Dirty Work (page 3 of 3)

Fighting for the Union

It was in battling such conditions that the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) rose to prominence in the early 20th century, helping secure collective bargaining power and health and retirement benefits for its workers. While the majority of local miners once belonged to the union, a West Virginia Coal Association spokesman says that today, only 25 to 30 percent do. McKnight shudders to see young men surrendering union membership for "the quick dollar" they get by signing onto a nonunion outfit. Often under cover of darkness, he still knocks on coal miners' doors to try to convince them to organize. He has been chased off people's property more times than he can remember. "But everything we have, we have because our fathers and grandfathers shed blood for it," he continues. "To just walk away from that is wrong."

Andrew Lucas works at a nonunion mine. At 23, with a wife, a new house, and an eight-month-old son, he isn't thinking about anyone's grandfather.

Already, Lucas has been injured while at work. His job is to insert long bolts overhead to keep the mine ceiling from caving in. One day a piece of slate the size of a classroom chalkboard, only thicker, came down, pinning him. Luckily, he walked away.

His wife, Veronica, comes from a mining family; she fears for her husband's safety. "Every miner's wife is the same way," she says. "You try not to think about it."

Clyde McKnight once coached Lucas in football. What goes unsaid when the two talk about the union is that, these days, many think it's just for old guys. The countryside is teeming with older, laid-off union miners; they get preference when a union job comes up. Young men like Lucas, who want to feed their families, can take a nonunion job or leave the area. "The ratio of young to old in my mine is about six to four," Lucas says. McKnight estimates that 90 percent of the workers at his mine are older than 40.

Lucas says he gets good benefits from his nonunion company. McKnight argues that the reason for preserving the union is for the day those benefits are no longer available.

Experts expect West Virginia's production to peak within the next couple of decades; the underground Appalachian coal miner could one day become an endangered species.

McKnight takes in a lungful of the mountain air as he drives away from the Lucas home. He will keep mining coal until he is no longer able. And, he says, he will fight for the union to his dying breath. But, as the last in a long line of McKnight coal miners, what happens after he is gone is a problem for somebody else's son.

From Reader's Digest - June 2007

 

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