Search Results for "united mine workers"

In 1970, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) president W.A. (Tony) Boyle was under indictment for union funds misuse and suspected of murdering outspoken union reform advocate Jock Yablonski and his family in 1969. The film intercuts Boyle’s speech at a Big Stone Gap, Virginia rally with mining scenes and interviews with miners from the UMWA.

A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.