Harlan County, Kentucky, may be one of labor’s most hallowed battlegrounds. Its soil has been soaked in the blood of union men and women time and time again since the early 20th century, when major labor disputes between miners and greedy mine operators roiled the area. Now, almost a century after the infamous Battle of Blair Mountain in neighboring West Virginia, one of the biggest and bloodiest class war uprisings in U.S. history, suffering Appalachian coal miners have taken matters into their own hands once again.

On July 29, about 50 coal miners in Cumberland, Kentucky, banded together to stop a moving train. They blocked the tracks, refusing to allow the train, carrying $1 million worth of coal, to pass, according to Newsweek. They did the same thing the next day, and the next — literally putting their bodies on the line. Their protest began because Blackjewel, the company where they had until recently been employed, filed for bankruptcy in early July without paying the approximately $5 million in back pay the company owes to 1,700 miners, an attorney for the group told CNN. The standoff has now stretched on for weeks. The miners are not only dealing with financial hardships, but are also in legal limbo, unable to access health care benefits or file for unemployment, Cumberland mayor Charles Raleigh told CNN. The community and local churches have pitched in to help, and a collective of local trans anarchist activists are on the ground providing mutual aid, but many miners are still struggling. The Blackjewel mine was reportedly not unionized, but its former workers have used the tried-and-true union tactic of collective action to fight for what they are owed.

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In doing so they’ve become part of a long, proud tradition of Appalachian labor militancy. In 1921, 10,000 West Virginia coal miners seeking union recognition went to war with the mine operators who refused their right to organize. The dispute culminated in an armed five-day standoff in which strikebreakers and local, state, and federal authorities faced off with the miners (and some dropped bombs on their homes). This conflict became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain,, and the effect it had on the region’s strong culture of resistance continues to echo.

Less than a decade later, in the 1930s, the same region saw a series of violent clashes pitting coal miners and their union, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), against the mine operators blocking their unionizing efforts, and the bosses hired gun thugs. During that period, miners and union organizers in Kentucky were subject to extreme violence and intimidation from mine operators and law enforcement, and due to a rash of shootings and bombings the area earned the nickname “Bloody Harlan.” Forty years later, in 1973, miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County went on strike, and a young filmmaker named Barbara Kopple was on hand to capture the scene, which erupted into more bloodshed as the strike stretched to 13 months. The resulting documentary, Harlan County USA, is a classic of labor cinema, and an essential document in understanding Appalachia’s working-class history.

Bloody Harlan also gave rise to one of the most famous labor songs ever written, “Which Side Are You On?” Penned by Florence Reece at her kitchen table in 1931, the song perfectly captured the pride and desperation that gripped coal miners and their families during those turbulent times. Reece’s husband, Sam, was an organizer with the UMWA, and their family was regularly terrorized by the sheriff’s men; when Florence wrote her song, Sam was hiding out in the mountains, in fear for his life. Today her fierce message of solidarity can still be heard at protests and on picket lines, and the words she set down 88 years ago are as poignant now as they were then: “Don't scab for the bosses, don't listen to their lies, us poor folks haven't got a chance, unless we organize.”

It’s worth noting that miners aren’t the only union folks represented in the region; teachers in West Virginia and Kentucky made headlines with a series of wildcat strikes in 2018 and earlier this year as part of the wider #RedforEd movement.

But for the coal miners who are so much a part of Harlan County history, union recognition isn’t the only struggle they face in 2019. Now their deadliest foe is the climate crisis, and the havoc it promises to wreak on their health, homes, and livelihoods.

With the climate crisis becoming more of an immediate danger with every passing day, the question of what will happen to coal miners and other workers in extractive industries like oil and gas grows more pressing. The Green New Deal (GND) remains controversial within much of the labor community, particularly among those in the manufacturing and extractive sectors who fear mass job losses or the dissolution of their entire industries. For them, and for coal miners in particular, the focus is on the idea of a “just transition” — a means of transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy in a way that will create good-paying new jobs and viable career paths, and won’t leave them high and dry when the last mine closes.

The GND resolution does come with a universal jobs guarantee, but the thought of taking job-training classes or switching careers in middle age can be an understandably tough pill to swallow for someone who’s spent their entire working life underground. Despite these real complications, detractors of the GND often resort to the disingenuous, divisive tactic of pitting coal miners against environmentalists, as if it’s a zero-sum political game instead of gambling with the future of the planet. These critics act as though the miners as a monolith don’t care about the climate crisis, which certainly isn’t the case; while some unions still have their reservations, the growing support for the GND among miners and labor in general paints a different picture.

In addition, an important Senate bill, the American Miners Act of 2019 (AMA) is stuck in limbo. The bill would transfer funds to the UMWA pension fund to aid the more than 100,000 miners whose retirement savings were hit by the Great Recession of 2008, safeguard health care benefits for miners whose companies have recently gone bankrupt, and extend the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax, which provides for the families of miners affected by black lung disease. The AMA and its sister act in the House were introduced on January 31, but have yet to pass. Despite President Trump’s insistence that he is a friend to coal miners, his administration has done little to keep the mines running or aid the miners themselves. Thousands of lives hang in the balance, and coal mines continue to shut down, with at least three major mines declaring bankruptcy since May. After hearing the Blackjewel miners’ pleas for help, the Department of Labor did end up using an Obama-era measure to bar the train from moving until the miners get paid, but for now, their bills are still piling up.

“The good old days you should remember is when we had unions and we could look forward to a future and our kids had a better future,” Terry Steele, a retired miner and member of UMWA Local 1440, told the Guardian. “Now our kids are scared to death of their future. It’s because of greed and everything flowing to the top.”

This is why the Blackjewel miners and their blockade are so important amid so much uncertainty and fear. With the power of organizing, collective action, and solidarity, these miners and their families have stood up for themselves and their community. They practiced the gospel of “no worker left behind.” They successfully pushed back against craven capitalist exploitation; set an example for their peers in the industry; and made it clear that the fire of Appalachian resistance still runs in their blood, as red as the bandanas their spiritual ancestors wore around their necks as they marched to Blair Mountain.

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