A year above ground

BROOKWOOD, Ala. — Braxton Wright is a second-generation coal miner, a die-hard union supporter and, until recently, a staunch Republican. He is named after his uncle, a Korean War veteran, who was fatally crushed between two rail cars while working at the Pullman train factory near Birmingham.

Hard, dangerous work is a part of Mr. Wright’s extended family history and that of many people living in this industrial and mining belt of central Alabama. Next to the coal mine where Mr. Wright works, there is a memorial to the miners killed in an underground explosion in September 2001. Every year, on the disaster’s anniversary, a bell tolls once for each of the 13 workers who died.

In agreeing to these dangers, Mr. Wright, 39, says he and his fellow coal miners have come to expect something in return from their employer — respect.

After accepting pay cuts when the coal company emerged from a 2015 bankruptcy, the miners said they expected that their previous wages would be restored to match what other mines paid. The company, Warrior Met Coal, declined to comment for this article, but the company says on its website that it made no such promise and has provided multiple raises in recent years.

On April 1, 2021, Mr. Wright joined about 900 other miners who walked off the job and set up picket lines around the mine’s entrances, demanding that the company raise their wages close to the levels they received before the bankruptcy.

Less than 30 miles away is the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, a building that could encompass 14 football fields and employs more than 6,000 people. The workers there have recently voted for a second time on whether to form a union.

A previous election last spring ended in a defeat for the union by a wide margin. The most recent results now hinge on a series of disputed ballots that will be reviewed in the coming weeks, but the contest is closer than many anticipated. On Friday, organized labor scored a surprising victory as workers at an Amazon facility on Staten Island voted to unionize.

It is a stark tableau of the American economy: coal miners dug in on a contract dispute in a diminished industry, and low-wage workers seeking more leverage at a hightech company whose growth seems limitless. Forming a union is a significant step, but maintaining a strike for 365 days requires a measure of solidarity that seems difficult to muster in a deeply divided society. The miners are a mix of Trump supporters and Biden voters, Black workers from Birmingham and white workers from rural towns near the mine.

On most days, instead of getting up to start his shift as an operator in the mine’s control room, Mr. Wright heads to the picket line or to a food pantry to load his pickup truck with donated groceries to bring to the miners and their families.

“Coal mining is like a brotherhood, like the military,” said Curtis Turner, president of Local 2427 of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents the maintenance workers at the mine. “They would do anything for each other.”

Still, the efficacy of the strike is not clear. Even as the mine operates at a reduced capacity, Warrior Met Coal is generating strong profits, and its stock price has soared 125% since the strike began.

“Coal mining is like a brotherhood, like the military. They would do anything for each other.” Curtis Turner, president of Local 2427 of the United Mine Workers of America

Even with the union’s support — the miners are paid $800 by the union every two weeks — many have had to get second jobs.

A few have taken jobs at Amazon in Bessemer, including Mr. Wright, who works the overnight shift, sorting items to be shipped around the South.

He knows that coal mining will always pay more because of the danger of the work. But when he encourages his new warehouse colleagues to vote for a union, he makes the case that a union could help new industries like e-commerce start to catch up.

At the mine, Wright is paid $84,000 a year, including overtime. If he stays at Amazon working full time, he would be on track to earn about $35,000 annually.

The miners view themselves as an inspiration to the Amazon workers, an example of what a union can offer in a fight over wages and working conditions. But as the strike enters its second year, there is no clear end in sight to the dispute. It is now one of the longest coal mine strikes in U.S. history, and it could wind up setting a different kind of example.

The miners have long viewed themselves as standing apart from other industries because of the hardships they face 2,300 feet below ground.

“We are in the dust all the time, in the dark all the time,” said Tommy Turner, who makes about $24 an hour as a motorman driving a supply train through the mine. “If something happens,” he said, there is “only one way out.”

According to the company website Warrior Met Coal Facts, the average worker’s yearly income has increased to $97,000 from $75,000 in 2016, making the employees among the top 10% of wage earners in Alabama.

“People who don’t know about the job probably say I make good money,” Mr. Turner said. “But I could walk around at Walmart and get $15 an hour for doing nothing.”

At a recent evening rally in the dirt parking lot of the union hall, the miners who are veterans or have relatives in the military were asked to come forward and hold up their hands.

Just about all the people raised their arms toward the setting sun in a silent salute.

“The difference between us and the people who are keeping us out here, the people who don’t want to give us a fair contract is what?” bellowed Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America.

“We are the patriots,” he said, answering his own question for the crowd. “We are the ones that gave them a right to be billionaires.”

After the rally, the miners lined up to pick up their strike checks and boxes of meat, yogurt and cakes from inside the union hall.

Antwon McGhee, a 48-year-old miner, said he had come to depend on the groceries and donated diapers for his 2-year-old daughter.

“You have to swallow your pride and do what you have to do,” said Mr. McGhee, who was earning $88,000 a year before the strike.

He found odd jobs, like picking up bodies from hospitals and taking them to a funeral home. He worked briefly at a nonunion auto manufacturing plant, where one day he watched a worker urinate on herself because she couldn’t leave the assembly line.

“I feel like this strike is way larger than me,” he said.

Michael Argo, 34, went to work in the mine not long after high school, and he has never thought of doing any other type of work — before he spent a year above ground.

Mr. Argo said he would see the strike through. But after that, he’s thinking about getting a full-time job at Amazon in Bessemer. His wife just got hired there, and Mr. Argo figures their combined wages at Amazon will eventually be close to what he took home from the mine, about $84,000.

“Up until this point, I would never quit on my own,” he said of the mine. “I would have just been stuck with it.”

During the strike, though, he has started feeling healthier and more in tune with the world and may not want to give that up.

“You just get to see temperature changes, the sun coming up and down,” he said.

At the warehouse, Mr. Wright talks to fellow workers about unions. But he said the Amazon employees, many of them young and from poor areas, had a different attitude about their jobs than coal miners.

He watched some doing managerial tasks but not getting paid extra. “They say they want to be managers some day,” he said. “I tell them: ‘That’s fine. But they need to pay you for your time. If you were in a union, they would pay you for your time.’”

Wright said it had been hard to predict whether the organizing drive at the Bessemer warehouse would prevail. He’s not hoping to be there much longer.

“I am hoping I go back to the coal mine,” he said.