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The mines and miners prepared as they traditionally

have.  The companies built up stocks of coal and hired

security guards.  The miners selected targets.  The coal

fields of Kentucky and West Virginia are hilly and mostly

forested.  To reach the mines and collieries, employees,

suppliers, and coal transports generally have a choice of

one road.  The road winds back and forth along canyon bot-

toms.  Access can be easily blocked by bands of strikers

or a lone sniper.

Kentucky officials had avoided interfering in strike

activities during the 1981 coal strike.  As a result, the

state was roundly criticized for subsequent injuries.

This time, Kentucky state policemen were more active in

suppressing violence and making arrests.  Consequently,

A.T. Massey Company's mines in West Virginia became the

site of the worst violence.  There, according to former

Massey attorney Neal Hogan, large numbers of strikers

formed the traditional gauntlets along the entry roads to

company facilities.  Drivers of coal transports were

pulled from their trucks and beaten.  Cars containing non-

striking employees were rolled over with their occupants

inside.  According to Hogan, all that activity occurred

while West Virginia state troopers placidly observed.  In

many cases, the violence and the troopers' inaction were

preserved on videotape.

Property damage was extensive, and militants fired

their weapons almost nightly into the homes of mine man-

agers.  The companies opted to move the managers and their

families every few days.  After late-night shootings, more

than one processing facility began to look like a food

grater.  Frequent sightings were reported of a black van

nicknamed the War Wagon, after a John Wayne movie.  Hogan

told NILRR that UMW members boasted of a "War Wagon," bul-

letproofed and equipped to carry a UMW SWAT team.  Unfor-

tunately, the War Wagon was never seized.

The 1984 strike eventually ended with an agreement

between the UMW and member companies of the Bituminous

Coal Operators Association (BCOA).  Pittston Coal, however,

objected to the agreement and was struck from April 1989

to January of 1990.  During the strike, the UMW recorded

4,000 arrests among its members.52   In May, a Virginia cir-

cuit court fined the UMW $642,000 for 72 violations of an

earlier injunction against violence and unlawful picketing.

At the same time, Judge Donald McGlothin announced

additional fines of $100,000 for any future violent acts

and $20,000 for future nonviolent infractions of his