Mining Feature: Celebrate our Miners on National Miners Day - December 6, 2018

Monday, December 3, 2018

On December 6, in honor of National Miners Day, the NIOSH Mining Program recognizes and celebrates the men and women of the mining industry and commemorates their hard work and sacrifices. Miners play a critical role in our society and economy by providing the minerals and resources to create thousands of comforts in our modern world: the steel for our cars and skyscrapers, the copper wiring for our phones and computers, and the materials to manufacture our appliances and build our roads, just to name a few. To extract these vital resources from the earth, miners daily face many hazards that threaten their personal safety and health.

In 2009, Congress named December 6 as National Miners Day. The date was chosen in remembrance of the December 6, 1907, Monongah, West Virginia, coal mine disaster—the worst mining disaster in American history—which resulted in the deaths of 362 miners. In 1910, Congress created the Bureau of Mines, the precursor of the NIOSH Mining Program, to conduct research on ways to make miners’ jobs safer and to prevent injuries and fatalities in the mining industry. Although mining has become safer than in its early days, modern miners still face many challenges and hazards to their safety and health, such as roof falls, explosions, lung disease, and hearing loss. Through our extensive science-based solutions to mining hazards, the NIOSH Mining Program strives to lessen the risks that mineworkers face as they extract the precious and much-needed minerals and resources from the earth.