Optics flickering between the Prime, Ironhide and, curiously, Megatron, the overseer flexed his hands, tensing them into fists and relaxing them as Ironhide slowly came closer. Finally, expression turning ugly, he seemed to crack... after a fashion.

"And what would you have me do?! Not all them die, and they're here to do a job! Which I am as well, Prime! Do you think my supervisors and other higher-ups in the company wouldn't tear me apart if I said something!" Steeltread bellowed, the treads of his altmode twitching and adding a discordant scraping noise underlying the... perhaps merely offended anger, perhaps honest frustration.

And then Megatron remembered something about this mine that had been different from his first one.

"I can't do anything without someone venting down my neck, Prime, compared to when I owned this mine and could sell the crop to whoever paid best!" The overseer's angine was loud in the relative silence as his temper got the better of him, but it was all explosive emptiness.

True regard for his workers or not - which probably always had been lacking somewhat - Steeltread had at least run a good mine which included looking after his own workers and attempting to minimize sparkeater attacks.

All of which had gotten yanked away when he'd been forced to sell and follow someone else's idea of profitability and their rules and policies and lack of understanding of what made a proper mine.

Bitterness had turned the mech's failings even larger than they had been, Megatron observed with a narrow sneer.