Kentucky coal miners bled and died to unionize. ... the strife of the mid-1970s Brookside mining strike here was captured in the Academy Award-winning documentary Harlan County U.S.A.

Smith said those western Kentucky mine shutdowns led to the loss of about 20,000 union members in two years. Patriot Coal cited the slumping market when it told workers the Highland Mine had to close.

Coal mined from a Harlan County strip mine falls from a conveyor belt in Totz, Kentucky. Veterans of bloody worker strikes of yesteryear say the improvements they won have made unions obsolete ...

The union era’s death knell sounded in Kentucky on New Year’s Eve, when Patriot Coal announced the closing of its Highland Mine. The underground mine in western Kentucky employed about 400 ...