ABC News: Alabama coal miners on strike since April say they're fighting for working Americans everywhere
Thanks to Bill Londrigan for sending us this.
The strike has inflamed tensions in the small community.
By Elwyn Lopez, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, and Lulit Tadesse
Coal miners in Alabama have been striking for months, and they aren't backing down, battling not just for their rights as workers, but for what some believe to be the rights of working people across the country.
Over 1,000 employees of Warrior Met Coal have been on strike since April, refusing to work at the metallurgical coal mine in Brookwood, Alabama until their contract is renegotiated to provide fairer wages and health and time-off benefits. The strike, the first in four decades, has fiercely divided the small community – while some picket, others are still going in to work.
"Once you've crossed a picket line, I have nothing to say to you," said Haeden Wright, the United Mine Workers of America's local auxiliary president and wife of Braxton Wright, a striking miner.