MSHA says Ditterline died after being pinned by a malfunctioning pneumatic door while he and three other contractors investigated a power cable. MSHA also determined the door was not suited for the mine’s high air pressure, and that the miners were not trained on what to do if it malfunctioned.

Hamilton County coroner Steve Bowling disputes MSHA’s findings, maintaining that Ditterline died of a heart attack through no fault of the mining company.

“MSHA doesn’t want to hear that stuff because they’re the big boys from the federal government who want to put these big fines on the coal mines,” Bowling says. ​“Whatever I put on the death certificate is final; no one can change it but me.”

Because of the coroner’s report, MSHA sent the investigation to its review committee, which ruled ​“Mr. Ditterline’s death should be charged to the mining industry.” The report also notes a video showing Ditterline was in no apparent distress before the accident, and theorizes the trauma from the accident could have triggered a heart attack.

MSHA data, provided in response to a public records request, reveals the proportion of total coal mine work done by contractors has steadily and significantly increased nationwide, rising from 4% in 1983 to 26% in 2018. And even as the total number of coal fatalities has declined, the proportion of those deaths among contractors increased between 2007 and 2015 (the most recent available data).

Longer hours, lower pay

Teresa Lenich says her son feared losing his job if he declined to work the seven-day shifts he was assigned. An Illinois state law mandates employees get a full day of rest each week, but makes an exception for miners, agricultural workers and workers canning perishable goods, among others.

According to Trebr’s pay stub from Custom Staffing Services, the Indiana firm that contracted him out, Trebr worked 65 and 67.5 hours for an $18 wage during the two weeks before his death. Teresa Lenich says her son told her the miners were under pressure to work overtime and that the job he did on the overnight shift should have had twice as many miners assigned to it.

Heather Dunlap, a then-representative of Custom Staffing, says shifts and hours are set by the mining companies themselves (like Hamilton County Coal), not by Custom Staffing. A representative of Hamilton County Coal referred questions about work with contractors and Trebr’s schedule to a lawyer for parent company Alliance Resource Partners, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Teresa Lenich says she sometimes urged her son to refuse overtime or to call in sick. ​“He said, ​‘Mom, you don’t understand. I can’t. I’ll lose my job, and if I lose my job, I can’t support my daughter,’ ” Teresa recalls. ​“I said, ​‘Buddy, we’ll help support you until you find something else.’ He said, ​‘Mom, it’s not your responsibility. I’m an adult now.’ ”

This increasing reliance on contract miners correlates to longer hours and higher rates of injuries. Lee S. Friedman, associate professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who conducted a study on contract miners that was published in 2019, says ​“working for a contractor was strongly associated with injuries occurring during extended work hours,” and that contract employees’ ​“odds are significantly and substantially higher than non-contract labor of being injured after eight hours of work.”

Friedman’s study concludes that injuries occurring after nine hours of work are more likely to be fatal and more likely to involve multiple miners. Miners new to the mine or working irregular shifts are also more likely to suffer more injuries during long working hours.