You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

1,100 Alabama Coal Miners Enter Second Week of Strike for Better Wages and Benefits

HeadlineJun 08, 2021

In Alabama, 1,100 coal miners have entered the second month of their strike against the Warrior Met Coal company. Six years ago, the miners accepted a huge pay cut in order to help their company emerge from bankruptcy. Now they say Warrior Met is failing to repay them as it rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The workers went on strike April 1 after rejecting a contract proposal they say offered too little in wages and benefits. Last month, 11 of the striking miners were arrested as they blocked strikebreakers from entering their worksite.

Striking miner 1: “We don’t feel like we’re breaking the law, when this company is trying to starve our people and their families from their livelihood.”

Striking miner 2: “I’ll die for my family. And I’ll do whatever it takes for this union right here.”

The United Mine Workers says there have been three separate cases of vehicular assault on picketing workers by persons working for Warrior Met Coal in recent days.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top