Today, Explained - Coal's last stand

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

There’s a train full of coal sitting on the tracks in eastern Kentucky. It’s being blocked by a group of laid-off miners who want what they're owed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So this coal mining company, Black Jewel, declared bankruptcy on July 1st, and that left over a thousand coal miners in central Appalachia out of work. Workers got a paycheck on June 28th. A lot of them spent money on rent, on utilities, beginning of the month expenses, only to find out a few days later that those checks bounced and they were, some of them thousands of dollars, in the red with their banks. They should have gotten a second paycheck a few weeks later, but that didn't come through. They were told not to come back to work, but they weren't officially laid off. It was just

this kind of ongoing mess for, you know, over a thousand coal miners and very little information for them about what was going on. We were at work and they just said, hey, Black Jewels is claiming bankruptcy, but everything's OK, blah, blah, blah. Don't worry, everyone's going to get paid. On Monday, July 29th, this woman who lived right near the railroad tracks saw a train being loaded up with coal. So she sends a text around to people that she knows that worked at this mine saying, wait a minute, this company is bankrupt. How are they moving this coal?

Chris Sexton called me on my phone at my house and said, hey, Wiggles, they're loading this train up. Let's stop this train. I said, sure, I'll be right up here right now. And about five black jewel miners go up and decide they're going to block this train. They sort of scramble up onto the tracks. And we all looked at each other. You know, we all felt like we have to take a stand. And they say, you know, if this company can afford to load up a train full of coal, they can pay us our money.

And then after that, we've just been standing still ever since. That was about three weeks ago. And this protest has sort of erupted into a full-on protest camp. It's kind of like an ongoing tailgate or like a big picnic or a cookout. There are seven or eight tents, lots of camping chairs set out, people hanging out in the shade, people playing music spontaneously, lots of kids hanging out, playing games, cornhole on the train tracks. It feels very much like a neighborhood picnic, but at the same time, there's this feeling that we shouldn't have to be here. We don't want to be here. We don't want to be here.

We just want what we're owed. The hands are holding, and the element don't stop getting on my back. Sydney Bowles, you've been reporting on this protest on the train tracks in Harlan County, Kentucky for the Ohio Valley Resource. And it centers around this coal that's still sitting there right now. Who owns the coal at this point? So that's kind of been a confusing part of this whole story. A company out of Tennessee called Copper Glow owns the actual mines here in Kentucky, but they don't own the coal. According to court documents, the coal that's being blockaded on this railroad track is owned by a company called Black Jewel Marketing and Sales, which I know it's confusing. It's a whole different company from Black Jewel Mining. But what it all boils down to is that there's $1.4 million worth of coal sitting on a railroad

track. And if it keeps sitting there for much longer, I'm told that it could just catch fire. Wow. So if this coal could catch on fire, it's a complete hazard. Plus, these coal miners are impeding some company from getting what it bought rightfully. Have the cops gotten involved to shut this protest down? So the cops showed up on that first Monday, July 29th, but they were really friendly. They basically said, you know, we support you, but you're trespassing, so you need to get off the train tracks. When that happened, the miners moved about half a mile down the tracks and set up there. And essentially ever since then, the cops have basically stood down. Local law

enforcement officials basically told the cops to allow them to continue. Why did that half mile make a difference? I don't know that it really did. I think it was just committing to the principle of it, saying, you know, you can tell us we have to move, but that's not going to change what we're trying to do here. It sounds a lot like an organized labor action. Are these miners part of a union? They are not.

There are currently no union mines operating in the state of Kentucky. Is that a change from the way these mines have worked in the past? Yeah. I mean, Central Appalachia is really core to the history of labor organizing, and the county where this is happening, Harlan County, is right at the heart of that. I want to introduce to all of you now, and I expect that most of you already know her, Ms. Florence Reese. I'm not a coal miner, as you well know, but I'm as close as I could be not to be one. And my husband and me was in the strike in

the 30s in bloody Harlan County, and I do mean it as bloody, too. Back in the 1920s and 30s, Harlan County got the nickname that it still has, Bloody Harlan, because of these really violent protests back in those days as Minas tried to unionize. Now this song I composed in the 30s, and it can't sing very well but you can ask the scabs and the gun thugs which side they're on because they're workers too. And they were met with huge opposition from from the sheriff from police. There was a ton of violence. Observers at the time said coal companies were using warlike tactics starving out workers, employing private militias. People died. Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

And then again in the 1970s, there was this 13-month-long strike. The coal mining camps became bloody Harlan all over again. As the strike dragged on for more than a year, two miners were shot, one man was killed. Up until the past few decades, there's been this really strong pro-union sentiment in central Appalachia and a strong sense of solidarity among working class folks. And union membership has really declined in Kentucky since then and across the Ohio Valley, which is Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. And between 1997 and 2017, Ohio Valley miner participation in unions actually dropped by 76%. Why is that? Why is it there are so few union mines left at this point? So different folks have given different answers to this question. I think one thing is that there was this kind of concerted strategy among industrial groups to pitch the

American South as a sort of a non-union alternative to the North, to attract industry to move to the South so companies in the South wouldn't have to deal with unions. And so the Southern economy would draw businesses from the North. And what happened here in coal country was that coal companies bought up union mines and turned them into non-union mines. And so just over time, union participation declined that way. Do these miners miss the days when they would have had a union backing them? I have spoken to a lot of these miners, and I've gotten just as many answers about how these guys relate to unions, to companies, to politics. But I do think that pretty universally, there's a sense

that a lot is owed to the union fighters who came before, to the legacy of workers fighting back for fair wages, for safety in working conditions. So even if there's some disagreement about whether being a part of a union could have helped in this particular situation. I think there is a sense that in general, unions do help working class folks. Is what's happening to them right now legal? They got these paychecks that essentially bounced, and then they weren't given their pay for the final two weeks of work that they were owed. That doesn't sound like it'd be legal. It is not.

Black Jewel was in violation of a Kentucky law that required new mining operations to post a bond that would cover a month's worth of wages for all of its employees. So there was kind of this loophole in that law, though, that the agency that collected that information wasn't required to give that information to the company that would have enforced the law. So there's new legislation proposed in Kentucky that would close that loophole. And there's also a new attorney general investigation to see how many other coal companies may be operating in violation of this law.

What's BlackJewel saying in its defense? So, of course, I've reached out to BlackJewel about this a number of times. Sometimes I haven't gotten responses. Other times I've been directed to statements that have already been issued. Black Tool has essentially told employees that they're doing everything they can to cover their debts. They've also encouraged minors to dip into their 401ks to pay their current expenses. But there was also this kind of interesting little interaction there where Jeff Hoops, the former CEO of the company who's since been forced out, I reached him by phone. I just called the number on BlackJewel.com and then typed in his name and he answered.

For Jeff Hoops, press 1. Hello? Hi, is this Jeff Hoops? Yes, it is. Hi, my name is Sydney Bowles. I'm a reporter with the Ohio Valley Resource. I'm standing on a railroad with some miners who are protesting the movement of a coal train in Cumberland, Kentucky. And I'm wondering if I could get some comments from you on the situation, why the coal is being moved,

and just your response to these miners who are frustrated with the lack of pay. Yeah, I'm as frustrated as they are. I no longer work for Black Jewel. I resigned more than a month ago, so I really, really have no idea what's going on there. I'm really, really sorry that it's reached this point. Yeah, I mean, these guys are pretty... All I've got to say, no comment. Reporting has come out since this happened, saying that right before the bankruptcy, Black Jewel paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I think anger at Jeff Hoops has not been sated by these apologies. Where does that leave these miners? I mean, they've been on these tracks for

three weeks, almost four now. They're not getting anywhere, it seems like. The cops aren't stopping them. The company's not paying them. How long are they going to stay there? You know, if there's one thing that I've learned from reporting on coal miners' justice issues, it's that coal miners are stubborn people. I get the sense that they are not going anywhere anytime soon. Are any of them going to get their money back or even get back pay? So the company that bought these mines, Copper Glow, in their purchase agreement, they put up $450,000 to pay back miners who worked at these mines with an additional

$550,000 potentially available depending on, you know, what those assets end up being worth. So it seems likely that miners will get at least some money back, but estimates that I've seen have, you know, anywhere between one-eighth and one-fifth of the total amount that they're owed. That said, we're a couple weeks out from the bankruptcy proceeding now, and minors still haven't seen that money. Is this protest having any impact as far as you can tell? You know, it's impossible to say for sure, but I think that without them drawing attention to this, they would have had a hard time getting representation in the bankruptcy hearing, which means that there would be no one representing their interests as Black Jewels assets are sold off to the highest bidders. The protest also garnered national attention, and it's brought in thousands of dollars in donations that have helped families pay electric bills.

It's kept food on the table. It's helped families afford back to school expenses. And it's also last Friday, some pizza showed up at the campsite and it turned out that it was a donation from the Bernie Sanders campaign. They had had 18 pizzas delivered, one for every day of this protest. Amazing. I mean, the president's really into coal. Has he weighed in on it yet? So the president hasn't weighed in yet, but the administration's Department of Labor has actually intervened basically in support of these miners. They filed a motion in this bankruptcy proceeding to halt black jewel coal leaving Harlan County. So basically they're in support of these guys trying to help them keep this protest going until they get the money that they're owed. Is this situation with the black jewel mine in Harlan County emblematic of the rest of the coal industry? Coal's on the decline all over the country, yeah? It is not looking great.

President Trump ran on bringing back the coal industry, but coal mining jobs have been declining since at least the 80s and coal capacity peaked in 2011. Because of changes to environmental regulation under the Trump administration, we have seen a small recovery, a little bit, but not really significantly. And I think especially as power plants in this country transition away from coal and towards renewable energy and natural gas, no amount of policy changes are going to change those economic considerations for power plants. So I really do think, you know, it is likely that we will see more coal bankruptcies and we may see more coal bankruptcies that are messy in other kinds of chaotic ways. And what does that mean for miners? If you come from a coal mining family, if you grew up in a coal mining community where, you know, your dad, your grandpa, all of your uncles, all of your great uncles worked underground,

you work underground, your kid might work underground, it's really, really scary to think about what your community would look like without coal mining. There aren't other jobs that pay this well. There aren't other jobs where you can feed a family, where you can take a vacation. Those jobs just don't exist here. Your options are working for us to think about what we owe to the families that kept our lights on and what it could mean for these communities to lose the industry that supported them for so long and how we want to support these communities, Kentucky, to talk to Wiggles. He's one of the guys who first blocked the coal train, and he's still sitting on the tracks right now. This is Today Explained.

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Hello? Hello, is this Jeffrey Willig? Yes, this is Jeff. And sorry, is it Jeff, Jeffrey, Sidney, told me people call you Wiggles. Yeah, yeah, it's my nickname on the ground. Everyone knows me as. What should I call you, Jeff? Jeffrey Wiggles? You can call me Jeff. It's fine. Okay, Jeff, where are you right now? We're just sitting on the tracks that the train will come down. You're sitting on train tracks

right now? Yes, with a tent over us. Now, I'm guessing your mom told you when you were a kid that that's dangerous. Does it feel dangerous right now? No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. But actually growing up, I used to play on train tracks and stuff through the city. Okay. So you've got experience hanging out on train tracks. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. So what's it going to take to get you off of those train tracks? For us men to be paid. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that's on that train. You know, I mean, the day that that happened, I was on my eighth day in a row working. And I'm not talking just like an eight-hour shift. I'm talking like 16-hour shifts.

How long had you been working for the company at that point? I worked for Black Jewel for a year. I worked at this mine prior to Black Jewel owning it for five years. I myself had six kids, two of them with autism. And I just didn't do that for my family. For like every minor that's been working on the ground for like, you know, 22, 30, 40 years, that's never had their voice heard. And this stuff's happened to them. No one's ever heard their story. So that was why we took the stand. You know, you still haven't paid us yet, but yet you're sitting here loading a train so you can get more money. Did you think it was going to get this big?

We didn't think it was going to get this big. And then we had people from Knoxville News coming in, Lexington. Then we had CBS and we had a New York Times guy come and can't remember his name right now, but he's a really great guy. And it went from there. And next thing you know, I was getting called by BBC, which is over in England, Germany, Italy. And now Washington, DC. Yeah, now DC. What do you hope comes from all of this? The outcome that I do want from this, and I'm not just speaking for miners. I'm speaking for every blue collar worker, your welders, your plumbers, your construction workers,

dock workers and stuff. Like don't let this happen to you just because you're not a union. Doesn't mean you don't have a voice. You know, I get instant messages all the time from people that I have no idea. We've gotten food from people and they call like our local restaurant, you know, pizza hunting stuff and brought us food from Texas, from Chicago, from Atlanta, Georgia. We've had tremendous support interaction. I heard Bernie Sanders sent you some pizza too from Vermont. Is that true? Yeah. One of his party members contacted us and said that he did.

He did send us pizzas. That is true. They asked if, hey, can know, can they get a picture, you know, with me and my wife and one of the protesters. We told him, yeah, but we also said this is not for political use. This has nothing to do with politics. This has something to do with common working people against a guy that's ripped them off. But clearly to Bernie Sanders, this is about politics. And clearly to someone like Donald Trump, who's constantly talking about how much he loves coal, this is about politics. And clearly to someone like Donald Trump, who's constantly talking about how much he loves coal, this is about politics. Is it hard to keep politics out of it? I mean, if you want to ask questions as far as that, when Obama was in office and his second term is when it, my mind got shut down, destroyed this area. You know,

they went on about, oh, we want to replace coal and stuff like that, but they didn't bring anything in here to replace our jobs. There was people literally walking around with their heads down in a state of depression because they didn't bring no jobs here. And when we got left behind, they'll go, yeah, well, we're going to bring this to your area. Okay. What part of our area are you bringing this in? You know, are you going to directly bring this to Harlan County or are you going to bring it to Lexington, which is, you know, three hours away from me. And a lot of people here, they don't have the money to just get up and relocate like that. People are pretty reasonable here. So I'm pretty sure if there's like, Hey, we're bringing

this big factory here, that's going to build solar panels. I guarantee you people would jump on that because it's going to provide for them and they don't have to leave their home. And would you jump on that? Would you take a green energy job if it came to Harlan County, solar, wind? Would I do that job? Absolutely. But I do enjoy working underground.

I work nine miles under a mountain, and I enjoy it. It's the same temperature all year long. I ain't got to worry about rain. I ain't got to worry about snow. I ain't got to worry about being extremely hot under the sun. I ain't got to worry about being extremely cold working in the snow. I do. It's the greatest peace I've ever found, you know, working under a mountain.

It really is. Yes, it's loud. It gets loud and everything, but, you know, it kind of sounds silly. You know, it's like your second home and you work around these guys so much that you see them more than your family. So, I mean, it's kind of like, yeah, you know, I mean, we're family now. The president has said over and over how much he supports coal, but more American coal plants have actually shut down in Donald Trump's first two years, then shut down during Obama's entire first term. Do you think Trump's doing enough for your industry? I think he's doing the best of his knowledge because our industry has been destroyed from

that era. So many regulations were put on it that he's got to rebound that now. He, you know, as a president, do I think the effects of it would be better if he got a second term in? Yes, I think you would see better effects probably his third or last final year in that you would really see where it was before all this happened. You know, coal jobs have been declining since the 1980s, which makes it feel like this isn't even about Trump or Obama or, you know, George W. Bush. Do you hear anything from the current president, though, that makes you feel like, oh, he's got a plan to help people in my industry right now, other than, like, obviously, I love coal.

No, no, I haven't really read his whole agenda. I mean, yeah, I've heard him say and kind of way say, you know, like, hey, we got 250 years of energy still on our feet. But I've never really heard his whole entire plan, or nor have I tried to read up on it. So that would be my error. But besides, hey, I want to bring Cole Jobs back. No, I've never heard this guy say anything else.

What would you want to hear from him? I would want him to say, this is what I want to do for this industry. This industry is a strong industry, and I need to support this industry. If that's really what you want to do, then do it. If you want to see the industry grow again, then do something about it. Jeff Willing is a coal miner in eastern Kentucky where he is still sitting on train tracks. We reached out to a Black Jewel spokesperson to ask for comment on this story. He pointed us to a website with updates on bankruptcy filings from the company.

In the updates, Black Jewel says, we want to thank employees for your years of service and for the perseverance you've shown throughout this challenging time. This is Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. Noam Hassenfeld, Bridget McCarthy, Halima Shah, and Amina Alsadi produce the show. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer, and Afim Shapiro is our engineer. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer and Afim Shapiro is our engineer. Will Reed is the last summer intern standing. The mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder makes music while sitting. And Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.