Over 1,100 coal miners at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood, Alabama have been out since April 1st on an unfair labor practices strike. Their seven long months on the picket lines have been hard on the miners as well as their families, and that hard slog has been punctuated by
terrifying bursts of company violence. Multiple strikers—and a striker's wife—have been
struck by cars and trucks driven by company employees while walking the picket lines. Several of them have been hospitalized, and others are still dealing with the aftereffects.
Thes
e vehicular attacks have been documented by the union and in the media, but have attracted very little attention outside of the labor press. Even locals news stations have ignored the ongoing pattern of vehicular violence on the picket lines, and paid little notice to the strike itself. Until this week, that is.
Over the past several days, local news outlets in and around the Birmingham area have suddenly started showing up on the picket lines to document a reported upswing in violence—but what they're looking for is violence from the
workers, not those who have been attacking them for the past seven months. It's part of a new PR strategy by the firm Sitrick and Company, who appear to have been hired by Warrior Met to boost the company's image and "neutralize the opposition," as the firm phrases it on the
"Labor Issues" section of its website...
Just a few moments ago, I got a call from a union auxiliary member whose husband has been present for a number of recent vehicular attacks, including the one Scarborough allegedly witnessed. The result of this pointed media blitz immediately became clear when she told me that Warrior Met has filed a temporary restraining order against the strikers that prevents any UMWA member or affiliate from coming within 300 feet of the mine's entrances.
They had until 5pm today to vacate the picket line, and are now waiting to hear from the union's lawyers about how to proceed. Instead of bargaining with the workers, it appears that Warrior Met Coal has instead chosen to pour money into a smear campaign and use court orders to try and kill a strike.
She told me that contractors were bulldozing their strike tents as we spoke.
