with daughters Megan, a senior at Blairsville High School, and Heather, a junior physical education major at IUP.
"I could stay down there, but I prefer to come back and see the girls," he said.
When he's working the afternoon shift, he gets home after 2 a.m. and is able to see his younger daughter off to school later in the morning.
He recently helped Megan with a class project, making a presentation on mining at Blairsville High School.
He'll request the midnight "hoot owl" shift in upcoming weeks, in hopes that he can be home for her softball games. He's coached both his daughters and also has officiated in the sport, while playing in an adult softball league.
But, given his new commute across state lines, he said, "I'm probably not going to do as much as before" with youth sports.
Shirley also is a member of the Burrell Township Park Board and remains on the roster of the Black Lick Volunteer Fire Department. But he noted his ability to answer emergency calls is entirely dependent on his work requirements in West Virginia.
"I don't mind the traveling," Shirley said of his long hours spent in transit. "Sometimes it gets lonely, but you get used to it."
So far, he's simply had to change the tires and oil of his 1997 Chevy S-10 truck, which just passed the 120,000-mile mark.
But he's concerned mounting fuel costs may force him to rethink his commitment to commuting: "The way gas is going up, I may have to stay there" in West Virginia.
At the going rate of about $1.69 per gallon, Shirley figures he's shelling out $20 each day to keep his tank full.
Shirley became a UMWA member in 1974, working at a series of area mines owned by North American Coal and Consol's predecessor, Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal.
He's no stranger to a lengthy commute. After being idled in 2000 by Consol's closure of the local Marshall Run Mine, Shirley switched to the company's Dillworth Mine in Greene County.
During more than two years at that location, he took advantage of the optional "weekend warrior" schedule: a 10-hour shift on Friday, 12 hours each on Saturday and Sunday, while also reporting to the mine on all holidays save Christmas and Thanksgiving.
In addition to reduced mileage, that work option allowed him more quality time with his family.
"It was nice when I was off all through the week," he said. "It was easier to go to cheerleading contests and softball games."
When the Dillworth Mine also folded, Shirley signed up for a retraining program. He learned how to operate various construction vehicles and obtained his commercial driver's license at the Greater Johnstown Career and Technology Center.
He had completed his coursework and was set to seek employment either in area highway construction or as a bus driver when he was offered an opening at the Loveridge Mine--located near Blacksville, W. Va., about 11 miles across the border from Pennsylvania.
He's been working there since mid-January. Other local UMWA members have filled newly opened slots at Consol's nearby Blacksville Mine.
Just as economics--chiefly, higher natural gas prices--are fueling coal's return to prominence, financial concerns also are beckoning seasoned workers like Shirley back underground.
In the current era of corporate down-sizing and rust belt erosion, it's hard to find many jobs in the region which can compete with the benefit and wage package of the UMWA's 2002 contract. For those reactivated miners approaching retirement, the security promised by the union pension plan is particularly enticing.
"You're making over $19 an hour, with full health coverage, including a dental plan, a vision plan and no co-pay," Airhart said. Also provided for the union is "a defined benefit pension plan, where you're not taking the gamble you do with a 401k."
Shirley noted he has completed the 20 years of service needed to receive a miner's pension. But the more additional time he logs in the mines, the larger his monthly benefit will be.
"Every year you work, your pension goes up," he said, noting his monthly benefit is now above $1,500.
If he were to quit now, Shirley pointed out, he'd have to pay $860 each month to replace the medical coverage he enjoys as an actively employed UMWA member.
He's hoping to remain employed as a union miner for at least a few more years. Then, when he turns 55, he'll be able to start using the UMWA's medical retirement benefits.
By that time, he expects both his daughters will be through college.
Also having paid their dues in Indiana County's mines and at Dillworth, Tony Reid of Indiana and Dave Hebenthal of Brush Valley both recently started work at Consol's Blacksville Mine.
At least for now, both are maintaining their permanent residences in Indiana County.
For Reid, the union mine is the place to be, due to the superior wages and benefits it offers.
"You have to go for the wages," he said. "There's not a lot of really good-paying jobs up around here."
Reid also has amassed more than 20 years of service as a union miner--interrupted by repeated lay-offs, the most recent occurring with the closure of the Dillworth Mine.
During previous periods between mining stints, Reid worked in either construction or as a meat-cutter. Most recently, he was stuck in a part-time job at Wal-Mart, earning $10 an hour, and had exhausted his UMWA medical benefits.
His wife, Connie, a part-time day care instructor in Indiana, also lacks a medical plan. With a 20-year-old daughter, Kelly, studying psychology at IUP, Reid had little hesitation returning to mining once a job at Blacksville was available.
"The big difference is you have benefits at the mine," he said.
Reid, at age 49, is within sight of an important UMWA milestone: his 55th birthday, which will arrive with the gift of retiree medical benefits.
"If I would start over at something else, it would be 10 years before I would get anything on my pension," he said.
Reid added, "I had a couple of job offers I was hoping would happen around here, but they wouldn't happen until later in the spring."
He decided to take a sure paycheck with an extended commute rather than hold out for a more convenient location that came with no guarantees.
"It's a big sacrifice for the family," working so far away from home," Reid said. But, "You're going for benefits and wages."
To keep up with his responsibilities at home and in the community, Reid has been returning to Indiana roughly twice a week.
Connie Reid appreciates her husband's efforts to make it home mid-way through the week, as well as for his normal weekend break.
"It's easier when he can come home on a Tuesday or Wednesday," she said. "There are bills to sign."
And, she noted, without her husband's assistance, she is unable to reach their home's high ceilings if a light bulb needs changing.
While at home, Reid also takes part in practice sessions for Indiana High School's junior varsity baseball team, which he helps coach. Once the season gets into full swing, he'll be commuting more often to be on hand for games. He enjoys more flexibility in his coaching role with Keystone Rehabilitation's junior legion ball team. Many practices can be handled on weekends.
Like Shirley, he misses the "weekend warrior" shift at Dillworth. But, he noted there were some drawbacks with that schedule, as well.
He wasn't able to be present for some of his daughter's high school activities: "When she was in the color guard, I missed all the games."
During the week, Reid now splits the rent on an apartment down south with a fellow commuting miner.
That and travel expenses notwithstanding, "You're still way further ahead to stay with the mine," he asserted.
The decision to return to mining was less clear-cut for Hebenthal.
He's worked in several previous coal mines, beginning in 1978 at Rochester and Pittsburgh's former Muddy Run Mine, near his childhood home in Blacklick Township, and ending with the Dillworth shut-down.
After completing 21 years of service in union mines, he found another occupation that provided much satisfaction and a paycheck rivaling what he earned underground.
Hebenthal was working for a company in Monroeville, Testex, which sent him to a variety of facilities around the country to test the thickness of tube walls in boiler units. He explained, "There were boilermakers waiting right behind us. If we found something wrong, they would cut it out and change it."
"I loved it," he said of the job, noting the expenses for his extensive travels were picked up by his employer.
In his last assignment with the company, he was checking out the boiler of a Navy ship moored on the California coast, between San Francisco and Oakland.
More than just second thoughts, he said, "I had third thoughts about going back" into mining.
But, in the end, his previous employer could offer only medical coverage for himself, not for his wife, Karen, a part-time postal employee. She's fully covered through his UMWA benefits.
"When you're young, you don't worry about" hospitalization, he said. But, now that he's 45 years old and has been diagnosed as a diabetic, "To me, that's 80 percent of a job."
"I believe in my heart I made the right decision," Hebenthal said of his return to the coal fields.
While on the job at Blacksville, Hebenthal shares a trailer near Waynesburg with another miner, paying $125 per month in rent plus utilities.
"It's in the sticks," he said. "I can't use my cell phone unless I drive up the road."
At least, he noted, his wife is used to him being away from home. For his work at Testex, he would be gone for up to 20 days at a stretch.
"I left a job where I got to see every state," he said, indicating Hawaii would have been next on his itinerary if he'd stayed put professionally.
Relocating south to avoid the couple's week-long separation and his long commute was not an option for Hebenthal. His wife wants to remain close to her parents, who are facing their own medical challenges.
Since all three have returned to mines operated by their previous employer, Consol, Hebenthal, Shirley and Reid have retained most of their union seniority rights. But that doesn't extend to their particular work assignments.
Among the newest crew members at their respective mines, Shirley noted, each is once more "at the bottom of the totem pole"--listed as a "general inside laborer."
He pointed out, the difference in pay between the highest- and lowest-ranked jobs at the mine amounts to about $8.50 per day.
Currently, Shirley's been assigned to install shaft ceiling supports known as "cans"--metal-encased cement pillars which are between five and six feet tall and are wedged into place with wooden cribbing.
But he's hoping his recent training as an equipment operator will help him vault back up through the ranks: "I've already bid for a bulldozer operator's position."
For many years, Hebenthal had run a miner machine, one of the highest paid roles on a coal work crew.
Now, instead of working close to the coal-digging operation, where the top money is, he's been stationed along the conveyor belt.
"I haven't loaded any coal yet, at Dillworth or Blacksville," he said. But, he noted, there are off-setting benefits to working away from the mine face: "I figure I've had enough coal dust in my lifetime."
Reid has done "a little bit of everything" in the mines, including both running a miner machine and working along conveyor belts.
Now, he's operating another type of equipment, a roof bolter, making sure a mined-out section of the Blacksville site is safe for supervisors to enter and inspect before it is sealed off.
As an equipment operator, he earns a pay rate on the high side, in excess of $19 per hour.
Regardless of their roles, Reid and Hebenthal both have found it easy to fit in with their new co-workers. Like them, most are experienced miners who have transferred from other sites.
"We have a great group of people," Hebenthal said of the more than 400 union miners currently working at Blacksville.
"Fifty to 60 percent of the people have come from another mine." That includes about 10 fellow miners from Indiana County and 15 who previously worked with him at Dillworth.
"The average age is 55 years," he added, predicting that many will be retiring soon, leaving his slightly younger generation as the old hands on the job.
Now that all the union miners with rights to claim jobs at Consol's West Virginia sites have either started to work or declined the opportunity, Airhart said, there are about 30 openings still to be filled.
"They now have the right to hire off the street," he said, predicting some of the area's non-union miners may be the next group bidding for the high-paying jobs.
Said Airhart, mine operators are "looking for skilled, qualified workers with over a year of mining experience."
To meet West Virginia requirements for working in that state's mines, candidates for the jobs also must pass a series of two written tests focusing on safety procedures.
Some local miners remain bitter about Consol's decision to close Indiana County's former Rochester and Pittsburgh coal mines, maintaining that there are plenty of local coal reserves which remain untapped. It was the final blow in a series of lay-offs and closures which began in the late 1980s, ending the county's long reliance on coal as a leading industry.
When he drives south to Blacksville, Reid admits "the hardest part" is passing by power plants like Homer City which once burned Indiana County coal.
In the past, Hebenthal noted, his father, grandfather, uncles, three brothers and brother-in-law all worked in the coal mines. Now, "I'm the last one left."
All acknowledge that the coal in the southwestern tip of Pennsylvania and nearby West Virginia is higher in fuel value than Indiana County's. Also, the vertical thickness of the Pittsburgh coal seam in that region is much greater than the seam which has been mined locally.
At about seven feet, that's thick enough for the longwall mining process--which allows more efficient, speedier extraction of the coal. The seam also offers improved working conditions for local miners used to Indiana County's cramped shafts.
After years of bending his head to fit within a mine clearance of little more than four feet, Shirley now has room to spare at Loveridge.
Standing at 5-7, he noted, "I never thought I'd have to stand on a ladder to reach things," such as overhead power cables and water lines.
"I don't know if I could have gone back to a low (ceilinged) mine around here," Reid said. "It makes a big difference."
Reid indicated he's not concerned about being caught by flood waters underground, as happened to the workers in Somerset County's Quecreek Mine.
Work at the Dillworth Mine was proceeding in the same vicinity as an older shaft filled with water. But Reid noted safety regulations called for regular test drilling into the nearest wall of the newer mine-- ensuring that a distance of at least 400 feet was maintained between the two shafts.
Shirley noted there have been some new perks on the job since he was laid off at Dillworth--including a microwave oven and coffee pot for the workers in each mine section.
While the workers have more creature comforts than before, they're also busier.
According to Shirley, Loveridge miners are on a mandatory six-day-a-week schedule, with the option of working 10-hour shifts instead of eight hours. Increased orders for coal have caused the monthly production quota to increase from 300,000 tons to 400,000 tons.
According to Hebenthal, production also is booming at Blacksville.
"The conveyor belts are five feet wide and they're constantly being loaded with coal," he said. After the coal is processed in a cleaning plant at the site, he noted, it's loaded for shipment on as many as five trains each day.
The renewed demand for coal is outstripping the supply, Airhart noted, since mines were shut down in recent years when coal prospects weren't so favorable.
Those which remain in business, including Consol's West Virginia operations, now have stepped up production to take advantage of the market shift in their favor.
"It has increased the price for coal," Airhart noted. "They can now sell it for $50 to $60 per ton on the spot market."
When he was laid off from Dillworth, Reid noted, coal was selling for just $14 per ton.
In the Blacksville area, Hebenthal observed, "Everything revolves around coal mining. It's how it used to be here (in Indiana County) 25 years ago."
"Without a big drop in coal prices or an underground accident, this should probably be the last mine we should go to from up north," Reid said hopefully of himself and other Pennsylvania mine veterans.
He noted the current Blacksville operation is said to have enough coal reserves to keep miners occupied for about six more years. Another planned portal promises at least 20 additional years' worth of coal production.
Hebenthal takes those predictions with a grain of salt.
He recalls, when he started work at Muddy Run, "They told me I'd have 40 years of work there. Ten years later, we were gone.
"I've been down this road before. You only believe what you see, not what you hear. It could be six months or six years."
Of his own future in mining, Hebenthal said, "I'd like to get to 30 (years) and 55, and that's it."
Having parted on good terms with his most recent employer, he said, "Someday, I know I'm going back there."
