Mining work included underground occupations such as trammers, teamsters, drilling teams, blasters, and, at the top, the miner. In the 1870's, ore extraction was pure manual labor: ore was broken from the surface with picks, sledge hammers, and blasting, loaded onto horse- or mule-drawn wagons, and then loaded again onto railroad cars. After surface ore was depleted, the Republic Iron Company and others began sinking shafts and using more complicated technology to extract the ore. The work was dangerous, and many deaths and accidents left widows as the only wage earners for large families, with little financial compensation beyond support funded by miners through payroll deductions. At the Republic Iron mine, employment totaled 650 men in 1883, 350 in 1909, and then declined before the 1928 closing. For many years, average wages ranged from $2.25 to $4.50 a day and rose slowly, while the company offered housing for $2 to $5 a month and maintained a mine hospital, with medical expenses deducted from paychecks; in 1879, 75 company houses were available to workers. After the mine reopened in the 1950's, employment reached 85 men in 1957, 570 in 1964, and 708 in 1980, and workers held jobs such as power shovel operators, truck drivers, drillers, blasters, and supervisors in the highly mechanized pellet operation. CCI was regarded as progressive in employee welfare, especially after William G. Mather became president, introducing safety programs and modest pensions. Republic saw few early strikes for wage increases, though two succeeded, and because the mine was closed through the 1930s and '40s, it avoided the massive strikes and labor violence of 1946, even as some Republic miners may have worked elsewhere and supported the regional strike. When the mine reopened, all non-administrative employees belonged to the United Steelworkers Union, Local #5440.