UMWA President Cecil Roberts fired up the audience during Monday’s UMWA Labor Day Celebration in Racine.
RACINE, W.Va. — While a challenge to West Virginia’s recent right-to-work legislation continues, members of one union turned their attention Monday to the next battle — November’s election.
Political candidates — from local legislators to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Justice — made their pitches to members of the United Mine Workers of America at the group’s 78th-annual Labor Day Celebration, in Racine.
Justice, whom the UMW has endorsed, repeated his promise that, if he’s elected, he’ll not give up on the state’s struggling coal industry.
“You have a future in coal,” Justice said. “I know you just want to just get your dinner bucket and get to work, and I promise you with all my soul, I will break my ever-loving neck to see that you fulfill what you want to do.”
Justice flew to the picnic by helicopter, which landed behind the nearby Racine Volunteer Fire Department. The billionaire owner of The Greenbrier resort touted his humble beginnings as the son of a man who grew up in a coal-company house and a mother who grew up without indoor plumbing…
