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Justice in the Coalfields

Anne Lewis. 1995. 3/4" U-matic. Justice in the Coalfields demonstrates how current labor law has crippled the collective bargaining power of unions and weighed the scales of justice against working people. The documentary follows the 1988 United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal Company that followed the expiration of their contract and Pittston's termination of the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows, and disabled miners. Justice in the Coalfields documents the community-wide outrage that Pittston's violation of a long-standing social contract ignited. The film captures events in southwestern Virginia — the heart of the strike and a right-to-work state — showing hundreds of state troopers escorting “replacement workers” through the picket lines. The film captures union members, their families and friends responding with mass civil disobedience that resulted in over 4,000 arrests, as well as state and federal judges reacting with injunctions and fining the UMWA more than $64 million. These events are given context through conversations with the rank-and-file, a federal judge, a public interest lawyer, the coal company president, and the public affairs director of the National Right to Work Committee for a clear-eyed look at the strike's social, cultural, and economic impact on coalfield communities. “A compelling, timely, and important documentar. A must-see for anyone interested in one of the most important labor struggles of recent years.”— George Meany Center for Labor Studies “A provocative program that should be seen widely … a lawyer cannot come away from the film without some sense that the issues of justice and and law are ambiguous, that justice and law are at best distant cousins.”— Washington and Lee University “Excellent organizing tool, especially for bringing disparate groups together.”— West Virginia Civil Liberties Union “After witnessing this spectacle of pain and hardship, one wonders why there isn’t more violence on the part of the workers and the mountain people of the coalmining region.”— University of Minnesota All films in the Appalshop collection are protected under Title 17 of the United States Copyright Law. The unauthorized distribution or public performance of copyrighted works constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 U.S Code Section 106(3)-(4). This conduct may also violate the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and The Universal Copyright Convention, as well as bilateral treaties with other countries that allow for protection of Rights Holder copyrighted works even beyond US borders. To receive rights for public performance of our works, including educational or institutional licensing, please contact Appalshop Sales to complete the purchase at 606-633-0108 or sales@appalshop.org. You can learn more about Appalshop and our work at www.Appalshop.org

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[Music] March of 1971 that's when I began working for clinchfield at what they call Birchfield mines and I you know really like mining once I got into it and because my father had always been a minor and so I guess it was just sort of in my blood it was a close and reminding you of the service you know of the of the friends that you had you know the and the closeness that you had with the people you work [Music] with one Monday morning I went in to drill a hole to put in roof bolts and rock star
ted ribbing behind so my buddy that I was working with he sounded the top and it sounded drummy and so he run but all I could do was just lean forward and the rock fell across my shoulders and it crushed five my vertebrae you know and it it split my ribs I didn't know how seriously I was injured except for the paino until when it was uh getting The Rock off dragg him out and I seen a new pair of boots coming along and and I didn't realize it was mine it it sort of shot me then that I couldn't fe
el my legs I been out right at 10 years that 10 years that I've been outline I got a letter from Pon that stated that uh as of February the 1st 1988 health benefits that we are providing under this contract will no longer be provided these issues will be taken up during the upcoming negotiations with the Union they weren't respons responsible for insurance or anything you know and so I I just so angry about it I got up about 3:00 in the morning know and had a lot of aggravation for me to get up
at night too cuz I got to go through a lot of things and have a lot of trouble putting my clothes on so and I went to the table and I wrote a letter to the editor that's how I first became involved I used to think the Piston was one of the best to work for and in fact put great pride in in the way I was treated after my disabling injury it seems now they believe their obligation has come to an end simply because they decided to so if only they could also undo the pain and suffering of all the mi
ners who died in their minds their families and the families of the disabled both which have to barar this burden for the rest of their lives when human lives and needs can be thrown aside as easily as a worn out piece of Machinery then that ain't right that just ain't right [Music] there was this quote that came from a vice president of Pittston who said that uh they were doing away with the medical benefits because it was like when you had a credit card and the credit card had expired and for
I think for people around here who who know people who are um who are sick um because of things that happened to them working 30 and 40 years in the mine you know medical benefits means caring for the people that you care about and those people who are struggling to breathe getting Health you know why the strike was contract had run out why the strike took on its particular intensity was the whole deal about fooling them around with health benefits of the older people and the widows and people w
ho were sick P thought they'd get by with it they thought they could get by with it and uh this uh head man in what is it Greenwich uh Connecticut uh he didn't know anything about these people back here uh he didn't know how that how close knit they was he didn't know how they they stick together and he just thought well he could sit up there in his office and run this place down here but I believe they found out a little different they can replace you but there's one thing about it they can't g
et rid of you the day they come out on a strike I said well I just might as well to get into something I did I started dancing I got with these boys here I like the way they pick and play you can keep up with their music pretty good and I just got interested do what I can all I can to help what do you think about while you're dancing well I think I would when I dance I like to get a hold of them scabs and stomp on them a little bit I go on the pick line of a day and I came down here and Dance T
night not at ease to me to get rid of a lot of my problems that I've had during through the day you Tim me I reckon it's in the [Music] bloodstream [Music] [Laughter] down [Music] hey there's a protest absolutely making music running coal or uh whatever mechanicing or that's what I do I'm a mechanic at the M all of it bid into one all of first time I ever read the contract that pitton proposed the union it was totally 180° opposite in every respect paragraph by paragraph by paragraph it wasn't o
ne thing it was everything in other words we're junking this contract for good but um the big thing thing was uh I think for both sides was the pension fund the first time I ever met him Mr farell who was vice president of the company pounded the table and he said now judge you can talk to us from now to Doomsday and we can talk from now to Doomsday but we will never never never never never go back into that health fund again what's a issue is the Union will not accept change there have been 80,
000 coal miners have lost their job in this decade we feel that it's time to change and try a new style proposal we think our proposal will put people back to work rather than continue the job losses that have occurred but what we require is flexibility to operate our minds and manage our assets to change with the World Market you don't want to think every day of your life that your husband's going to go out there and you may not see him come back home again you know you just don't want to have
to worry about that and to me that's what the union is always meant to me is protection for Beth's job so he would continue to have a job and protection for his life for safety in the work place I am a poor app and C Min my days are darker than most night no [Music] guarantees when I retire I have been Street of all my [Music] [Applause] R every [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I got a hard fast education about where our government is coming from why did they send in the state troopers why
did they send in Federal Marshals the state troopers pretty much stayed back away from us here they they didn't get involved too much here in West Virginia but in Virginia where you have right to work they they were terrible they were awful first time bethl went down there there's 500 state trooper cars parked there they couldn't even find a place to stay overnight well you see they got a a right to work law in Virginia Lord I'd love to see that thing done away with but just as soon as uh compan
y has a strike that's the first thing they ask for is support from the State and of course that's what they rely on as state troopers I believe in what I'm doing and if it takes every day till we get a contract we'll be here that's air air jobs and we don't want no SCS it's air jobs air town the Union's here to [Applause] stay job like quit it worse than a scab nothing worse a scab stay pleas is they're worse than a scab they got to be where your tax money is gone sometimes you can get into the
South and sort of think it's a monolith and we know from that Appalachia is not is different but I even think Virginia is different and it has to do with the Bird Machine and this notion of control and the better people and it also has to do with the relationship of this area Southwest Virginia which has always been Virginia's stepchild you know we are not valued very much in Southwest Virginia but the stereotypes and beliefs about what kind of people are out here is very fundamental and it it p
articularly offends sort of Notions of gentility see you H want you stupid bastard get her cursing view I thank you sure you okay every time that there's a strike and you start up Interstate 81 which I've done on a few occasions and I would meet just strings and strings of Troopers cars with their clothes hanging in the back and it's a sort of a syndrome uh that we have in Southwest Virginia we feel like that we um that people in Richmond thinks the state ends except when they want to come down
here and impose martial [Music] law I grew up Union Dad when father you know helped organized Union here in country Co 1944 and so I was always in a in a Union Home you had together this comaraderie the oath that you take when you join the union you'll not do a brother wrong or see a brother wrong you don't appreciate it until you go through something really makes you think back you what these men really did go through slate fell on him got mashed up in the coal mine and my dad never could to wo
rk anymore and U about 1931 uh the company put us out of their house and sold our furniture for back rent my mom didn't get a dime out of it so she raised us kids walking to clinchco and keeping house for $5 a week of course we had a little farm and we raised a lot of stuff and my dad finally had to take his bed and if he'd lived from March till September he would have laid in the bed 10 years before he died I guess that's one reason that I'm kind of bitter against cold [Music] companies they wa
s Men come from West Virginia Kentucky buckhanon county and tried to organize this place of course the co companies like they are now they had the upper hand for all the law enforcement in Virginia is against labor I understand that Virginia at that time had 150 State Police they had 110 of them down here in clinch Co number nine Bridge the union members was on the other side of the river so one morning Colonel battle walked upon that bridge draw a line with his foot he he said the first damn ma
n that crosses that line said we'll blow him into hell and he pointed back behind him on the hill and they had four machine guns sitting up that hill and I honestly believe if a man to cross that line I believe he'd have killed him so that's that's the kind of trouble we had here about organ dark clising sure sign of rain the men wouldn't be drove around like Bank new after they organized and I've worked in mine for the use M and they are badly abused and the coal miner was too but uh after we o
rganized then things started changing and changing for the better I like all unions for you do have a change to stand up for yourself but you sit down Road B cold truck you hold a cold truck up about 30 minutes how much money is the company losing on that 30 minutes that one truck nothing but I mean it was just a uh just a symbol just say you know we're here talk to us let's get this settled you know that that was the purpose of it come on let's you know we're here we're not leaving we're stayin
g right here and uh we found out you know the laws didn't look at it that way did they real reason we're here is just to enforce the law and the fact that Virginia has a right to work LW people have a right to work people have a right to strike so uh we're neutral we here to protect all citizens everybody do not resist being arrested I repeat do not resist this is civil disobedience this is peaceful [Music] [Applause] [Music] resistance [Music] [Music] if two parties will sit down earnestly and
talk and negotiate things can be settled they can be solved but the way things were set up with the laws the companies don't have to negotiate they can sit back bringing uh replacement workers whatever you can strike but you can go home and set on strike for 10 years but you have to set at home you can't do anything so uh the way the r work call has it set up if you strike you just quit your job yeah we're going to win we're going we're going to fight the hell out of them what we're going to do
we're going to be here what are these State Police doing here uh the company sent for them and they're going to stay and they're escorting them and working them just like dogs I hope they shovel belt this evening scabby damn State labor law they're enforcing their version of law we're sitting here in no violence boys keep [Applause] Faith the right to work law is a product of a larger piece of legislation called the Taft heart law unions sometimes get a lot of grief about why they aren't doing t
hings the way that they used to do them in the 30s and I think you would find that a lot of things they did in the 30s were made explicitly illegal by the Taft Harley law after the war there was a lot of turmoil going on there were some strikes and there were some other things and there was a lot of fear of Labor and particularly one particular person a lot of fear of Johnny Lewis who is regarded as the devil incarnate by Southern politicians 300,000 odd men made victims some died more than 6,00
0 some lived some live blind some with Twisted backs loss of Limbs paralyzed bodies broken bones the flesh burned off of their their faces until they're grinning specters of men by gas explosion we want the welf fund for them at the cost of this industry a charge on the cost of production if we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call Modern America then before God I assert that those who consume the coal and you and I who benefit from that service because we li
ve in Comfort we owe protection to those men first and we owe the security for their families if they die I say it I voice it I Proclaim it and I care not who in Heaven or Hell opposed it that's what I believe about [Music] that there was a period of time where judges were very heavily involved in injunctions and then there was a brief period of time where they were supposed to be out of it by the noris LaGuardia Cartley put him back in put federal courts back in in terms of enforcing its Provis
ions the final part about the right to work law enabled each state to uh pass laws uh whereby uh union membership was not a precondition for employment where you did not no longer have Union shops uh and they cast it in the terms of you know helping the workers's right to belong to what he uh wanted to belong to and that is still I mean there's something called The Right to Work Foundation but you know the real issue here is you know what sectors of the E economy and what regions we going to be
unionized and I think that Southern States you know right to work is U sacred all the southern states have right to work laws you know the ironies of it if you look at it and all the you know in the greater scheme of things that this whole southern strategy of attracting industry now it's gone really South you know and so some of the gimmicks that southern state used like lousy unemployment compensation system lousing safety for workers and all this other stuff that they were supposed to attract
well they the industries they aren't stopping they're going elsewhere well the national Right to Work committee has 1.8 million members Nationwide uh the one thing they all have in common is they believe that union membership and union dues should be voluntary now we've been in involved in in in monitoring and and publicizing some of what's G on in strikes like the Pittston strike and other uh strikes such as that because what you have is violence and Terror being used to intimidate workers who
don't go along with what the union wants well I want to show you uh some of the uh examples of what's happened January the 22nd after Rome Creek coal cells have been issued a federal injunction umwa pickets still controlled the company's Bridge violation of the federal injunction in this case they had to bring in Federal Marshals in order to enforce the law because the state authorities did nothing about it they they understood state law to be that the state police could not interfere in a labo
r dispute most reasonable people would say that what we're seeing here is not a labor dispute it's terrorism it's intimidation it's it's it's uh uh uh goon behavior and if I were a union member uh I'd be ashamed to see this kind of behavior because this isn't what union should be about Union should be about protecting the rights of workers not about threatening people on their lives their property because they disagree with what you're doing Mar shoving them out way cor done HIIT the ground Mike
's just walking over top of yes Marshals do have their ride sticks they are prepared for whatever whatever comes along you you're under [Music] arrest resist resist I'm not resist I mean if one person lays down in the middle of the road a little old lady lays down in front of a cold truck and and the police coming and take her away well no one is going to feel threatened by that but when you have mobs of people who are dressed in military fatigues who have masks on their faces and they come down
and they surround your vehicle things like that that happen uh on Union picket lines are sufficient to to have the desired effect of making people turn around and not go to their jobs whose jobs are they well that's a pretty deep question if if my employer finds somebody who can do my job better than I can uh there's no guarantee that I'm going to continue to have a job and none of us can be guaranteed of that no one can guarantee me or you or anyone else a job I was Raising Union family just l
ike a big oak tree planted well you know you're just planting you're not going anywhere no matter what they do in Connecticut or what these big companies say or what these lawyers and damn government says well I don't think we'll [Music] [Applause] [Music] leave well we're in support of our families we walk out of school today in support of our families exactly right miners went to jail here yesterday I'd say as y'all already well know and uh they're bringing more in they're bringing more and we
just feel like we need to support him show get public support behind them I think that means a lot job Security's on the line here without a contract without job security can't work for scabs we showed up for school and they had been arrest the day before everybody was just emotionally moved and we walked out we kind of felt like we was Union sticking together you know you take up for me I'll take up for you that's the what union is to me I don't know what the camoufl actually the miners come o
ut and they wore it you know when on the picket lines we picked it up and we wore it everybody wore it it was Union sympathizer we have a right as Americans as students to support our families in a time of need piston has turned it into what it is and we have the right to fight without thew they can put you in unsafe minding conditions any hours go back labor go back to labor that is unfair that's why the union was form to P it together it's not for the union the non-union would would work for s
lave labor there would be no no mines the union does set us toer if this Union fails it's it for unions all around we're protesting because we're from the mountains this is Southwest Virginia this is King Co country pensioners retirees try to take their benefits they work for all their all their life you know sure it was a war was us against them big business big companies you [Music] know [Music] [Music] [Music] over when there would be a strike in the coal industry the big action would be foug
ht out in State Court with State Court injunctions under Virginia's right to work law but the problem as presented to me in the reason that I did enter the injunction in the case was over the fact that the state court injunction was doing absolutely no good there had been probably somewhere between 11 and 1500 arrests the General District Court judges had all recused themselves in Russell County and Dickinson County County which were the primary counties involved the Conwell attorney of Russell
County and the Conwell attorney of Dickinson County recused themselves of Prosecuting the cases so there was no prosecutor there was no court and not only that there was all this mass of state troopers who were brought into the area they were mostly from Eastern Virginia they turned around went back to Eastern Virginia when the cases did come up for trial the witnesses didn't show up the cold field assignment uh is just not a good assignment there's no question that the morale is not quite as go
od when someone is on the way out here for an assignment as as it is when they're on the way home the people would make bond and come right back and do the same act again the state court judge had already at that time entered into huge fines which weren't being paid and weren't being enforced where you're dealing with a massive amount of people ignoring of a court order which to me was a terrible thing that if you enter a court order and it's not enforced and you uh the very foundations of the c
ountry is the very basis of law is is gone no doubt it came from the Civil Rights struggle that Martin Luther King had had began and I happen to be the 2000th arrest even though I was very scared about it you know didn't know how the state police would handle it and where where I went if they had a bathroom I could get in so I had a lot of worries you know but I know that the cause is right and I I was willing to do it if we were find a million dollars a day for sitting in the road or whatever v
iolating that how much should piston be find for taking away Health Care from a man and having that worry on him what was going to happen to his wife and who was going to pay his bills you know how much should have come be fine today that did that to a man you know it's wrong for me to go sit in the road but it's not wrong for this company to cut off my my uh Daddy's ability to go the doctor I mean and you know they they made equations people here looked at their ordinary notion of justice and s
aid look there's something uh just wrong here law does not necessarily mean [Music] Justice [Music] if pson can jet Us in 6,000 pensioners the rest of the industry's already told us that they will jet Us in 130,000 pensioners when next we negotiate it's so Stark here that we said enough is enough no more if Pittston can break its social contract with the Mind workers here and do it openly in violation of the labor laws of the country if they can do it here with the Mine Workers then any employer
anywhere can do it to any worker the contention that this company has been mismanaged is Lous recognizing that we are not an isolated island protected from the rest of the world's competition they're are major countries that are gearing up to produce coal and compete with us Australia Colombia Venezuela South Africa Russia Poland these are all countries that produce and are our major comp editors when we go to sell a ton of coal I challenge the union to present any coal company that they are af
filiated with whose stock has doubled in the last five years and ours has there were some people in Cardiff well a group of community people they said to tell the people in Southwest Virginia that money has no cons and greed has no heart and if you depend upon those people people in that company to have a conscience and a heart you're going to lose this strike that's what they said this is a song from a working man in Welles for the working people here in Virginia it's about an old man who had b
lack lungs another night fighting for breath Roll Along the [Music] day hurt so bad you wish for them R long day R long morning roll long day I hear the old sofly praying [Music] Rong day in the summer the National Labor Relations Board engaged in a hearing that was over complaints that the union was making against Pittston which were the cause of the strike and they were claiming that they were unfire labor practices they deserved a decision on that it's never been decided to this day they had
a little electrical disturbance up there had shut the lights off and they adjourned until October now this was June early July mind you obviously Law and Order has to be restored in the area uh we're cooperating fully with the appropriate state and federal officials in dealing with this latest act of violence by the union okay [Music] [Music] [Applause] ready it doesn't make any difference if we're in here or if we're out there they're going to do something to try to find us or put us in jail no
matter where we're at or what we're doing if there's not a law already against it they go see Glenn Williams and Jim McGloin they've made a our legal right to strike almost ineffective and and now you know I think we're doing pretty good and we are being effective oh yeah your wife just called said everything's fine at home everything's great she's behind you 100% she loves you B you know we're the people that's getting the attention but that's where the power is out there we love them all I wi
sh everybody had a a view like this uh I tell you what we love you all too and we're going stick together we fight this one way or the other he's only 46 years old and he has spent 21 years at this one particular place and it's kind of hard to see somebody else take your job that you have worked for 21 years I mean we have a kid in college we have still have kid in high school and a kid that would like to go to college but right now is on H so I mean it's pretty hard to stand back and just you k
now say oh well let them have the job I'm going to be peaceful and I'm not going to do anything that's not reality you fight for what you believe in and for your way of life and the ones who gave up parts of their body and their lungs and what have you for their company and they were guaranteed for years that they would be taken care of and there has been some death since this strike for the simple fact people cannot get their medical attention they cannot get their medications it's sad but it i
s a reality we're not asking for anything extravagant we're asking for the basic needs of every worker man or woman in this country country deserves just job security protection for our retirees that they can enjoy life when they retire coming up the road you didn't know really what was going to be waiting on you I was shaking like hey I was shaking my boots the guys in the back couldn't see nothing you know in the back of the Vans and when we pulled up see all there was the gate was open and tw
o guards so we come running in aund of us jumped out what are they going to do you know they either shoot us or they get out of the way tell they got out of the way and we came on in the only think there's a possibility somebody might have got shot I thought there'd be five or six of us get shot before we got across that bridge when they talk about cutting the ties they ain't talking about strangers they talking about our uncles and our grandfathers and we lived in the same area generation after
generation man next door Ain't No Stranger you know he's your uncle or your brother-in-law or you went to school with him or you went to school with his brother they're not strangers they ain't talking about strangers they're talking about family so you all been pretty tight all a along you have to be they don't care what color their slaves are they don't care if they're black they're white slaves a slave to them work you till you die and then give you the bare minimum to exist until you are de
ad and and then who gives a damn you know when you're no longer useful so what do you reckon is going to be the end here what's going to happen right here State Police going to come and take us to jail one of these [Music] days we [Applause] [Music] are the thing that Pittston doesn't understand is we own this coal here in these Hills that belongs to us it belongs of the people and it's for the good of the people not Paul Douglas and Joe frell it's for the good of the people P down [Applause] he
re the sound that we came out the prep Point seem like thanks just died when just went out of the sales uh I've heard uh some people say the reasons why uh I don't know if they're true or not uh but we do know that Trump and Douglas were meeting in Canada while we were in the prep plant uh what they met about what they discussed you know no one knows but at that time you know that's when my father got sick right after we came out of the prep plant went into the hospital and uh so I stayed with h
im pretty much at the hospital until he passed away was blind but now I see when we've been 10,000 years when [Music] we the we know [Music] God and we they say they have the right to work and to cross picking lines but down deep in their hearts they know they're doing wrong they can say what they want to but I think they know they're doing wrong cuz if they didn't when they walked by they went and Dro their [Music] heads I don't feel like I took the damn job I feel like that they they walked of
f if a man walks off and leaves his job in a state that has the right to work law then then that guarantees me that hey I've got a shot of getting job over there the money right like work CLW and the job I had for I come here can't make it on$ hour what I was making I tried that for a year and a half that don't [Music] work the right to work I mean the right to have a job have a paycheck to feed your family that's an individual right if you're a young talented individual you don't benefit from a
seniority system because seniority says that no matter how talented you are if somebody's been there a day longer than you that person is always ahead of you for a promotion now there's nothing wrong with with seniority there is a lot of value in people who have put time in but from the point of view of the individual who's new and young and talented uh and and is in competition with someone else who's older uh who may be equally talented it's something unfair that says uh that it's not going t
o be talent but it's going to be seniority that makes the decision we have a vision of a work place in a labor law that says that you do what you want that we don't see workers only in the plural because workers are in the singular everybody's a worker and and everybody has his own idea of what's good for him or her and what you think is good for you what I think is good for me uh we should be free to do it as we see fit and and there's no way I should be able to force you to fit in my mold the
community has rights and values like my neighbor down here come and ask me to help him I should go help him and if I ask him to come and help me he should come and help me and that's how we should live the better of the community should be more important than the better of oneself if this whole Community does good and say I have to suffer because of it personally then that then that that's right that's how it should be whereas if you have scabs coming in they're flourishing while the community g
oes down yeah they do the community they do everybody wrong replacement workers victory victory this is nothing new to me we just work out from contract to contract and then we lose everything we got you know get another contract we want to thank pistons for bringing us closer that's one thing it did hey it did it brought us all real tight hey we're we're great shape and it's going to stay like it's now it ain't going we're not going to fade away no more CU this year is learn us we will stay tog
ether overall we had over 4,000 arrest through this strike and the courts have seen that to best the union they had to best us they had to take every one of us and that's one reason that you're seeing uh things that's happening today hopefully that the contract we've not saw it yet but hopefully it's uh it's what we want and uh that's the fruits of making a stand and not being scared off not uh not letting the judges the courts and all the State Police Federal Marshals not let not let scare us o
ff like his fell here we couldn't have done it without him I mean uh dick when we went to St Paul we didn't do much we just but they done they' done a lot to help us people all over the country I think the Justice systems really has not realized that you know uh you know they said it was going to be neutral and yet we got find $64 million and it's almost impossible to find us for something in that order and we've never been uh proven guilty for any of these situ [Music] I'm 63 years old I have n
ever even had a parking T and drove all my life I've been to jail twice and I'm willing to go back again if that's what it [Music] takes get [Music] out does anybody win whenever you have a N9 10mth strike I don't think you can classify anybody as winners in a 9 or 10 month strike we should have been able to negotiate that contract the labor laws in this country are designed for working people to lose it's a good contract it's good for the communities our employees uh the company the industry uh
it's our objective to return operations to full production as quickly as possible and once again restore piston to its position as the largest exporter of coal in America [Music] W I had grave outs that half of the fins that I had imposed would have stood up so why I have it dilly dally and go up into higher Court I struck it off and then I I reduced it some more beyond that and then I imposed the um uh community service one day we were working down our own clean the river I said you know you'r
e my people when the people you live with are suffering if there's anything to you you suffer this is not Justice I mean I don't mind helping with the community and everything but uh but the way it turned out I don't call this Justice I'm 60 years old and uh actually this over I'm going to have to go job but so uh anyway uh I retired where I wanted to or not we just wanted to have a fire adjust contract and live uh with dignity where's piston now Running Co I guess wouldn't you say making we've
got plenty of law plenty of law we have no justice [Applause] [Music] you're damn right they all or something you D going right we we've made them millions this community has and what we have to show for it but people out of work now I work in the mines the non-union mindes sure I'd like to be Union but can't be with your children would you want them to go into the mes no how come no it's just no place it's just rough you know dangerous hard work no I wouldn't want them to go in the mes I was al
ways told not to go in the mines I think everybody's told not to go in the mines but somebody has to so where does it end when all the Cold's left here they won't worry about us anymore I'm going go back and make it like we did before that's when it's over whenever lump of Coal's gone are you talking about Justice of the laws of the country or uh internal Justice you know your own peace what kind of Justice are you talking about both IDE guess well we knew uh that the laws of the land is against
The Working Man they always have been uh but internally uh after the strike I had Peace of Mind in one way because I knew that I did what I should have done I I feel that I have no regrets for what I for what I did through the strike I've changed occupation I'm the Animal control officer in the county when they shut L Fork down I've never been recalled to the mines I started piton 1971 I miss it I still dreamed about it are these mountains bong to the people they always have always will if you
ever want really to see something pitiful fly over the cold fields in a helicopter something and look how the companies have raped this land it's enough to make you cry but they're still our heels always will [Music] [Applause] be we the people that mind the cold are as much a part of these mountains as it seems the cold that lie in them we have always been accommodating independent people but we like all others will not tolerate abuse whether corporate or government we demand that we be treated
with dignity and respect and that Justice be applied equally certainly not an unreasonable question the land of our our heritage heritage our Great and Mighty un stands unbroken still today it's help us through hard times before we know it's here to [Applause] stay [Applause] [Music] Amica please listen to our we want to work our un jobs we just want to be free the fal Court have been unfair with finds no one could is just a lab strike why can't they stay away Amica Amica just open up your eyes
there only Creed is Corporate greed and ours is [Music] [Music] to God shed his grace on the and Crown my good with Brotherhood from sea to [Music] shine

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