District 17 Hangs Tough

Among the most militant of the striking mine workers are the 25,000 members of District 17. Many of them live in the vicinity of Cabin Creek Hollow, a group of small frame houses and mobile homes along a narrow, twisting road in the hills of southern West Virginia. On the eve of the strike last December, a Cabin Creek miner defiantly told TIME Correspondent Robert Wurmstedt that he and his neighbors were prepared to stay out of the pits until "she freezes over." Last week Wurmstedt revisited the hollow and found that 2 1/2 months without paychecks has caused hardship for the miner shut made them even more obstinate. His report: ft "IP his is a war," says Miner Mike Adkins, 34. "The stockpiles of coal are down, so we're up to bat. I'm tired of hearing about people being laid off because of the coal shortage. The hell with 'em. I haven't worked for 72 days, and I'm mad and disgusted like everyone else on this creek. But we got to get a contract we can live with." Says Robert Rumberd, who is 49 and was forced by black-lung disease to retire in 1973: "They can send the Army up here but they won't ever bring coal outta Cabin Creek."

Around him, miners nod their heads in agreement. Many of them are sons of coal miners and fervently believe that only the United Mine Workers protects them from the same kind of exploitation suffered in the pits by their fathers and grandfathers. Dressed in blue jeans and plaid wool shirts, many of the miners spend lots of time these days in the Cabin Creek Coffee House. It is a warm and welcome refuge from the coal-dust-blackened slush outside and the dispiriting sight of the empty coal hoppers--as idle as the miners--on the railroad tracks across the road. The men pass the hours playing pool, drinking RC Cola and strong black coffee (35-c- a cup with a refill on the house) and talking about hunting, fishing and making ends meet.

When the miners are working, they make about $55 a day. Living is cheap, by urban standards, in Cabin Creek: a three-bedroom house rents for no more than $185 a month. But wildcat strikes are frequent--District 7 walked out for ten weeks last summer over a reduction in health benefits--and miners generally save little of their earnings. "Sometimes you're high on the hog, and sometimes you ain't got nothing," says Jerold Hamrick.

Nowadays, most miners and their families are barely getting by. The miners receive no strike benefits from their union; many of them have had to borrow money from relatives. Adkins, like many of the other miners, feeds his four children with the help of federal food stamps ($248 a month). Before the strike, his wife Louise spent $375 a month on groceries. The family is still well fed, but she closely follows the instructions in her favorite cookbook, Mountain Measures. "If the recipe says it serves six, it's exactly six," she says. "It don't lie. No more scraps for the dog." One of her favorite dishes is "sawmill gravy," known to other Cabin Creek families as "dough sop": bacon grease, flour, water, evaporated milk, salt and lots of pepper, poured over biscuits and served for breakfast or dinner.

Other families are falling behind on their bills. Richard McClur, 23, and his wife Pamela, 22, owe two months' rent--a total of about $200--on their four-room cabin. They have made no payments since November on their car, speedboat and motorcycle. They feed themselves and their four-month-old daughter on $138 a month in food stamps, supplemented by pork from hogs raised by Pamela's father.

Company-financed health insurance for miners and their families ended when the strike began. Until doctors at the Cabin Creek Clinic last week began treating patients free on Tuesday evenings, the clinic's patient load had dropped by half. Says Administrator Margaret Light: "They're a lot sicker when they come in now." The strike also caused pensions, ranging from $225 to $250 a month, to be suspended for most of the hollow's retired miners. The pensions are financed by company-paid royalties of 55.4-c- for every ton of coal produced and 70 per man-hour worked when the mines are open.

To help the neediest families, the U.M.W. credit union has opened a temporary office in nearby Cedar Grove that has lent up to $500 each to some 1,000 District 17 miners at interest of 1% a month, payable within a year after the strike ends. In addition, Cabin Creek stores, following the tradition of the coal fields, are extending credit to the miners and not pressing them for payment, even though most of the merchants are also hurting financially. Close by Cabin Creek, business at the Marmet Furniture Store is off 50%. Down the road, employees of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers have had their workday cut from eight hours to five. At the Marmet Burger Chef, the work force, norImally 30 people, has been cut by six.

The miners are tired of the strike and want to go back to work. But they vehemently reject the contract that was negotiated for them two weeks ago by U.M.W. President Arnold Miller, an alumnus of District 17. "What's Arnold think he's got down here, a bunch of fools?" asks Bill Bowyer, 21. Says his uncle, Jack Bowyer, 38: "We've gone this long. If we give up now, we'd just be throwin' it all away."

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