Word: coaling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Unemployment has cut a painful gash through coal mining and automobile production. One consequence is that union membership in those basic American industries has eroded, turning leaders of both the United Mine Workers and the United Auto Workers into generals of shrinking armies. But competition to head the unions is still sharp. That showed up last week as the miners elected a new president and the U.A.W. nominated a successor to Douglas A. Fraser, who retires next year...
...unexpectedly large 2-to-1 sweep in a heavy turnout, unionized coal miners elected Richard L. (Rich) Trumka, 33, a lawyer and third-generation miner, to head the 220,000-member U.M.W. (peak membership in 1942: 595,000). That will make Trumka the youngest leader of a major labor union in the U.S. when he takes office next month. He defeated Incumbent Sam M. Church Jr., 46, who was appointed to the job in 1979, when Arnold Miller resigned because of his health...
...West Virginia, socially conservative Charlestonians and coal miners in 1980 elected to Congress Republican Mick Staton, who had won local fame by leading a fight to remove textbooks that he considered unpatriotic or too sexually explicit from Kanawha County public schools. Campaigning for reelection, Staton told constituents this year that he felt he had been "raised up by God" to lead them. The voters disagreed; heavy unemployment reminded them of their traditional economic liberalism. They elected Democrat Bob Wise, a populist lawyer and state senator...
Made in East Germany, the cars themselves are far more luxurious than the average Chinese train. The first morning the steward arranges lidded mugs on the table and huge bedrolls and backpillows on our four beds, which within a few hours are blackened with coal grit. We fill the thermos hooked under the table from a water boiler down the hall. In Russia, a local car, which we are forbidden to enter, hitches onto out tail. Other than that secret compartment, we may stroll the length of the train, peeping into second-class berths (fancy slipcovers) and first (two beds...
Wandell ("Wendy") Smith, 49, came up with his wife on a Greyhound bus from Ranger, W. Va., in 1955. The only work was in the coal mines, and, he says, "I was afraid of the mines. The spring flood had run us out of the house twice in two weeks. After I got it cleaned up, I said, 'Let's go.' " The Smiths left Ranger on a Sunday night, and by Wednesday morning Wendy had found work with a water-cooler firm. The job lasted 13 years. "Then the company moved off and left us," he says...