While special laws, literally the Miners Protection Act (?!) give coal miners special protections because dumb ass reasons, there's a catastrophe happening in the much larger and certainly more important retail sector.
Large department stores collapsing into failure. Dead or zombie malls. Amazon. Thousands of people right now are losing their jobs:
Brick-and-mortar retail is having a meltdown, and economists are starting to see the effects in the job market.
Overall retail employment has fallen every month this year. Department stores, including Macy’s and JC Penney, have shed nearly 100,000 jobs since October—more than the total number of coal miners or steel workers currently employed in the U.S. Even America’s richest areas are getting hit: Employment in New York City clothing stores has fallen three years in a row, the longest period of decline on record, going back to the early 1990s.
Expecting any kind of Sales Associate Protection Act? Forget it. You have to be a dirty hillbilly working in an industry where nobody wants the product. Only then can you get the bipartisan fuckin love fest. Even on the front page of Daily Kos. Donald Trump loves them. Bernie Sanders loves them. Joe Manchin loves them. What a coincidence!
People actually want to buy the stuff of daily life, unlike coal. But technology is changing the whole game. Retail employees can't conveniently blame immigration or black people or government or neoliberalism or whatever. They have figure out how to eat and pay the rent. Certainly Congress nor the White House is giving a shit.
Which, is like, weird right? Look at the number of votes at stake here, millions of retail workers literally everywhere vs not even a 100,000 coal miners in just small handful of states. You'd think at least one of the parties would come up with an idea. Perhaps a law to protect them. That might be politically beneficial, call me crazy.
Unless there's something very very unique and special about coal miners. I wonder what it could be?