Feb 26, 2008 EAV Chap12, 7b(#2)

Dear Mom and Dad,

It has been for a while without hearing from you. How are you doing at the countryside?

I am still working on the coal mine that I have been working for in the past ten years. The owner of the mine is a very mean person. He always provides us the worst food, which is stale and cold. I and another 9 young colleagues have to share a small room, which has not bathroom. There is no running water here; hence, I generally take a bath once a month. The winter is very cold in northern England; however, the owner even doesn’t give us the coal for heating in the room.

Everyday I work sixteen hours underground and I don’t have weekend. Even I am very sick sometimes, I am forced to work. I and other miners do the work manually. We dig the coal using pickaxe and shovel underground, put them into carts, and then pull them up. It is very dusty and wet at the scene, and I even can’t breathe sometimes. In addition, it is very dangerous for working underground. Two of my colleagues have been killed in the past year because of cave-in. However, the owner doesn’t care our lives and spends almost nothing to improve the working conditions and safety. Furthermore, I am paid very low.

In order to change this kind of bad situation, we form a worker union and are on strike now. Unfortunately, I don’t expect these mine owners are going to accept our requirements. The government is on their side. Moreover, it is very easy for them to find new workers to replace us since young fellows are flooding into this area from countryside to look for jobs.

In the meantime, I heard a lot of stories from the new continent, the United States. It is very easy to find a job there because the country is expanding fast and the labor is scarce. Even for the same job, it is paid much better than here. Maybe I will find my own fortune in the new continent. At the same time, I will be far far away from you then.

Yours son,

Tom