For two months this summer, out-of-work miners blocked a train full of coal from shipping out of an eastern Kentucky mine, demanding weeks of unpaid wages after their employer, Blackjewel, suddenly went bankrupt. The protest started as a five-man blockade in July and grew to include dozens before it was disbanded last month. Labor activists, local politicians and the governor of Kentucky visited. Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered public support, and the U.S. Department of Labor intervened. And now, the miners have received good news, according to the New York Times. In a series of settlements made public this week in federal courts in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, Blackjewel agreed to pay about 1,100 workers some $5.1 million in unpaid wages. Blackjewel was two years old and owned mines in four states, and employed over 1,000 miners in central Appalachia, when it filed for bankruptcy in July. Miners learned in the middle of an afternoon shift that Blackjewel was shutting down immediately and putting everyone out of work. The company did not file a mandatory 60-day advance warning and did not post a bond, required by Kentucky law, to cover payroll.
