Candidate's UMWA grandfather taught him that nothing benefits working people more than unions
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Alonzo Pennington didn’t follow his grandfather into western Kentucky coal mines.
But the guitarist-hunting guide turned Democratic congressional candidate in the First District said the late Norman Pennington, “a proud card-carrying union coal miner, never let me forget why unions are the best thing that ever happened to all working people.”
Added Pennington: “Unions are lifesavers.”
Norman Pennington, who died in 2012 at age 91, grew up in the Great Depression, explained his grandson, who lives in Princeton and is seeking his party's nomination in the May 22 primary. “He was born in the hills of northern Christian County in a dirt floor cabin in the woods.”
Unable to make ends meet on a hardscrabble farm, he landed a job in a Hopkins County coal mine. It was 1941, the year the U.S. joined World War II.
Hopkins County, Christian County’s northern neighbor, is part of the western Kentucky coal fields. “The mines were the only work a poor, uneducated boy could find,” said Pennington, who plans to pack his guitar and maybe sing about his grandfather on the campaign trail.
By 1941, the United Mine Workers of America had organized several mines in eastern and western Kentucky coal country, but the one where Norman Pennington hired on was non-union.
He knew he was risking his life. Two months before, his big brother, Dick Pennington, perished in the mine. “A foreman sent him into a shaft that wasn’t safe, and it collapsed on him,” Pennington said.
Norman Pennington ended up under the same foreman. “One day the foreman ordered my grandfather down into a shaft that was unsafe,” Pennington said. “My grandfather knew it and refused to go in.”
The foreman would not budge and threatened to fire Norman if he didn’t do as he was told.
“My grandfather picked up a crowbar and tapped the entrance to the hole. It completely caved in and would’ve killed anyone who was in there.”
The foreman didn’t thank Norman Pennington for revealing that the shaft was a death trap. “He fired my grandfather on the spot.”
Norman went to work in another mine. “A few months later when the union came through and helped the workers organize, they asked my grandfather to be their steward. He retired in 1976 still carrying his union card and proudly supporting the UMWA.
"The UMWA has compiled statistics that show their mines are much safer, and have many fewer fatalities, than non-union mines."
Pennington is vying with Murray State University English professor for the Democratic nod in the district, which sprawls 300 miles eastward from the Mississippi River.
Incumbent Rep. James Comer, R-Tompkinsville, will almost certainly survive a primary challenge from a little-known candidate.
Unions consider Comer one of the most anti-labor lawmakers in Washington. In addition, he has voted for Trump-approved legislation almost 95 percent of the time, according to the FiveThirtyEight website Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump: An updating tally of how often every member of the House and the Senate votes with or against the president.
Comer voted for the GOP legislation to gut the Affordable Care Act.