Note: As with many articles done in Vietnam, reporting this story required permits from multiple government and Communist Party offices, local minders and a Vietnamese translator employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And lots of meetings over tea, then beer. The head of Cam Pha's coal mines was so eager to be helpful that upon seeing the mines were unpopulated on the day of the visit (local holiday, he told me), he made a phone call. Minutes later hundreds of miners appeared and began working.

“Everyone here has been to the hospital many times,” says Phan Chu Anh, 64. Phan is a survivor. He survived his country’s wars with the French and, later, the Americans. He also survived 38 years as a miner in the coalfields of Cam Pha in northeastern Vietnam. To Phan, who retired in 1995, conditions today look remarkably good. “In recent years,” he marvels, “workers have gotten insurance, uniforms, gloves, safer equipment.” Still, the lives of Cam Pha’s 25,000 miners – about a third of them women – are much worse than those of their Western counterparts. The air in Cam Pha swirls with soot and reeks of sulfur. Lung disease, skeletal problems and parasites are common among workers. But the pay, by Vietnamese standards, is excellent. Salaries start at about $58 per month, more than double the national average. And those who work the graveyard shift get an added bonus: 10 cents a day.

Cam Pha’s mines, which produce 12 million tons of anthracite a year, are set against the strikingly beautiful backdrop of Ha Long Bay – ironically, Vietnam’s most popular tourist resort. Until 1996, the country’s communist government allowed private mines to operate alongside the larger, state-run concerns. “People easily earned and easily spent,” says Nguyen Thi Tuat, who runs a local cafe, complete with a karaoke room. “But since private mines were forbidden, things have been getting worse, and there is no hope for the future.” Workers say wages have been slashed 20 percent over the past two years and that their buying power has been further eroded by the devaluation of Vietnam’s currency. Major accidents are common. The most recent took place in January when a methane gas explosion killed 16 workers. Still, Vietnamese miners are better off than millions of their countrymen, and many are grateful. Nguyen Viet Cuong, who already owns a small house, a motorbike and a color TV, can’t wait to get his New Year’s bonus of $50. “I will buy sweets for my children and a Chinese suit for my wife,” he says proudly. “That will certainly surprise people!” 

-- Article (not photos) by Josh Levine