Coal Miners

The Nation’s Coal Miners Get A Rare Piece Of Good News

April 20, 2024 Kim Kelly, In These Times. Educate! Black Lung, Coal Miners, Regulation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Today, the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) officially published a new federal safety rule aimed at reducing the amount of silica dust that coal miners breathe during their long shifts underground. As In These Times reported in a 2023 investigation, the prior standard allowed miners to be exposed to as much as 100 micrograms of silica dust per cubic meter, which was twice as high as the silica limit for workers in all other industries. The new rule slashes the limit to 50 micrograms — a level first recommended in 1974.

What Today’s Labor Reformers Can Learn From A Rank-And-File Coal Miners’ Victory 50 Years Ago

December 16, 2022 Steve Early, In These Times. Strategize! Coal Miners, History, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

In December 1972, coal miners rocked the American labor movement by electing three reformers as top officers of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), a union which at the time boasted 200,000 members and a culture of workplace militancy without peer. In national balloting supervised by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Arnold Miller, Mike Trbovich and Harry Patrick ousted an old guard slate headed by W.A. (“Tony”) Boyle, the benighted successor to John L. Lewis, who ran the UMWA in autocratic fashion for 40 years. Boyle’s opponents, who campaigned under the banner of Miners for Democracy (MFD), had never served on the national union staff, executive board or any major bargaining committee.

Coalminers On Strike For 10 Months Vow Not To Be ‘Starved Out’

January 26, 2022 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. Resist! Coal Miners, Strike, Warriors Met Coal Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

About 1,100 coalminers in Alabama have entered 2022 still on strike, more than 10 months since they walked out back in April last year, making it the longest strike in the US since the Covid-19 pandemic began and the longest in Alabama’s history. Workers started the unfair labor practice strike over claims of bad faith bargaining by Warrior Met Coal over a new union contract. In the previous contract settled in 2016, miners accepted several concessions, including a $6-an-hour pay cut and reductions in health insurance and other benefits as the mines switched employers in the wake of a bankruptcy. The miners on strike have received support from US politicians such as Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Sherrod Brown, and received donations to their strike fund from dozens of labor unions across the US.

A Miners’ Strike Fed By Solidarity

August 18, 2021 Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times. Resist! Alabama, Coal Miners, Strike, Worker Rights

Over 1,100 union coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on an unfair labor practices strike against Warrior Met Coal for over five months. For five months, workers and their families have been holding the line, demanding to get back what was stolen from them with their last contract, demanding to actually have time to spend with their families, demanding to be treated with the respect they deserve for making this mine more productive than ever. The UMWA’s strike motto is “One day longer, one day stronger,” and workers are showing no signs that they plan to back down. In Part I of this special two-part update on the miners’ strike, our brother-in-arms Jacob Morrison from The Valley Labor Report interviews striking workers and supporters who attended a solidarity rally that the union held in Brookwood last week.

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