Chapter 12 Miner wages, so "bloody"

This is a very common scene: At 8 o'clock in the morning, the workers who were going to dig coal in the pit were dressed in kiln clothes and lined up at the door of the miner's lamp charging room to collect miner's lamps. Each of them held a huge inflatable balloon, which was particularly conspicuous. A miner said, don't underestimate the humble balloon in everyone's hands, it is the "life-saving ball" for coal diggers under the pit. It turned out that due to the extremely harsh working environment under the pit, the workers often felt powerless and dizzy. At this time, they hurried to the ground to breathe and feel better.

In fact, they don't understand that the reaction of coal miners when working in the pit is caused by the lack of oxygen when they work in a closed environment under the pit for a long time. According to the relevant national regulations, the coal boss will install an oxygen generator for the workers at the construction site under the pit at this time, but the coal boss is unwilling to pay for it in order to save money.The workers had no choice but to use the local method. Before entering the pit to work, they first blew up the round balloon with their mouths. When they went to work under the pit, if they felt uncomfortable, they quickly used the balloon to release some gas and take a breath.

Local miners are generally divided into four-foot charcoal, six-foot charcoal, and Zhanger charcoal according to the height of the coal seam. The time for workers to use the "rescue ball" is generally in the coal seam environment below the "four feet charcoal", and the quality of the coal here is precisely the best in the entire mine. At the beginning, at a height of about 1.5 meters, workers could dig while standing. Later, when they reached the floor height of about 1 meter, the workers had to squat down to dig coal. Later, when we reached a distance of more than 70 centimeters, we had to kneel down and dig.

Later, when the thick part was reached, the workers could only lie down and dig. Excavation work continued, and the thickness of the coal seam became thinner and thinner. The workers couldn't do it anymore.But because the coal here is of good quality and can be sold at a good price, the coal boss simply asked the workers to continue working by increasing the price by 1 yuan per ton. At this time, a one-foot-thick coal seam is sandwiched between two sheets of nearly one-meter-thick stone layers. The diggers often go in sideways and dig out the coal, but the coal truck cannot get in. They had no choice but to tie the rope around their waists, crawl forward on all fours, hold the lamp head in their mouths, pull out the coal with small baskets and load it into the car.

Under such a high-intensity physical labor state, the workers lie down quickly when they are tired and dizzy, take a breath, and carefully recover their physical strength. In front of me is a sky of stone, a land of stone, and a world of stone. Surrounded by black coal, there is no word to face each other. Time freezes here. Black and white, reversed here. No one will know that this is one of the tens of thousands of nameless "black mouths" in Gougoumao, Shanxi. No one will know that in the vast sea of ​​people with 1.2 billion lives, only they, a group of poor miners with no names, such a group of helpless creatures are still struggling for the continuation of life.

There is a saying, "The fate of life is full of ups and downs and tears, but who will control the fate of life." Life is life, death is life, life and death are life, who knows the taste? The insider said that in this coal mine, most of the miners who come to work from other provinces are from poor areas in Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and other provinces.Most of them are Sichuanese from poor families and small in stature. In this coal mine, the workers in the pit all face the same problem when working: due to the large amount of water seepage in the working face, the tunnel is extremely muddy, and all personnel entering and exiting must wear rain boots. To get a pair of watertight rain boots has become the biggest extravagant wish of workers.

Under the pit, pullers are the most labor-intensive types of work. They have to pull nearly 300 kilograms of coal trucks at a time, and at the same time, they have to fight for time and speed on slopes of 20 to 30 degrees. At this time, someone needs to assist the pullers to pull. Coal, so another nascent industry emerged: "slope-pushing". These are not hard work.In the words of a miner, the most dangerous and arduous work in the pit is "mining", which is even worse than "passing the ridge". The difference between the two is: First of all, the construction timing of the "recovery" operation.When the coal mining seam of a coal mine is almost close to the limit of depletion, that is, under the premise of ensuring safety, it is necessary to do everything possible to dig out the coal, and the "mining" is completed, and the coal mine is scrapped.Therefore, when the "recovery" operation is implemented, workers are required to repeatedly grab coal in the same coal seam under the pit, as much as they can grab.

Secondly, the construction method of "recovery" operation.At this time, a team of two must be required, and it is required that the hands and feet must be quick and responsive. During construction, one person digs hard and digs with one shovel.The other person grasped the opponent's belt with both hands, while observing the "clues" of the dangerous situation under the pit intently. Generally, all accidents under the pit are 100% likely to occur during "recovery". For example, when grabbing pit logs, the "roof" will collapse at the moment the bracket is removed.

Another example is the excavation of the tunnel. The "old man" under the pit used to prohibit the diggers from widening the tunnel privately for the sake of construction safety, because it is more difficult to dig coal forward than digging on the tunnel wall, which will result in a large area of ​​the tunnel without support. The roof of the coal seam greatly increases the possibility of tunnel collapse.However, "mining" requires the widening of the tunnel to maximize coal mining. That is to say, when implementing mining operations, coal production is "going hand in hand" with the "occurrence index" of sudden accidents.

Thirdly, workers are required to be quick-sighted, quick-witted, and experienced during the "recovery". Of course, the coal bosses have to pay a high price for the coal that the workers "recover" with their lives - the local market is that every ton of coal dug can be increased by 2 yuan.