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A Strike like No Other Strike

Law and Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989-1990

Richard A. Brisbin Jr.

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The miners' strike against Pittston Coal in 1989–1990, which spread throughout southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, was one of the most important strikes in the history of American labor, and, as Richard Brisbin observes, "one of the longest and largest incidents of civil disorder and civil disobedience in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century." The company aggressively sought to break the strike, and workers and their families used a variety of tactics—lawful and unlawful—to resist Pittston's efforts as the situation quickly turned ugly...

The miners' strike against Pittston Coal in 1989–1990, which spread throughout southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, was one of the most important strikes in the history of American labor, and, as Richard Brisbin observes, "one of the longest and largest incidents of civil disorder and civil disobedience in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century." The company aggressively sought to break the strike, and workers and their families used a variety of tactics—lawful and unlawful—to resist Pittston's efforts as the situation quickly turned ugly.

In A Strike like No Other Strike: Law and Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989–1990, Richard Brisbin offers a compelling study of the exercise of political power. In considering the legal significance of the strike, Brisbin asks the larger question of whether even extreme transgression or resistance can fracture the "imagined coherence of the law." He shows how each party in the strike invoked the law to justify its actions while attacking those of the other side as unlawful. In the end, both sides lost; although the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the union, most of the strikers faced elimination of their jobs and an ongoing struggle for pensions and health benefits.

Reviews

Reviews

Brisbin does an admirable job not only of conveying the historical events and their context, but also of making explicit the evolution and development that occurred on both sides of the struggle.

Richard Brisbin's excellent book sits at the intersection of law, political science, sociology, and history... Brisbin is utterly convincing in his conclusion that the miners were in the end reduced to Arendtian animals laborans who worked only for sustenance rather than for the joy of creation and integration into a community.

The book brims with insights into the history of the Pittston strike and into a miner's way of life... [Brisbin] describes hanging out at the picketing shacks, protests led by Jesse Jackson and Cesar Chavez, militant priests and nuns, and mine takeovers, complete with dancing and live country music.

It is clear that Brisbin's personal experience with the 'American worker' informs his interpretation of the Pittston coal strike, and he leaves the reader at once inspired and dismayed by the subjectivity of American law.

Gives fascinating insights for those involved in directing collective bargaining activities, both as managers and union activists.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
368
ISBN
9780801869013
Illustration Description
17 halftones, 2 maps
Table of Contents

1. A Tale of a "Strike like No Other Strike"
2. The United Mine Workers and the Legal Contitution of American Labor
3. The Legal Complex and Union Power
4. Union and Managments Define their Stratagies
5

1. A Tale of a "Strike like No Other Strike"
2. The United Mine Workers and the Legal Contitution of American Labor
3. The Legal Complex and Union Power
4. Union and Managments Define their Stratagies
5. The Union Plans a Social Drama
6. The Union Stages a Social Drama
7. Lawbreaking
8. Competing Explanations of Resistance
9. The Domestication of Resistance
10. Resistance and the lives of the Strikers
11. The Power of Law and the Effectiveness of Resistance

Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Richard A. Brisbin, Jr.

Richard A. Brisbin, Jr., associate professor of political science at West Virginia University, is co-author of West Virginia Politics and Government.