Sucker-punched by Trump and McConnell, Kentucky coal miners make a last stand with food stamps.
https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/article233386767.html
Scott Cox got sucker-punched.
First, by President Donald Trump, who promised to bring the coal industry back to its former splendor, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Then by Cox’s employer, the Blackjewel coal company, which lured him to a high-paying job in the mines then abruptly went bankrupt and clawed back three weeks of wages, leaving Cox and 1,000 others with bounced checks and unpaid bills. Then by the state of Kentucky, which was supposed to make sure that Blackjewel posted a bond that would cover miners’ wages in just such an emergency.
Now, as coal miners stand firm on the CSX tracks in Cumberland, blocking the Blackjewel coal train until they get paid, we may be seeing both the symbolic and literal end of an industry that, with the help of politicians, has so often left devastated land and people behind in Appalachia. The miners’ last stand is just a few miles and 45 years from the last big mining strike in Bloody Harlan when the United Mine Workers fight with the Eastover mining company came to an end. One has to wonder how the Blackjewel situation would have unfolded if their mines were unionized; there are currently no UMW mines left in Kentucky.
Cox told Herald-Leader reporters Will Wright and Bill Estep that he thought he’d have a mining job through at least Trump’s second administration so he could build up enough savings to get a college degree. Instead, he’s now applied for unemployment and food stamps (a program the Trump administration is trying reduce).
Comment:
Maybe Obama's offer to build green energy plants in Kentucky should have been considered instead of rejected over Kentucky racism and right wing politics.
Stupid Trump voters...
