Face boss

by Michael D. Guillerman

"Face Boss tells a story that few people have heard: what it is really like to labor inside the dark and dangerous world of a vast underground coal mine. With unflinching honesty, Michael Guillerman recalls his nearly eighteen years of working as both a union miner and a salaried section foreman - or "face boss"--At the Peabody Coal Company's Camp No. 2 mine in Union County, Kentucky." "Guillerman undertook this memoir because of the many misconceptions about coal mining that were evidenced most recently in the media coverage of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster. Face Boss sheds some much-needed light on this little-understood topic. Guillerman describes in stark detail the risks, dangers, and uncertainties of coal mining: the wildcat and contract strikes, layoffs, shutdowns, mine fires, methane ignitions, squeezes, and injuries. But he also discusses the good times that emerged despite perilous working conditions: the camaraderie and immense sense of accomplishment that came with mining hun