Jesus Christ, this story is depressing:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited an Ohio coal mine this month to promote jobs in the coal industry, workers who appeared with him at the rally lost pay because their mine was shut down.

The Pepper Pike company that owns the Century Mine told workers that attending the Aug. 14 Romney event would be both mandatory and unpaid, a top company official said Monday morning in a West Virginia radio interview.

What do you call workers who are forced to show up for free? Well, there are lots of words you could throw around, but you couldn't call them union workers, that's for sure. Right wing bloggers lost their shit over this picture when the coal mining event happened; turns out it was just Romney's old 1% cronies coming to the rescue for their pal Willard one more time.

(Thanks to Slog tipper Melissa for ruining my day.)