A West Virginia-based coal plant operator has announced that it’s filing for bankruptcy due to weak demand for electricity. Longview Power LLC, which operates one of the newest and most efficient coal-fired power plants in the U.S. hailed by the Trump administration as a model for coal’s future, announced in a Tuesday press release that it would seek to restructure its debts and ownership structure under the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.
The company cited low power demand, driven by a mild winter, cheap natural gas prices and the COVID-19 global pandemic.
“This filing is unfortunate but necessary given the current depressed power prices, which have further dropped more recently due to the terrible COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the nation and dramatic effects of the pandemic on the economy,” said Longview CEO Jeff Keffer.
Longview operates a 700-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Morgantown. The plant has been championed by federal officials, including former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who visited the plant in 2017.
“This plant — and I won’t say plants like it, because there’s not a lot like it — is incredibly important to the future of this country,” Perry said, during the tour.
The company says operations will continue during the bankruptcy.
In an interview last fall, Keffer was optimistic about Longview’s ability as a younger coal plant to weather the larger sector-wide coal downturn.
“We’re able to produce electricity more efficiently than any other coal plant in our region, the PJM region,” he said. “We’re able to do it at lower costs than just about any other fossil fuel that includes gas-fired plants.”
But that was before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered large swaths of the U.S. economy, which included lowering demand for electricity.
The filing does not affect a 1,200 megawatt natural gas plant and 70 megawatt solar farm Longview proposed in 2019. The two power generators will be constructed adjacent to the coal facility and were recently approved by state regulators.
This story was updated on Oct. 29 to include additional information and reaction.
Murray Energy Corp., the largest underground coal mining company in America with a substantial footprint across the Ohio Valley, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
“Although a bankruptcy filing is not an easy decision, it became necessary to access liquidity and best position Murray Energy and its affiliates for the future of our employees and customers and our long term success,” company founder Robert Murray said in a release.
In court documents filed Tuesday, the company said it faces billions of dollars in debt and liabilities, and tough market conditions for coal haven’t improved and have in fact deteriorated.
The company noted its decision not to previously shed debt using the bankruptcy process — as many of its competitors have — has left Murray Energy saddled with the “weight of its own capital structure and legacy liability expenses.”
The company reports $2.7 billion in debt and more than $8 billion in obligations under various pension and benefit plans. Murray employs more than 5,000 workers — approximately 2,400 are active union members. Court filings show the company has $155 million in liability under the Black Lung Act, as well as for general workers’ compensation, and owes millions of dollars in environmental cleanup obligations for its operations.
“As a result, Murray generated little cash after satisfying debt service obligations, paying employee health and pension benefits, and maintaining operations,” the filings stated.
The company, founded in 1988, is among the largest coal producers in the country, with more than a dozen active mines, largely in the Ohio Valley and Illinois Basin.
According to the company’s press release, the company expects to be able to continue day-to-day operations uninterrupted. Murray Energy says it will finance its operations throughout Chapter 11 with cash on hand and access to a $350 million new money debtor-in-possession financing facility, subject to court approval.
CEO Robert Murray, who founded the business more than 30 years ago, is stepping down. According to the release, a new entity, called Murray NewCo, will serve as a “stalking horse bidder” to acquire most of the company’s assets. If approved by the court, the company expects all of its debt to be eliminated and Murray to be named Chairman of the Board of Murray NewCo.
Murray Energy prided itself on producing low-cost bituminous coal at mines located close to its customers — largely coal-fired power plants. But as coal generators close, that has posed challenges for the company’s bottom line.
Despite promises by President Donald Trump to revive the U.S. coal industry, demand for coal has fallen to its lowest level in 40 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Jamie Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University, said low-priced natural gas and the falling cost of renewable energy have fundamentally changed the prospects for coal.
“The long term prospects for coal operators is not very good in the United States right now,” he said. “I don’t see the numbers turning around, and I think we need to really come to grips with the fact that there are parts of the country that are hit disproportionately hard and really start talking about a just transition.”
While bankruptcies are not new for the U.S. coal industry, the recent spate of restructuring may point to a fundamental shift for the industry, according to Seth Feaster, energy data analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think tank that supports energy transition.
“The competitive environment that coal is facing is only looking to become more competitive, and so it’s not really a temporary blip for them,” Feaster said. “There are companies that are saying, ‘well, we’re going to survive this downturn and come out stronger on the other side,’ but I’m not sure where the other side is for the coal industry at this point.”
Trump Connection
The company’s chief executive, Bob Murray, has enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration. Murray has often appeared with the president during his appearances in West Virginia. In July, he hosted a private fundraiser for Trump in Wheeling, West Virginia.
A vocal Trump supporter, Murray donated $300,000 to the president’s inauguration. Weeks later, the coal executive shared adetailed “action plan” with administration officials that outlined a series of environmental rollbacks and policy changes that would benefit the U.S. coal industry.
The majority of Murray’s wish list — which included the repeal and replacement of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, and staff cuts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — have been carried out by the Trump administration.
Speaking last week at the EnVision Forum at the University of Kentucky Center, Murray told the crowd continued inaction by federal regulators, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has resulted “in the destruction of America’s coal industry, the reliability and resilience of the electric power grid, and the cost of electricity itself.”
The country’s largest regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, which operates across a 13-state region including the Ohio Valley, has argued there is no need for federal intervention.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Murray also repeated his oft-cited nickname for the independent agency calling it “feckless FERC.”
“Nothing has been done by FERC or anyone to save the American coal industry from extinction, and we are virtually extinct,” he said.
Major Impact
Murray Energy’s bankruptcy could have far-reaching impacts on the company’s workers. Murray Energy is the last major company contributing to the pension plan for the United Mine Workers of America, and the bankruptcy is likely to accelerate the plan’s fast decline into insolvency.
UMWA President Cecil Roberts said in a statement he fears the bankruptcy court will allow Murray Energy to renege on its collective bargaining agreements, which spell out pension and other benefits obligations.
“Now comes the part where workers and their families pay the price for corporate decision-making and governmental actions,” he said. “We have seen this sad act too many times before.”
Murray mining operations have also had a number of high-profile mine safety incidents over the years, including the disastrous collapse of a mine in 2007.
In August 2007, nine miners and rescuers died after the Murray-owned Crandall Canyon mine in Utah collapsed. The Labor Department fined the company $1.85 million for violating federal mine safety law.In 2012, the agency settled with Murray for a reduced amount. The settlement included acknowledgement by Murray Energy for its “responsibility for the failures that led to the tragedy.”
Murray later told NPR “this settlement is not an admission of any contribution to the August 2007 accidents.”
West Virginia employees of coal operator Blackjewel LLC have received their final paychecks more than two months after the company declared bankruptcy on July 1.
In an agreement reached last week between the Department of Labor and the company, Blackjewel cut paper checks for all owed wages to a few dozen employees working at the company’s Pax Mine in Fayette County, West Virginia.
While good news for former West Virginia employees, about 1,000 miners in Kentucky and Virginia are still owed millions of dollars in back wages.
Christina Burgess’ husband, Greg, ran heavy equipment at the Pax Mine. The 20 year coal mining veteran had been laid off before, but the family had never before experienced the fallout from a paycheck bouncing, as Greg’s did in early July.
“It’s been unreal,” Christina Burgess said.
The Burgess family received Greg’s owed wages late last week, but is still waiting for the check to clear a bank hold.
Blackjewel’s bad check created a series of challenges. The first few unemployment checks the family received went straight to the bank to get the account out of the red. In total, Christina said Blackjewel’s bankruptcy has cost her family about $3,000 in penalties and fees.
Greg quickly found new work after the Pax Mine closed and the family had some money saved in preparation for a downturn in the local industry. Christinia said she empathizes with younger miners who were hit hard by Blackjewel’s sudden bankruptcy.
As one of the administrators for the Blackjewel Employees Stand Together Facebook group, she has heard many stories of families unable to pay their bills as a result of not being paid by Blackjewel. She expects the fallout from Blackjewel’s bad checks to have long-term consequences as well.
“Everybody that’s involved in this right now their credit score has been damaged because of this,” Christina said. “And that’s hard to come back from when you when your credit starts going down.”
She said she reached out to more than three dozen West Virginia state senators and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, but heard nothing back. She said she feels abandoned by West Virginia lawmakers who were slow to advocate on behalf of stiffed workers in the bankruptcy court and haven’t pushed utility companies or others to offer leniency to struggling Blackjewel families.
“They could have at least came in and said, you know, ‘don’t send turn off notices for the power bills, give them a little leeway,’” she said. “Nothing. We didn’t receive anything.”
The Pax mine is now owned by Tennessee-based Contura Energy. About 1,000 Blackjewel employees in Virginia and Kentucky are still awaiting millions of dollars in owed wages. A protest on the railroad tracks in Harlan County is in its eighth week.
Millions of dollars worth of coal mined by former Blackjewel employees is sitting in railcars. The Department of Labor says the coal is “hot goods” and can’t be moved or sold until the workers who mined it are paid for their work.
The judge said he expects to review the documents “swiftly” and rule soon after whether the coal should remain sitting until the Blackjewel workers who mined it are fully paid, or if it can be sold.
BJMS has proposed paying $1.4 million for the coal. The Labor Department says back wages owed to workers directly involved in producing the “hot goods” coal in Kentucky and Virginia totals more than $3 million.
The federal judge presiding over coal operator Blackjewel LLC’s bankruptcy has set a timeline in the “hot goods” dispute over millions of dollars worth of coal sitting in railcars in Kentucky and Virginia.
Frank Volk, chief U.S. bankruptcy judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, gave the Labor Department, Blackjewel and Blackjewel Marketing and Sales (BJMS) — buyer of the disputed coal — until Sept. 23 to submit a series of briefs to the court. A final set of briefs is due Oct. 1.
Volk said he expects to review the documents “swiftly” and rule soon after whether the coal should remain sitting until the Blackjewel workers who mined it are fully paid, or if it can be sold.
While the timeline provides some clarity about the future of the coal in question, Friday’s hearing highlighted continued uncertainty about if and how hundreds of miners across the region will be paid millions of dollars in owed wages.
The Labor Department says the coal is “hot goods.” Under the federal Fair Labor Standard Act, workers must be paid at least minimum wage or the things they produce can’t legally be moved or sold. More than 1,000 former Blackjewel employees across West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia are still awaiting their final paychecks more than two months after the company declared bankruptcy.
“The FLSA has put the prohibition in place to discourage employers from benefiting from the uncompensated work of the employees,” Samantha Thomas, associate regional solicitor for the Labor Department, told the court during the Friday status hearing. “It’s about making sure that employers that actually abide by the law are not unfairly treated — because here’s BJMS and Blackjewel being able to profit off of the fact that [sic] they’re able to move coal that they didn’t really pay for in terms of workers being paid for their work.”
Volk asked the Department of Labor about its “end game” for the coal sitting on the tracks.
Thomas said that in the case the judge does affirm the coal cannot be moved, the agency would hope Blackjewel, BJMS or “another party” would step up and pay the owed wages so the coal would no longer be considered “hot goods.”
BJMS attorney Sean George told the court it was extremely unlikely BJMS would do that.
“My understanding, candidly with all, is that there is no possibility that BJMS is going to pay more than $1.4 million that it’s agreed to pay,” he said.
BJMS and Blackjewel argue not allowing the coal to be sold deprives the court from using the proceeds to pay creditors, including workers. The two companies have agreed BJMS will pay $1.4 million for the coal, and if sold, have agreed to set the money aside for possible use to pay owed wages. During a hearing earlier this month, the companies also argued the coal is degrading in the railcars and losing value.
“That sounds like the end game is to inflict economic duress on the parties by prohibiting the movement of coal,” said Scott Kane, an attorney with Squire Patton Boggs, representing Blackjewel. “Certainly the debtors will argue that in these particular circumstances, that doesn’t further anyone’s interest, including the interests of the employee creditors, who are owed those FLSA wages.”
In a notice filed Thursday, the Department of Labor noted back wages owed to workers directly involved in producing the “hot goods” coal in Kentucky and Virginia totals more than $3 million.
“In other words, the wages for the uncompensated work that resulted in the production of the hot goods at issue total more than $3 million – more than double the amount Blackjewel and BJMS ask this Court to force DOL to accept and to release the coal,” agency attorneys wrote.
A temporary restraining order against the rail cars in Kentucky issued in district court is set to expire on Sept. 20. The Labor Department said it’s open to shifting the Kentucky railcars to allow work at the nearby mine to restart if approved by a judge.
Sam Petsonk, an attorney representing Appalachian Blackjewel workers, told the court in addition to the train being blocked by court order, dozens of miners, now in their seventh week of protest, are camped on the railroad tracks blocking the train.
“It is miners themselves who continue day by day to also, in their own capacity, apart from the injunction, to block the movement of that train,” he said. “They wanted that action to reflect their intentions and preferences and interests as to whether it is in their interest for this coal to move before the back payment is made.”
The miners have pledged to remain on the tracks until they are paid.
A U.S. bankruptcy court has ruled that a coal company may sell two large Wyoming mines separately from one in West Virginia.
Bristol, Tennessee-based Contura Energy originally sought to buy all three mines from Milton, West Virginia-based Blackjewel in a deal held up while U.S. officials seek payment of federal royalties. Contura would have paid $9.7 million for the Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte mines in Wyoming and Pax Surface Mine in West Virginia.
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that the court in West Virginia on Wednesday approved a deal in which Contura would pay $1.1 million to finalize sale of the West Virginia mine.
The Wyoming mines have been shut down since Blackjewel declared bankruptcy July 1. Federal records show no production at the West Virginia mine since 2006.
Curtis Cress sat in the gravel beside a railroad track in Harlan County, Kentucky. Tall and thin with a long, black beard, Cress is every bit a coal miner, or, he was until a month ago.
“It’s part of my heritage, you know? My dad and papaws had always done it,” he said. “And I’m proud of that heritage.”
Cress had been at these railroad tracks for days, with little sleep. Not far down the rails sat a row of hopper cars filled with coal from his former employer, Blackjewel LLC.
In the last month, Cress and his fellow miners have gone from moving coal out of the ground to stopping coal in its tracks. Blackjewel’s chaotic bankruptcy filing on July 1 left about a thousand miners like Cress with bounced checks and unpaid bills, and largely in the dark about their future.
Credit Curren Sheldon
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Curren Sheldon
An aerial shot of the encampment that has grown up around the protest site.
Days turned into weeks, and miners had no way to know if they still had jobs, or health insurance, or access to their retirement savings.
On July 29, five miners saw an opportunity. A train full of coal was leaving a Harlan County loading facility. The five men clambered onto the railroad tracks to block the train. More than a week later, they hadn’t left.
“If they can move this train, they can give us our money!” miner Shane Smith said.
That rag-tag group quickly grew to a full-fledged protest camp, complete with solar showers, a chore list, and a rotating schedule of miners to hold the place down. Community members brought food. Politicians stopped by to make speeches. Kids played cornhole on the tracks.
“We’re suffering, our kids are suffering, water’s getting cut off,” Austin Watts said. “As long as I gotta stay here, I’ll stay.”
Credit Curren Sheldon
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Protesting Blackjewel miners in Harlan Co., KY.
Arnold Shepherd, a miner from Leslie County, Kentucky, was among those who said the protest recalled an earlier period in Harlan County history.
“This thing here, it puts you in mind of ‘Bloody’ Harlan, back years ago,” Shepherd said.
Bloody Harlan. The name comes from the nearly century-long and sometimes violent struggle between coal companies and workers seeking to unionize.
“Harlan is one of the locations used to undercut wage stability for the rest of the country,” Northern Illinois Univ. labor historian Rosemary Feurer said. Harlan miners started to organize in the 1920s, a struggle that culminated in a long and violent strike in 1931. Miners picketed again in the early 1970s, again sparking violence. “What the miners were saying is, we can’t be basically just extraction engines and robots and tools left to die of black lung,” Feurer said.
Today, the protest is peaceful. The union is largely gone from Kentucky mines. And the entire coal industry is a fraction of what it was decades ago. Blackjewel’s bankruptcy, though more chaotic than most, is just one of many recent shocks to a declining coal industry. Dozens of companies went under in the past decade, and despite a coal-friendly president rolling back regulations more have followed. In 2019 alone, BlackHawk Group LLC, Cambrian Coal LLC, and Cloud Peak Energy Inc. all went bankrupt.
With lower union representation and an expectation of more bankruptcies to come, miners’ advocates and industry watchers worry that coal miners and mining communities will suffer the brunt of the industry’s decline. The Blackjewel miners who took to the tracks are following in a long history of worker protest in Harlan County. They are also stepping into an uncertain future for themselves and their community.
Scene Of Labor Struggles
“You have to look at ‘Bloody Harlan’ in a long history of a bloody coal industry,” said labor historian Feurer, who has written about the region and legendary labor organizer Mother Jones.
Feurer said the coal industry pushes the full cost of coal onto workers’ health, on workers’ wages, and on the environment. The United Mine Workers of America, Feurer said, arose from workers’ demands for better treatment.
Women of the Brookside women’s support group talk with tow truck operator at a roadblock in 1974. Credit Robert Gumpert, from the Appalshop Archive
“It’s not only bloody for the labor violence, but for the death toll,” she said, from mining accidents and black lung disease. “It’s more than most wars.”
The UMWA negotiated its first successful wage increase in 1898, and went on to fight for eight-hour workdays and standard measurement for coal. The union helped miners weather the mining industry’s boom and bust cycles, and many of the union’s hard-won health and safety standards are still in place today.
Mine operators viciously opposed miners’ efforts to unionize, particularly in Harlan County. In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity.
Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. Two miners were shot, and one died in a strike that lasted over a year and resulted in a new contract.
Victory photo after the Highsplint mine voted to join the UMWA in 1974. Credit Robert Gumpert, from the Appalshop Archive
But union membership is in decline across the country, and the miners’ union has declined faster than most. Between 1997 and 2017, overall mine employment in the Ohio Valley dropped by 50 percent. Union participation has declined much faster. Between 1997 and 2017, Ohio Valley miner participation in unions has dropped by 76 percent.
“The reason that unions have really been imperiled in the southern parts of the country,” said Feurer, “is because they’ve been told the only way the South can rise again is by being a non-union, anti-union reserve for companies that were moving from the unionized areas of the north.”
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Feurer said that even though the Blackjewel miners are acting without a union, their protest follows the tradition of labor action in the area.
“Putting their bodies on the lines is what I see is historically connected,” she said. “People who risk themselves, that is what has resonance to a long body of history.”
The Blackjewel miners still feel a strong sense of solidarity with their fellow workers. “If you work in the coal field, you spend more time underneath that mountain than you do with your own family,” said miner Shane Smith. “These men are like a brother to me.”
Some UMWA retirees and other union workers have joined the Blackjewel miners on the tracks in a show of solidarity.
UMWA spokesperson Phil Smith said he thinks Appalachian coal miners lost their sense for the power of unions in the coal slump in the 1970s. Mine employment was low for nearly a full generation of workers entering the labor force, Smith said, effectively breaking the chain of stories passed from father to son, stories of how unions improved working conditions and fought for better wages.
By 2017 there were no union miners left working in Harlan County, and only a handful in all of Kentucky.
Phil Smith worries that a weak union puts miners at risk of losing protections that previous generations of miners fought for. “The minute that a government who is intent on doing away with many of these worker protections feels like they can without there being any political blowback from doing it, they’re going to do it,” he said.
Policies like so-called “Right to Work” laws, which have been passed in 28 states, including Kentucky and West Virginia, threaten the economic viability of unions. Still, Smith finds hope in teachers’ strikes around the country, and efforts to unionize other workplaces. “I think we’re seeing a resurgence in people making sure they have a voice at work.”
Chris Lewis was one of the first five Blackjewel miners who blocked that train on July 29. The bankruptcy has been a struggle, he said, but he and his wife have it better than do workers with young children.
Lewis has complicated views on unions. “I was raised union, and I believe in the union. But I also believe in a man’s right to feed his family, you know what I’m saying?”
He resents miners who call strikebreakers “scabs.” Still, Lewis thinks he and his coworkers wouldn’t be in this predicament if they had been in a union.
After his experience with Blackjewel, Lewis isn’t ready to give up on the industry. But he is giving up on Kentucky. Lewis leaves Kentucky later this month for a job in a coal mine in Alabama. In that new job, he’ll be a part of a union.
“The End Game”
The uncertainty many Blackjewel miners feel about their future is true for the coal industry as a whole. Declining demand and competition from cheap natural gas from fracking has led to the closure of eight coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley since 2010, with more planned to shut down in the future.
“No matter what policies are developed and put forward in D.C.,” said the UMWA’s Phil Smith, “the fact of the matter is, coal-fired power plants are closing.”
Additionally, renewable energy makes up an increasing share of the nation’s energy portfolio. For the first time this year, renewable energy exceeded coal in percentage of energy generated in the United States.
In 1997, there were about 18,000 coal jobs in Kentucky. In 2017, there were about 6,200. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, coal production has fallen most sharply in Central Appalachia compared to other coal-producing regions.
Kentucky Coal Association spokesperson Tyler White said his group is committed to fighting for the longevity of the industry.
“The coal industry is still struggling with a lot of over-burdensome regulations that were put in place under the previous administration,” he said. Most energy analysts contest that view, and point instead to the market forces driving coal’s decline.
Similarly, the UMWA’s Smith said that he’s not ready to give up on coal. He fears significant regulation to prevent further climate climate could put the coal industry out of business, and he views the union’s role as advocating for policies that would promote clean, safe coal mining and keep miners employed for generations.
Blackjewel’s bankruptcy has been messier than most. But Clark Williams-Derry, the director of energy finance for Sightline Institute, a research organization based in Seattle, says we should expect more chaotic bankruptcies like it.
“We’re sort of in the early stages of the end game, I would say, of the coal economy,” he said.
Williams-Derry worries that in the chaos of Blackjewel’s bankruptcy, some mine lands may end up without money to pay for reclamation, and he thinks future bankruptcies may have the same result as fewer companies want to take on risky mines. The costs of worker pensions, land reclamation, and other debts may well be passed on to taxpayers, or left unpaid altogether.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” he said. “We don’t really know what happens when the industry is shrinking so rapidly that we see mines just simply abandoned.”
Credit Brittany Patterson / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Blackjewel miners and supporters enter the federal courthouse in Charleston, WV.
Down The Line
A marathon bankruptcy hearing in federal court brought mixed news for the Blackjewel miners. The auction of Blackjewel properties attracted enough buyers to generate money to go toward some of the wages owed, and lawyers representing the miners were able to win some concessions from other Blackjewel creditors.
Still, when attorney Ned Pillersdorf addressed the protesting miners on the tracks, he was clearly managing expectations.
“You know I’ve told you that bankruptcy is kind of like a funeral home,” he said. “Nobody leaves happy.”
Kopper Glo, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based mining company that purchased some of Blackjewel’s Kentucky properties, has committed to pay $450,000 to cover miners’ wages. That is expected to cover about 35 percent of the total amount owed to Blackjewel workers. Kopper Glo has also said it hopes to rehire many of Blackjewel’s workers, though it has made no legal commitment to do so. Blackjewel miners worry Kopper Glo will pay less than Blackjewel did.
“I was a roof bolter, I made $25 an hour,” said Shane Smith. “A belt man, they make $22. A different company comes in, what’s to say everybody won’t make $20?”
Kopper Glo said it could not answer specific questions, but said in a press release that the company “has a plan to re-start certain operations and is confident this plan will bring jobs back to many of the former Blackjewel employees. Kopper Glo is also committed to funding to the portion of the back wages due to the employees.”
Credit Curren Sheldon
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Near the scene of the miners’ protest in Harlan Co., KY.
In days spent occupying the train tracks, the Blackjewel miners have plenty of time to consider what their future holds. Do they return to work and hope their new employer doesn’t meet the same fate as the last? Do they try to retrain in a new industry? Or do they look for another job, knowing they may never make as much money as they did in the mines?
“This ain’t a game, we ain’t a bunch of kids,” said miner Caleb Blevins. “We’re grown men with families. Around here in the Appalachian mountains, this is all we got, the coal mines. We’re too far in to try to go to college for 12 years. Our kids need us now, not in 10 years.”
Miner Tim Madden also just wants to get back to business as usual. “I think if they’d roll up here and issue us all a check, I’d be out of here, end of story.”
But Curtis Cress said he’s done with the industry. “You never know from one day to the next if you’re going to have a job,” Cress said. “They’ll get you used to making a whole lot of money and then take it away.”
A father of four, Cress is at risk of losing his home. He says he feels hopeless about what comes next, both for him and for central Appalachia. He thinks his best bet is to find work in manufacturing. He hopes his kids leave the region when they’re old enough.
The miners occupying the Harlan County train tracks say they’ll stand down when they see Kopper Glo’s money in their bank accounts. With mining starting up again in some of Blackjewel’s former mines, some men will likely be headed back underground.
But for many miners, and for the coal industry as a whole, it’s hard to know what’s coming down the tracks.
Benny Becker, Brittany Patterson and Jeff Young contributed to this story.
