A Strike Like No Other Strike: Law & Resistance During the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989-1990 (review)

NEW APPALACHIAN BOOKS REVIEW ESSAY Richard A. Brisbin, Jr. A Strike Like No Other Strike: Law & Resistance During the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989-1990. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 368 pages. Hardcover. $44.95. Readers of Professor Brisbin's account and analysis of the contentious Pittston strike will be rewarded whatever their level of involvement or awareness of that nearly eleven-month struggle might have been. This protracted strike by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), began in 1989, lasted nearly a year and engendered sympathy strikes which spread across the coalfields of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. In terms of the account itself—what happened in what sequence— 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. Two conflicting narratives, one from the perspective of the miners and the other from that of the company, emerge, and the interpretations advanced by the courts and government match the latter. David Corbin (Life, Work, & Rebellion in the Coal Fields 1981; The West Virginia Mine Wars 1990) and Lon Savage (Thunder in the Mountains 1984) have demonstrated the distinction in values and attitudes on the part of coal miners and their communities on one hand and those in authority on the other, whether that be corporate, political, or even an entrenched union bureaucracy. If that class autonomy was present in the early twentieth century period analyzed by Corbin and Savage, its existence at the end of the twentieth century is demonstrated by Brisbin. He is consequently critical of any "false consciousness" thesis, arguing that the miners clearly "are conscious of their subjection." But it is a focus on laws and courts and the "legal complex" that further distinguishes Brisbin's book. One could even read it as a sequel of sorts to Richard Lunt's study of the earlier period in Law & Order vs The Miners (1979). In Brisbin's account, "as the judiciary gradually but inexorably limited the strikers' protests by injunction and millions of dollars in fines for contempt of court, some individuals, to resist Pittston and the judiciary, turned to what they regarded as the only satisfactory alternatives." A conflict that began with the legal 77 mechanisms of bargaining and the NLRB transformed into a strike characterized by acts of civil disobedience—sit-ins, road blocking, wildcat sympathy strikes, and jackrocks to halt the movement of coal trucks. In one dramatic episode, strikers occupied the Moss No. 3 plant. The operators proved adept at the use of courts to retaliate against the union miners, even obtaining legal sanction for the use of replacement workers. Brisbin offers some theoretical references to justify his procedure of detailed accounting of the participants and players in this struggle. He draws on the historical interpretive method advanced by Karl Popper, a philosopher best known for his contributions to science rather than history. Popper formulated the famous thesis that the criterion of falsifiability is what distinguishes science from non-science. In historical method, however, he advanced a 'situational analysis' that treats history as a complex human creation rather than as a deterministic outcome reducible to the mere operation of causal factors. Another theoretical source for Brisbin is philosopher Michel Foucault, who analyzed the use of professional discourse and institutions to establish and maintain the power of elites. Brisbin's account is totally consistent with Foucault's thesis. Thus the reader wonders how Brisbin could state at the very conclusion of his book that "courts mightjoin strikes and become a site for political struggles. Courts, law, and legal practice thus could become an institution for freeing workers... ." This hopeful expectation that institutional forms are class-neutral was not shared by Foucault. There was a particularly relevant exchange between Foucault and two activists associated with Gauche Prolétarienne, Pierre Victor (aka Benny Levy) and Phillippe Gavi, published as "On Popular Justice." In June, 1971, there had been a project in France to establish a 'people's court' to investigate and render judgment on official acts. Foucault found this initiative naive: . . .One shouldn't start with the court. . . . One should start with popular...