Economic transformation of Welch, West Virginia: from mines to prisons

[Hannah Bell]

For many years the county was the world’s largest producer of coal, and Welch, the county seat, was christened, “The heart of the nation’s coal bin.” ...McDowell County coal mining and processing sites of the US Steel Corporation were for decades the largest operations of their kind in the world.

Struggles of miners in the coalfields region won substantial gains in living standards, including pensions, health insurance and safeguards that mitigated some of the worst dangers in the mines. The death toll each year from coal dust explosions, roof falls, and black lung shrank as a result of the militancy and solidarity of the mineworkers and their communities. Culture and commerce flourished, making coal towns such as Welch and Williamson—both strongholds of the United Mine Workers of America — centers of social life for the working class.

Today, the area ranks among the poorest in the country...In 1984, miners at A.T. Massey, now Massey Energy, went out on strike after the company refused to sign on to the industry-wide Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA) agreement, which set uniform worker compensation from mine to mine. Massey instead demanded that the UMWA negotiate individually with more than a dozen of the company’s sham subsidiary operators, which would splinter the workforce and subject miners to arbitrary variations in wages and benefits... Militant miners in McDowell and Mingo counties were vilified, isolated and their efforts were crushed...

Today, with a current population of only 2,600, 27.7 percent of households live on less than $10,000 per year. Forty percent of families with children in the city live below the poverty line; 75 percent of families with children under the age of five live in poverty.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/welc-a03.shtml

[Jim Sagle]

1. If The Kinks were still around, they'd release a new single: 21st Century Man.

;(