By Christopher Worth
In the heart of West Virginia, there is a piece of land that has been dedicated as a park. This park exists on the top of Kayford Mountain. The park is an island in the sky because all around the mountain there exists only craters where once had stood a chain of mountains in the Appalachian range. Kayford is the last standing link in what used to be a glorious chain of peaks and valleys.
The chain was slowly cut away by a mining practice called mountaintop removal. This type of mining is characterized by the removal of the tops of mountains to more easily access the rich coal seams running through mountain's center. As a part of the removal process, the debris from the top of the mountain is simply pushed over the edge down into the valleys below (called valley fill). This process ignores the impact on the streams and the water table. They are further impacted because of the use of chemicals used to clean the coal as its harvested, leaching into the water and poisoning it. West Virginia is called the birthplace of rivers for a reason. It is within our mountain range that major river tributaries find their beginnings, and so as mountain top removal continues so too does the poisoning of the water that feeds much of the US.
We can barely touch on the immense environmental impact mountaintop removal has in this article. What I want to do is talk about the people standing up against such practices, particularly Larry Gibson, who is the keeper of Kayford Mountain. He has fought long and hard to maintain his island in the sky. Just as important as protecting the environment, Larry and people like him protect a history, culture, and way of life, for it is within the coal country of Appalachia that the worker took a stand against the industrial barons. This historical moment is known as The Battle of Blair Mountain. The workers rose up to demand their rights and an end to economic, social, and political tyranny that showed its face as mass repression. As the workers attempted to break their chains, the system responded by dropping bombs. It is clear to me that the battle of Blair Mountain (which opened up so many possibilities for organizing worker's rights) has, for the most part been squashed by history.
Today the coal industry is planning to take the top off of Blair Mountain, thumbing their noses at the worker's history. This is a last ditch effort by the coal company to rewrite history. They have convinced the mass population of West Virginia that they are the number one job providers in the state -- a complete lie. The predominant coal extraction process only employs 16 miners per site, while a deep mine would have employed close to 200 workers. The coal industry that has made so much money on the backs of Appalachians, has taken more than physical resources from this place. They have repressed culture and even human potential. Many native West Virginians do not believe that they could do anything outside of the mono economy.
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West Virginia
Mountain Top Removal: An Attempt To Rewrite Work’s History
Mountain Top Removal: An Attempt To Rewrite Work’s History
Larry Gibson and the numerous unnamed
people standing up against the coal mining
industry are examples of the possibilities
for bringing about change in Appalachia.
PHOTO/donated
Voice of a Young Revolutionary
The Meaning of May Day.
The Meaning of May Day.
Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa
joined newly elected United Auto Workers
(UAW) President Bob King, representatives
from the AFL-CIO, NAACP, Interfaith Worker
Justice, Jobs with Justice and the more
than 1,400 delegates from the 2010 UAW
Convention to march down to Detroit’s
banking district to tell big banks and
corporations that the assault on the
middle class must end now.
PHOTO/daymonjhartley.com
By: Sean Crawford
Editor’s note: This second part of this article will be published in the September issue of the People’s Tribune. It was a speech given on May Day, 2010 in Flint, Michigan.
I feel it's impossible to understand the meaning of May Day without first understanding the struggles endured by the working class for a better quality of life. Specifically the struggle for the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour working week.
Of course an eight-hour work day wasn't always something we could take for granted. In fact it has only been common practice in most western countries for approximately 75 years. Prior to that workers often had to suffer through a mandatory 12 or more hours per day; with no overtime pay and little if any health or safety protections. Making the working conditions for many dirty, miserable and dangerous.
Imagine the coal miner, blackened with soot laboring in dungeon-like conditions, beneath the earth, with tons of rock barely hanging on above him. Risking his life and sacrificing his health for subsistence. Or the auto worker, treated like a machine, disposable. Trapped in brain numbingly repetitive work, with the line ever quickening at the bosses whim. Always one misstep or mechanical defect away from loosing a limb or losing his life. Then imagine enduring all this for 12 or 14 hours per day. Imagine the fatigue. Imagine how easy it would be to make a deadly mistake in such volatile conditions.
To injure yourself during a time when health benefits, workers compensation or any kind of social safety net were non-existent, could easily spell homelessness and starvation for you and your family. This is the state that people labored in prior to Unions. A state that often amounted to struggle, danger and the possibility of death at work; and hunger, homelessness and the possibility of death without it.
Although safety on the job wasn't the only concern. Having an eight-hour day allows more time for being something other than a worker. To define yourself as something other than a producer of capital, as something other than simply your job. It gives you time for your family and friends, to persue things you love, for the most valuable things in life. In short, it allows you to spend more of your life, being human. This can be summed up in the old Union slogan "Eight hours for work. Eight hours for rest. And eight hours for what we will."
So for dignity in the work place and a chance to live a better life, a half million workers demonstrated across the United States on May first 1886. At the center of this was Chicago, where 30,000 workers went on strike and 100,000 flooded the streets. The event was peaceful. But two days later, in Chicago, at the McCormick Lumber mill, things would change for the worse. A conflict between Union workers and scabs resulted in the Chicago police firing into the crowd, killing four people and wounding many others. Keep in mind that this was a common way for the police to end strikes at the time.
The response of Unions was to call for a demonstration at a popular gathering spot called Haymarket Square the following day, to denounce the murder of these workers. Some 3,000 showed up to hear the speakers, with the police not far behind. Apparently, not enjoying the presentations, the police closed in to shut them down. As they closed in, an unknown person threw a bomb at the police line, killing one officer and injuring many others. The police responded by opening fire on the protesters. The number of people shot could not be determined as most neglected medical attention to avoid arrest. TO BE CONTINUED.
Editor’s note: This second part of this article will be published in the September issue of the People’s Tribune. It was a speech given on May Day, 2010 in Flint, Michigan.
I feel it's impossible to understand the meaning of May Day without first understanding the struggles endured by the working class for a better quality of life. Specifically the struggle for the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour working week.
Of course an eight-hour work day wasn't always something we could take for granted. In fact it has only been common practice in most western countries for approximately 75 years. Prior to that workers often had to suffer through a mandatory 12 or more hours per day; with no overtime pay and little if any health or safety protections. Making the working conditions for many dirty, miserable and dangerous.
Imagine the coal miner, blackened with soot laboring in dungeon-like conditions, beneath the earth, with tons of rock barely hanging on above him. Risking his life and sacrificing his health for subsistence. Or the auto worker, treated like a machine, disposable. Trapped in brain numbingly repetitive work, with the line ever quickening at the bosses whim. Always one misstep or mechanical defect away from loosing a limb or losing his life. Then imagine enduring all this for 12 or 14 hours per day. Imagine the fatigue. Imagine how easy it would be to make a deadly mistake in such volatile conditions.
To injure yourself during a time when health benefits, workers compensation or any kind of social safety net were non-existent, could easily spell homelessness and starvation for you and your family. This is the state that people labored in prior to Unions. A state that often amounted to struggle, danger and the possibility of death at work; and hunger, homelessness and the possibility of death without it.
Although safety on the job wasn't the only concern. Having an eight-hour day allows more time for being something other than a worker. To define yourself as something other than a producer of capital, as something other than simply your job. It gives you time for your family and friends, to persue things you love, for the most valuable things in life. In short, it allows you to spend more of your life, being human. This can be summed up in the old Union slogan "Eight hours for work. Eight hours for rest. And eight hours for what we will."
So for dignity in the work place and a chance to live a better life, a half million workers demonstrated across the United States on May first 1886. At the center of this was Chicago, where 30,000 workers went on strike and 100,000 flooded the streets. The event was peaceful. But two days later, in Chicago, at the McCormick Lumber mill, things would change for the worse. A conflict between Union workers and scabs resulted in the Chicago police firing into the crowd, killing four people and wounding many others. Keep in mind that this was a common way for the police to end strikes at the time.
The response of Unions was to call for a demonstration at a popular gathering spot called Haymarket Square the following day, to denounce the murder of these workers. Some 3,000 showed up to hear the speakers, with the police not far behind. Apparently, not enjoying the presentations, the police closed in to shut them down. As they closed in, an unknown person threw a bomb at the police line, killing one officer and injuring many others. The police responded by opening fire on the protesters. The number of people shot could not be determined as most neglected medical attention to avoid arrest. TO BE CONTINUED.
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