This film demonstrates how labor law has crippled the collective bargaining power of unions and weighed the scales of justice against working people. The documentary follows the 1988 United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal Company that followed the expiration of their contract and Pittston's termination of the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows, and disabled miners.
Direction
Lewis Johnson lets miners speak, not pundits
Editing
Archival footage hits harder than any narration could
Director
Anne Lewis Johnson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This strike helped kill the anti-union Reagan consensus in Appalachia — temporarily. The region's subsequent political pivot is the unwritten sequel.
Anne Lewis Johnson was blacklisted from some PBS affiliates for this film's 'partisan' tone. She kept the angry letters framed.
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