Little Light of Mine

TfflS Little Light OF Mine A striking coalfield community stands up to Pittston Mary Ann Heimann © 1990, Unity Publications P.O. Box 29293, Oakland, CA 94604 All rights reserved. Permission to reprint article in whole or in part must be obtained from the publisher. Unity Pamphlet This Little Light of Mine Mary Ann Heimann In early 1989, the Pittston Coal Company, the nation's largest coal exporter, abruptly cut off health benefits to its retired and disabled miners, forcing a strike which the company hoped would drive the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) out of its mines. For the next ten months, the southwest Virginia coalfields were under virtual martial law. Thousands were jailed and the UMWA was fined over $65 million. But on February 19,1990, strikers overwhelmingly approved a contract restoring pension benefits, granting fully paidhealth coverage, and protecting union jobs. With this victory, U.S. labor emerged from the long night of the 1980s. This is a portrait of the people who made it happen. # Z i H i H I S L I T T L E L I G H T O F learned that the Pittston Company took I Mine." I had heard that song over the Clinchfield Coal Company in I many times before I visited 1956. Just shorten that down a bit and Dickenson County, Wginia, in June of you get Clinchco. 1989, and I heard it sung many times And that was my introduction to the while I was there, but I never attached an domination of almost everything in Ap- image to it. It was only after I returned to palachia by the coal companies. Even the Los Angeles and began trying to organ streets are named after company super ize the jumble of thoughts and impres visors from the early days, when the sions I brought back that it suddenly towns were directly owned by the coal came to me why This little light of companies. Mine." The highway from Tennessee runs I had to fly into the Tri-Cities Airport through a narrow valley with mountains near Bristol, Tennessee, on a propjet and rising on each side. As it approaches drive for four hours to get to Clinchco, Dickenson County, it begins climbing Virginia. I wondered why they would call the hills. Except where they are clus a town Clinchco, but that was before I tered in towns, houses are mostly in Mary Arm Heimann is a member ofUAW District 65 and treasurer of her local in Los Angeles. She is a writer for Unity newspaper. This Little Light of Mine 1 Summer day in Trammel, Virginia This town has been hard hit by the economic problems in the coal region. Miners and their families have lived here for generations. hollers (valleys) that run along the side away from the excitement of the picket of the road. Houses stand alone, each line. Miners used to walk the ten miles to constructed in the center of a ring of get to the mines. They would come home woods that has been cleared to allow for at night to renew their strength in the the house, shed and garden. The nearest peaceful solitude. Sister Mary Keane and neighbors are only a few hundred feet Sister Loretta Scully, who live in Dante, away, but trees keep them hidden from told me they have worked at resettling view. miners and other mountain people who I stayed with Mildred Deel and her had to move away from the mountains for husband, Jim. Mildred delivers the mail lack of work or other reasons. "They just along the mountain roads and Jim is a can't get used to being that close to their retired miner. Their house is sur neighbors. They get depressed." rounded on three sides by thick stands But solitude does not mean isolation. of cedar, and on the fourth side is a Mildred's phone rang every five minutes garden. Their daughter's family lives just with news of someone being arrested, or through the woods, and the cemetery a car wash for the Student Auxiliary, or where her ancestors are buried is someone who asks, "Did you hear Sena nearby. tor John Warner on TV say that miners The intense quiet seemed worlds are a hard people to work with?" And, of 2 Unity Pamphlet Rally of 1,500 miners in Carbo, Virginia, April 1989 Workers at Pittston's 30 mines and coal processing plants went on strike to protest cuts in medical benefits, and to defend union mining. course, almost every house has a CB the onlylightthe miners had duringtheir (citizens band radio) to keep track of the long shifts underground. state troopers. I was told that if a miner mistakenly put even one rock in a load of coal, which they dug by hand in those days, he A sense of history wouldn't get paid for the entire load. And Mildred introduced me to Mr. and in that dim light, to distinguish coal from Mrs. Reedy and their son Dennis, who rock would have been close to miracu invited me into their home, which I soon lous. found out was unusual. The house had a Dennis then held up a belt with a museum built onto the back. Dennis has Social Security number stamped on it, "to been collecting things since he was six make for easy identification if you were years old. The walls were filled with the killed," he explained. He went on to say implements of mining. A glass case held that miners had to pay for everything the hats with hooks that miners wore in they used, but they weren't given cash. the '30s and '40s. A separate shelf held They were paid in scrip, a type of money several generations of lamps that at redeemable only at the company store. It tached to the hooks. Mr. Reedy pointed was used until 1958. out that a Tittle light," a candle really, was Mildred showed me the Clinchco This Little Light of Mine 3 United Mine Workers rally in St. Paul, Virginia, August 1989 AFL-CIO Pres. Lane Kirkland, UMWA Pres. Richard Trumka, and UMWA Vice-Pres. Cecil Roberts (left to right) at solidarity rally. Women's Auxiliary serving food at Camp Soiidarity Women played a crucial role in sustaining the strike, including organizing picket lines, demonstrations, and outside support. Local high school students joined together to support the strikers. 4 U n i t y P a m p h l e t History Book that Dennis had written. I a pad formed from kneeling all day in an found that Appalachia was originally area 27 or 28 inches high. He was populated by American Indians, but by crushed up in the mines several times. the early 19th century, pioneers began He has no feeling below the elbows. My settling in the area to farm and hunt. The mother accidentally poured boiling wa key to opening up Dickenson County to ter for coffee on his hand and he didn't coal mining was the completion of a rail even realize it until later in the day when line, owned by Clinchfield Coal, in 1908. he pulled his hand out of his pocket and The company constructed the town of the skin was hanging off three fingers." Clinchco in 1917, which included, in In his opinion, Pittston cut off the bene addition to row upon row of look-alike fits precisely because it would anger the houses, a company store, company the miners and eventually provoke a strike. atre, company church and company As we drove along, Idella pointed out doctor's office. Greek, Italian and Hun "I support the UMWA" signs in almost garian immigrants came to live in the every store window. One such window town. African Americans who had belonged to the Odd Shop in Clintwood, worked on the construction of the rail where we stopped so I could buy some line also settled in Clinchco. The com camouflage, the "uniform" adopted by pany built a separate church for them. striking miners. Because the lines are In those days, the miners were like slaves. As Don McCamey, secretary- treasurer of District 28 of the United Mine Workers of America, told me, 'They had you lock, stock, and barrel— you lived in their house, traded in their store and all you got out of it was some thing to eat." I began to understand the importance of the UMWA M o u n t a i n s o f s u p p o r t The next day we were on our way to Big Stone Gap, "\Trginia, where union leaders were on trial. I asked Idella Mullins, Mildred's cousin, what the main issues of the strike were. "It's not the money—we can live with what they give us. We're fighting for the retirees and the widows, the old people." Pittston had taken away retirees' and widows' health benefits in the dead of winter. This really struck a nerve, because most of the miners' lives had been de stroyed in one way or another by the The Odd Shop in Clintwood, Va. mines: black lung, bent limbs, injury. Most local businesses supported the strike, Said Don McCamey of his father: "My some even posting bonds for dad's knees are like an elephant's tusk— arrested strikers. This Little Light of Mine s drawn so visibly, it's important to show The state against the union which side you are on. Most store own When we finally reached the court ers know that Pittston takes its profits out house, we found a lively picket line made of Virginia, but the miners spend their up of miners, their wives, nuns, teachers, wages here.

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