The protest, which has remained peaceful, began Monday after a train was seen going onto property of Blackjewel, the mine operator that filed for bankruptcy without warning on July 1.
Word quickly spread through the community around Cumberland, a town of about 2,200 in Harlan County in southeastern Kentucky. Dozens of miners began showing up to block the tracks — angry that they mined the coal, but didn’t get paid for the work.
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“We’re doing without money, food and everything else before our kids are starting back to school. We can’t even get clothes or nothing else for them, so it was like a kick in the face,” miner Chris Rowe told CNN affiliate WYMT. “That’s basically what it was.”
At one point, more than 100 people were at the scene. Miners occupied their time playing cornhole on the train tracks; other times, they took turns forming a human chain to make sure the train could not move.
A handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard read: “No pay we stay.”
Source: Angry about no pay, Kentucky miners block train loaded with coal
