Word: matewan
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...late 1800s, the Hatfield and McCoy families began a feud so lethal and long that it became legend. Then in 1920 the early struggles of the region's coal miners to unionize exploded into a fray that left nine people dead and is still remembered as "the Matewan massacre." Now the area around the same little town of Matewan (pop. 822) is living up to its turbulent reputation: a coal miners' strike that is now in its eleventh month is well on the way to becoming the longest and meanest since before World...
...some 3,000 customers, including one coal company that had bought a unionized mine and reopened it as a nonunion one. Another blast blew up a power line leading to the Sprouse Creek Processing Co., the Massey subsidiary that has been a primary strike target. Former Mayor of Matewan Robert McCoy, a member of the original feuding clan, calls it "almost like a civil...
John Sayles is a filmmaker at home everywhere in the world--mythical South American countries (Men with Guns), Texas border towns (Lone Star), West Virginia a long time ago (Matewan). But wherever he goes, he finds ordinary people who turn out to have extraordinarily complicated back stories--stories that often have kinks in them that even they are unaware...
While the students had been prepared with reading lists (Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals) and video lists (John Sayles' film Matewan, about a coal miners' strike), some found themselves reluctant to embrace the gamut of militant tactics. There were nervous titters during training when Quynh Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American organizer, mentioned "Dumpster diving"--searching through company trash for information. And when hotel workers laid out plans for street theater during a wedding reception at the New Otani, many had misgivings. "I don't want to protest at someone's wedding," said Ramos, the Brown University student. "That's their...
Crossing a picket line can indeed be morally repugnant. But this baseball strike wasn't exactly Matewan, not when the players, who average more than $1 million a year, weren't even willing to man their own picket lines. Ostensibly, the players were worried about security, but more probably, they were worried about having to sign a lot of autographs. Disdain for the public is one thing the owners and players have in common...