He’s eventually going to fall out, so that’s what has happened with us. He quotes a Bible verse to drive home the point: “The Scripture says, ‘Don’t muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.’ And you keep putting a muzzle over his mouth to where you can’t feed him the same corn he’s treading up. And they really do need us, because the reason why they’re where they are now is because of us.”
“Warrior Met is accepting pennies because they are trying to prove a point that they don’t need us. “The coal prices are out of the roof right now,” Michael Wright said. They’ve also seen union siblings cross the line and take up foremen positions with the mining company.ĭespite these setbacks, they are steadfast in their determination to hold out one day longer than Warrior Met, which suffered third-quarter losses totaling nearly $7 million, attributed to the strike. Since 1,100 miners walked off the job in April, they have lived through arrests and brazen attacks by company employees who used their vehicles to plow into picket lines. Nine months into a bitter strike against Warrior Met Coal, the mine workers are doing all they can to keep up morale in their struggle to reverse concessions made during bankruptcy proceedings in 2016: slashed pay, hiked health care costs, grueling schedules, and diminished safety standards. ‘DON’T MUZZLE THE OX THAT TREADETH OUT THE CORN’
Brian Seabolt has picked up odd jobs as a handyman, drawing on his skills as an electrician and carpenter. Tammie Owens has started a telehealth job as a nursing assistant for $21. Haeden’s husband Braxton Wright, a miner of 17 years, is making $15.50 hourly at Amazon, picking items from oversized bins on a conveyor belt at the same mammoth warehouse in Bessemer where the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union lost a unionization vote in April.īraxton said he has talked to some of the RWDSU organizers, “and I figured, hey, if I can help them and make a little money at the same time, it’d be a win both ways.”Īnother miner I spoke to, Michael Wright, has been driving a forklift for less than $20 an hour. The financial pinch of the strike has spurred miners to pick up other jobs. The gifts are wrapped and delivered in “solidarity Santa boxes.” Each family gets three gifts through a gift list on Target, totaling $7,500 worth of purchases. “We feel very confident that Christmas is going to be covered for all of our families,” said Haeden Wright, a high school teacher and president of the auxiliary for Locals 23. Roughly 300 children will receive these gifts through donations collected by the Mine Workers (UMWA) auxiliary. Shoes and clothes top their lists, followed by Barbies and Rainbow High dolls, Legos, Nerf guns, and makeup kits. It’s actually a relief that they know the truth now, then I do not have to pretend.This Christmas, as millions of families settle in to adorn fir trees, the children of striking coal miners in Alabama have asked mainly for practical gifts.
So I will just do my best with my own family. Luckily, I have my in-laws and the rest of my husband’s family, and great friends to support. They have been discouraging me from visiting as well. My mother completely ignored my birthday, and my father only said happy birthday in the extended family chat so nobody would get suspicious. See, this is why I left - a lifetime of being told to act and behave a certain way so everybody would approve and think we are normal. It’s ridiculous, they are so afraid of what other people will think - their first reaction was being afraid that their “friends” or our relatives would find out and judge everyone. This will be my first Christmas season seeing my parents, who do not actually want to visit… They planned their visit before I came out and told them I got married to my husband, so it will be quite hostile.
I would like the Christmas tree emoji please (actually, my entry matches the snow emoji better, but the Christmas tree is prettier and a bit more positive)
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