Coal Mining : Union-Busting and the Massey Disaster

Deaths in West Virginia
Did not have to happen

By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / April 14, 2010

With the death of 29 coal miners at the Massey Coal-operated Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, the United States has experienced its worst mine disaster in close to 40 years.

It is widely understood the deaths were caused by safety violations that allowed methane gas to build up to explosive levels. What is not so well understood is that this was no "accident" that just "happened" because coal mining is "inherently dangerous."

The explosion was preventable, and was brought about by lesser-known causes: increased demand for coal, and measures taken by mine owners to meet this demand and generate higher profits through cost-cutting and greater productivity.

Chief among those measures has been union-busting. Massey Coal has a long track record in this regard, even though, according to labor writer David Moberg, unionized coal mines have only a quarter to a half as many fatalities as do non-unionized coal mines.

Actively supporting safe working conditions for those who provide our electricity is the best way we have of showing our appreciation.

One important step would be to contact your Congressional delegation and insist they pass the Employee Free Choice Act, and especially its card-check requirement, that would enhance the ability of all employees to form a union.

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NASA Scientist, Actress Hannah, Arrested in Coal Mining Protest

Actress Darryl Hannah is arrested by West Virginia State Police Tuesday, June 23, 2009 following a mountaintop removal mining protest in Naoma, W.Va. She was among several hundred protesters who held a rally outside Marsh Fork Elementary school that sits about 300 feet away from a Massey Energy coal processing plant. Photo by Jeff Gentner / AP.
Foremost authority on climate change arrested at mountaintop removal protest.

By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / June 25, 2009

For those who follow the climate issue, a top NASA scientist, James Hansen, foremost authority on climate change, was arrested at a non-violent protest of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. (Actress Daryl Hannah was also arrested at the protest.)

For an account of the action organized by Rainforest Action Network (RAN), go here, and here(from Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network:

...I can't remember a more charged atmosphere. The majority of people surrounded one-half of the stage, supporting each speaker calling for an end to mountain blasting. Separated by police, the remainder crowded around the rest of the stage, wearing Massey t-shirts and shouting their disapproval.

I spoke shortly after Ken Hechler, the 94-year-old former Congressional Representative who has decried the effects of mountaintop removal in his region for more than three decades. "I want to thank Don Blankenship for inviting me to this rally," I began, to a mixture of catcalls and applause. I told the crowd that mountaintop removal isn't just a local issue, it's an American problem -- brought to us by Massey Energy and other coal companies...

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'Justice in the Coalfields' : The Pittston Strike, April 5, 1989

Trailer: 'Justice in the Coalfields' by Anne Lewis

Anne Lewis' provocative and skillfully produced documentary of the strike, Justice in the Coalfields, has had a profoundly formative influence not only on my understanding of the struggle, but larger issues of American culture and Appalachian collective politics... Justice in the Coalfields is a remarkable oral history narrated by persons on both sides of the nearly year-long dispute. -- Tal Stanley / Southern Changes

By Anne Lewis / The Rag Blog / April 6, 2009

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Pittston Strike that began April 5, 1989 in Virginia’s coal country.

The reason I know is that I had one of those flashback moments last week. The Richmond Times Dispatch wanted clips from my film "Justice in the Coalfields" to run on their website for a major retrospective on the Pittston strike. Then they laid off the reporter (one of 28 lay-offs) on Friday so they didn't run the story. And just when they were doing something good about the coalfields. Folks in southwest Virginia (and I was one of them) believe that the only time the rest of the state recognizes their existence is when the governor declares martial law.

The Pittston strike rings out as an example of worker and community solidarity. More than 1,700 coal miners in southwestern Virginia and West Virginia walked out after the company revoked the health care of pensioners, disabled miners and their families, and widows. There were 4,000 arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience against Pittston which owned Brinks armored trucks as well as coal mines.

The strike was about so many current issues -- the demand for universal health care, global energy, lay-offs, worker/community alliances, the Right to Work law, that "Justice" might have renewed usefulness.

You can also view a trailer from the film at annelewis.org. If you have any problems, you might want to right click on the link and open with quicktime player. The trailer is also available at Appalshop's General Store.

Here is a review of the film by Tal Stanley. It appeared in Southern Changes in 1995.

[Anne Lewis is an independent filmmaker associated with Appalshop, senior lecturer at UT-Austin, and member of TSEU-CWA Local 6186 and NABET-CWA. She is the associate director of “Harlan County, U.S.A” and the producer/director of “Fast Food Women,” “To Save the Land and People,” “Morristown: in the air and sun,” and a number of other social issue and cultural documentaries. Her website is annelewis.org.]

See these related articles:

• April 5, 1989 -- Remembering the Pittston Strike by Shirah / Daily Kos / April 6, 2009
• Tension Easing, but Miners' Strike Against Pittston Goes On by B. Drummond Ayres Jr. / Special to The New York Times / Nov. 26, 1989
• The Place of Justice by Tal Stanley / Southern Changes / Vol. 17, No. 3-4, 1995

And:

• 'Rednecks' and Greens Beat Big Coal in Appalachia by Jeff Biggers / The Rag Blog / March 30, 2009

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