KY coal miner protest ends in victory for the few who remained; company pays all wages

The three-day protest of Kentucky coal miners who blocked a railroad track in fury over unpaid wages ended Wednesday night in a victory for the few miners who remained, with the company paying all wages demanded by a small band of miners in Pike County who blocked a train and drew national attention to their cause.

Dylan Davidson, a mining machine operator and roof bolter for American Resources Corporation, and one of the few miners who remained Wednesday, said the small group of protesting miners packed up and left at nightfall after receiving payment for overtime pay, vacation days and all other money owed to them for work they had already completed.

The victory comes in stark contrast to miners formerly employed by Blackjewel, LLC., who spent months camped out along a set of railroad tracks in Harlan County last year after the company laid off hundreds of employees without pay for weeks of work.

This week’s protest was the second in six months in which Kentucky coal miners blocked a railroad track after a company failed to pay miners for work they had already completed, and ended just hours after a tense confrontation between the protesting miners and those loyal to the company.

Earlier Wednesday, a representative of Quest Energy, a subsidiary of American Resources Corporation, had come to the protest site with about a troop of about 30 company employees and asked the protesters to leave the tracks, Davidson said.

The protesting miners, which had reduced to a group of five, refused to leave until they were paid, he said.

“They went back and said, ‘Just pay them guys and get them the hell off the track,’” Davidson said.

Later that day, the five men who remained were paid in full, and were given an advanced paycheck that was originally scheduled to be issued Friday.

Davidson, who worked at the company’s Carnegie mine, had already been laid off, but the men who had not officially lost their jobs were given assurance that they would not be fired in retaliation for their roles at the protest, he said.

The protest began Monday when two miners blocked a train hauling coal from a mine owned by American Resources Corporation. At that time, the company owed the men for more than two weeks of work.

Monday night, more miners and their wives arrived to the tracks, lit a bonfire, and swapped stories about the struggles they had suffered from the lack of payment.

One miner, a father of two small children, said the power company had come to turn off his electricity earlier that day. Another said he was late on his mortgage payment and worried that he could lose his house. Melissa Collins, the wife of one of the two miners who kicked off the protest, said, “If it hadn’t been for my mom, I don’t know how we would’ve made it.”

By late Tuesday, many miners had returned to their homes. Those who remained said they had been paid for two weeks of work, but were still owed overtime pay and vacation days, and had pledged to hold fast until the company made good on those remaining expenses.

Gov. Andy Beshear responded to the protest by promising strict enforcement of a state law that requires many coal and construction companies to post a bond with the Labor Cabinet to protect employee wages. Beshear said he believed that none of American Resources Corporation’s subsidiaries had posted the bond.

Beshear said his administration will hold American Resources Corporation and its subsidiaries accountable for that bond, will do the same for every other coal company that would be required to pay.

“Similarly, we are going back through and reviewing each and every operation to make sure we are protecting our workers,” he said. “We as an administration are committed to making sure that we get this right.”

Late Wednesday, the five remaining protesters had received their payments. They promptly packed up and left, Davidson said.

Asked how he felt about their success, Davidson said the protest proved “very effective.”

“I hated that it had to happen like it did, but enough is enough in my book,” Davidson said. “When you get to the point when you have to scrape change to buy anything, a gallon of milk or whatever, it’s pretty rough.”