Mumford would sometimes bring his Corvette before his day off on Sunday.Īt the time, he was earning about $31.30 an hour as a motorman.īut when a pack of private equity firms including Apollo, Blackstone and KKR invested in the coal company in 2016, the mineworkers were told that they needed to accept concessions in their new contract. Wright, who works the overnight shift, sorting items to be shipped around the South.Īndre Mumford remembers how on Saturdays before the bankruptcy, the mine’s parking lot looked like a “car show” because there were so many nice new vehicles. Even as the mine operates at a reduced capacity, Warrior Met Coal is generating strong profits and its stock price has soared 125 percent since the strike began.Įven with the union’s support - the miners are paid $800 by the union every two weeks - many have had to get second jobs.Ī few have taken jobs at Amazon in Bessemer, including Mr.
Still, the efficacy of the strike is not clear. “Coal mining is like a brotherhood, like the military,” said Curtis Turner, president of Local 2427 of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents the maintenance workers at the mine.
Wright heads to the picket line or to a food pantry and loads his pickup truck with donated groceries to bring to the miners and their families. On most days, instead of getting up to start his shift as an operator in the mine’s control room, Mr. They have supported one another with food donations and camaraderie during a year on the picket line. The miners are a mix of Trump supporters and Biden voters, Black workers from Birmingham and white workers from rural towns near the mine. Forming a union is a significant step, but maintaining a strike for 365 days requires a measure of solidarity that seems difficult to muster in a deeply divided society.