The last five years have been the safest on record for the U.S. mining industry. Deaths in the mines have declined to low levels that many people, just 10 or 20 years ago, would have dismissed as impossible to achieve. Yet as the 21st century begins, miners still face the highest rate of death among major industrial sectors.
Miners also suffer thousands of preventable injuries and job-related illnesses each year.
We in the mining community can do better, if we resolve to make this industry as safe and healthful as we know it can be. They are a diverse group, not to be stereotyped. They work underground and on the surface, in every State of the U.S., at mines with hundreds of co-workers or with one or two. They provide all of us with construction materials, fertilizers, metals, other raw materials. They produce more than nine tons of aggregate per person in the U.S. population annually.