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There are three rules in mining.
Show up, shut up, and do what you're told.
If I'd have stayed silent,
I would have kept my job.
My name is Jeff,
and I spoke up
to protect fellow miners
working in unsafe conditions.
You could hear
guys that had been working there for 20 years
just hacking a lung up.
It's because they were working in equipment
that doesn't have window seals
or air filters changed.
They're just breathing this dust all the time.
You have a safety policy.
You have safety regulations.
But if you actually try to follow those policies and procedures,
you're written up, ostracized,
your coworkers are encouraged to harass and harangue you.
It bled over into our home life.
I told my wife, who I love dearly...
I told her, "this isn't your fight.
If you want out, go for it.
But I have to.
Because I can't live with myself
if I stay quiet
and people die because of this."
Well, she stuck with me!
She's still here, and we're in my brother's basement!
Even some of the people who were loader operators,
part of the cool crowd,
and would not publicly acknowledge my existence
would talk to me in the locker room
and tell me how much they appreciated
what I was doing.
Because they knew
they couldn't speak out about stuff like that.
You can either be corrupt, jaded,
and go along to get along,
and then regret it for the rest of your life,
or you can stand up for what's right
and have no regrets.
My name is Jeff,
and I am moral courage.