'Coal is over': the miners rooting for the Green New Deal
Appalachia’s main industry is dying and some workers are
looking to a new economic promise after Trump’s proves empty
Michael Sainato in Matewan, West Virginia
Mon 12 Aug 2019 05.00 BST Last modified on Mon 12 Aug 2019
05.01 BST
Set in a wooded valley between the Tug Fork river and the
Mate creek, Matewan, West Virginia was the site of the 1920 Matewan Massacre, a
shoot-out between pro-union coal miners and coal company agents that left 10
people dead and triggered one of the most brutal fights over the future of the
coal industry in US history.
The coal industry in Appalachia is dying – something that
people there know better than anyone. Some in this region are pinning their
hopes on alternative solutions, including rising Democratic star Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
“Coal is over. Forget coal,” said Jimmy Simpkins, who worked
as a coal miner in the area for 29 years. “It can never be back to what it was
in our heyday. It can’t happen. That coal is not there to mine.”
A coal production forecast conducted in 2018 by the
University of West Virginia estimates coal production will continue to decline
over the next two decades. Over 34,000 coal mining jobs in the US have
disappeared over the past decade, leaving around 52,000 jobs remaining in the
industry, despite several promises made by Donald Trump throughout his 2016
election campaign that he would bring those jobs back.
“A lot of guys thought they were going to bring back coal
jobs, and Trump stuck it to them,” said 69-year-old Bennie Massey, who worked
for 30 years as a coal miner in Lynch, Kentucky.
The town was at the center of the American labor movement in
the early 20th century. At the peak of the coal industry in the 1920’s, about
500,000 miners were union members. As the coal industry declined, so did union
membership, and now the town’s local miners’ union, United Mine Workers of
America (UMWA) Local 1440, consists entirely of retired miners.
Carl Shoupe, a retired coal miner in Harlan County,
Kentucky, who worked as a union organizer for 14 years, said people in
Appalachia need to start moving away from relying solely on the coal industry
as an economic resource for the region.
“What we’ve been doing is trying to transition into the 21st
century and get on past coal,” he said.
Those transition efforts are still being impeded by the coal
industry, as Shoupe says the majority of property in the area is still owned by
coal companies and they have denied his efforts to develop solar panel fields.
The Green New Deal, a resolution proposed by Cortez, calls
on the federal government to transform the United States’ energy infrastructure
and economy to deal with the climate crisis. The resolution includes a call to create millions of high-wage union jobs
through a federal jobs guarantee and a just transition for vulnerable
communities.
Republicans – and
Fox News – have slammed the proposal. “It’ll kill millions of jobs.
It’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm
minority communities,” the US president said last month.
Shoupe doesn’t think so. “They have bushwhacked this Green
New Deal, told all kinds of lies. For different people in different parts of
the country, it means different things,” he said.
Stanley Sturgill, a coal miner for 41 years in Harlan
County, Kentucky, explained the Green New Deal would open the door for elected
officials to use the plan to render solutions needed in their own communities.
“If it was called the Red New Deal, it would be approved by
now,” said Sturgill. “What you’re doing with the Green New Deal is you’re
opening the door to infringe on the Republicans’ money and that’s what they’re
afraid of. Republicans laugh and say you can’t pay for it. But if you tax
everybody what they should be taxed, and I’m talking about the wealthy, there
wouldn’t be a problem.”
Sturgill cited the coal companies that receive billions of
dollars in annual government subsidies and tax breaks, while hiring expensive
lawyers to fight paying black lung benefits to coal miners. “I fought seven
years before I got my black lung benefits, and they were hoping I died before
getting paid,” added Sturgill.
Thousands of coal miners are currently at risk of losing
their pensions. The Coal Miners’ Pension fund is estimated to become insolvent
by 2022 as many of the companies that were paying into the fund have filed for
bankruptcy. The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund that was founded to provide
benefits to coal miners with black lung disease – a progressive disease that
eventually suffocates sufferers – is also severely underfunded.
On 23 July 2019about 150 coal miners and their widows
visited Washington DC to appeal Congress to pass legislation ensuring these
benefits are properly funded. Several
retired coal miners who made the trip were unhappy with the response from
Republicans, especially Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
“McConnell came in, never did sit down and said ‘I thank you
for being here. I know you’re concerned about your taxes on black lung, I just
want you to know we’re going to take care of it,’ and out the door. I said: ‘no
he didn’t!’ We drove ten hours to sit with our representatives and talk to them
and that’s all we get,” said George Massey, who worked as a coal miner in
Benham, Kentucky for 23 years and has served on the town’s council for 19
years.
“They look at us like we’re something under their shoes.
They couldn’t care less about coal miners in south-east Kentucky,” Massey
added.
Those sentiments of being discarded by elected officials
helped Trump’s promises to bring back coal and “Make America Great Again”
resonate with many voters in Appalachia. A substantive amount of political reporting has reinforced these sentiments
by dismissing Appalachia as “Trump country”.
“They’re watching their whole livelihood and
proud culture disappearing and somebody comes and says ‘I can bring that back
for you’ is a powerful message for some, and has a lot to do with holding on to
that hope they can keep what they have,” said Adam Malle, an organizer with
Southeastern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, a group focused on just economic
transition efforts away from extractive industries in Appalachia.
“If we’re talking about a just transition, if these are
places used to providing the energy for the country, that’s what we need to do
to transition them out. Creating jobs and a pathway to do that is the role that
plays,” said Taysha Lee DeVaughan, president of Southeastern Appalachian
Mountain Stewards.
“People identify with the strength and tradition of coal
mining. It’s a powerful message. For us in environmentalism, we need a more
powerful message, that we’re not going to leave you behind, which is how it
feels or has felt going forward.”
Terry Steele, who worked as a coal miner for 26 years in
Matewan and is still an active member of UMWA Local 1440, explained the
nostalgic hope behind Trump’s promises are rooted in racism and sexism, while
ignoring thatthe “good old days” where when labor unions were much stronger.
“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,” said
Steele. “Now our kids are scared to death of their future. It’s because of
greed and everything flowing to the top.”
Steele emphasized the need for renewable energy jobs to
concentrate in Appalachia.
“Build something where these people used to work in the
mines, and good paying jobs, not having to work three jobs to make what you
used to be able to make with one. We want other jobs for our kids to work at,”
he added.
Though the coal industry has significantly declined, its
historically exploitative practices still persist as coal corporations file
bankruptcies that leave workers unpaid, while coal communities are left
behind.Several mine sites have even been abandoned with no implemented
clean-up. Congress has yet to pass
several proposed bills to fund these benefits and clean up projects.
“It’s a racket. Miners
are being robbed every day,” said Bethel Brock, who was a coal miner for 32
years in Wise, Virginia. Between 1968 to 2014, an estimated 76,000 coal miners
died of black lung disease. He fought coal companies for 14 years to secure his
own black lung benefits after he was diagnosed.
“The coal operators don’t care, they just want to take you
like a piece of worn out mining equipment and set you out in a field somewhere,
that’s their philosophy.”
Brock continues fighting for other miners’ to receive their
benefits in the face of attorneys and coal company doctors who drag out appeals
against paying out benefits and intimidate current miners from filing claims.
“We live in a country that tolerates stuff like that,” he
said.
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