An Open Reflection
PITTSTON COAL STRIKE 1989 | AN OPEN REFLECTION
Coal permeates the Southwest Virginia region, figuratively and literally. The black dust creeps into our houses like a thief, taking our lungs and our time, leaving a trail of boot prints and bills. It breathes into us, giving us both a livelihood and a final hymn. Songs are written about it. People continue to fight for it. We are resistant to change for the sake of it. Books, podcasts, and documentaries discuss its impact. Why? Because we feel like it’s all we have. Time has taught us to hold on to it. For over 60 years, Southwest Virginia has persisted with coal. Not by mining and selling it, but actually WITH it. Two unique creatures participating in their own self-destructive life cycles, playing the odds as to which will be put back in the mountain first.
The finite natural resource made this country the beast it is today. It powered the industrial revolution, won wars, and constructed progress through creation. This simple black rock still fuels this nation, though. Its sooty hand continues to point to technological advancement, shake hands with politics, and fist bump globalization. Power in every sense of the word.
My father, grandfathers, and uncle were working in the mine industry during the infamous Pittston Coal Strike which lasted from April 5, 1989 to February 20, 1990. I have heard their stories about it my whole life. The miners were to be stripped of retirement healthcare benefits. The information regarding these changes in healthcare arrived in the form of a fancy letter written in professional language almost unrecognizable to those with education of a different kind. They initially entrusted the fight for their rights to United Mineworkers of America (UMWA), a union created to defend the wellbeing of miners. If the coal company could legally cut off earned retirement coverage for mine workers, what stopped other industries from following suit? Labor laws hung in the balance.
Appalachian miners were known to be respectable people who worked hard for a living. You need a solid job to survive the harsh reality of this area; mining offered such an opportunity. The risk of losing everything they had worked for was real, palpable, and for a short blip, hindering enough to keep them from taking a stand themselves.
Months passed and still nothing changed.
On April 5, the miners associated with the union went on strike. These rebellious, stubborn conquerors embodied almost mythical qualities as they rose with the sun, thermos in hand, to go to a job of different kind. Murmurs of upheaval and whispers of a storm brewing. Dinner buckets carried to the picket lines rather than a half-mile into the earth.
The acts of civil disobedience that erupted during this time are spectacular. Like most protests, they were intended, encouraged, and organized to be peaceful acts of solidarity against the coal giant standing before them. For the most part, they accomplished this goal. A standoff was not what the miners wanted but most certainly what they got in the beginning. Intensity built over time. People grew furious the company hadn’t shifted the proposal; the employer called privileges what workers called rights. Decades of oppression summed up in a single act, a symbolic middle finger. Miners had worked a job that would literally kill them, a job that necessitated the very benefits denied while company officials raked in billions sitting in another state.
Strikers overtook entry roads, occupied them with signs, voices, and explicit expectations. Months of jack rocks and slashed tires. Broken windows and car bombs. People in union camo stood day and night, in the stagnant heat of June, refusing to move. A solidarity camp emerged. The company tried to continue mining coal. They hired outsiders, “replacement workers,” to work the mines using state police as escorts to drive past and through the protesters. Thousands of people picketing daily. My grandfather was hauled to jail twice for sitting in the road, unwavering when asked to get out of the way. The police officers would arrive with school buses each day to load protesters. My grandmother would be taunted by company goons when my grandfather traveled to Pennsylvania to disrupt on their turf. They would shine their lights into the house windows late at night, knowing he was not there. Scaring her to the point of submission was their only goal. She and other mining wives, sisters, and mothers packed lunches, delivered food to the solidarity camp, and took rotations in the protest for the good of the cause. Children - high school students - walked out of three different local high schools in groves. It was a family affair.
People literally chose to let themselves die because they felt so strongly about the cause. Without a paycheck, they went without the medicine they needed to combat diseases afforded to them by the exact same enemy. They could have gone back to work as a scab (the slang name appropriated to replacement workers). They made their choice on principle, for what the believed was right rather than for their own benefit. By the time the strike ended, over 4,000 people had been arrested for their actions. This kind of mass jailing draws attention from the judges and governors. Soon the president of the United States had sent the Secretary of Labor to see what all the fuss was about. The miners also went to Washington, D. C. Documents indicate upwards of 50,000 people participated in the strikes (in counties with a combined population of only about 40,000). They got a new retirement healthcare contract and the federal Coal Act was passed in 1992. Coal miners had won a war that had lasted almost an entire year.
All of this to come full circle to the issues at present. Everyone is fighting or has fought a battle that someone else has difficulty understanding because they are not on the same battlefield. Rest assured most of America frowned on the miners of Virginia. “They just don’t want to work.” News spread about the uprising in Virginia. How could it not? Reporters came from all around, “That’s just not right,” I can almost hear them say from their northern suburbs. “Those ignorant hillbillies.” One’s man protester is another man’s inconvenience. If it is something you don’t understand or can’t believe is happening, then take the time to learn about it before you unknowingly defend a misguided opinion. Think critically about the world around you. Some things you read and hear are true; some things you read and hear are false. Understand there is more to every story. Appreciate that some ideas are bigger than just you and your reality. We have an obligation to be role models for our future generations. History has shown us time and time again that we must fight for what we believe in or money-hungry, corrupt, nasty machines dressed up in a suit and tie will slowly and viciously wear us down and not only perpetuate the cycle of injustice but profit from it.
Works Cited:
Primary sources: Interviews, newspapers, and photos from this time.
