Mutiny in the Mountains: West Virginia Public Workers 1969–2019
Please select all options before adding to cart.
Mutiny in the Mountains uses labor history to show the way forward for millions of workers struggling in an age of uncertainty.
In 1969, thousands of West Virginia state highway workers went on strike in fear that they faced impending loss of their jobs as they were excluded from civil service protection. Although the walkout coincided with one of the most severe winters to affect road conditions, the newly elected governor fired the strikers. The 1969 State Road Strike inaugurated a half decade of public sector organizing and protest that culminated in the historic public-school strikes of 2018–19 that shut down all schools across the Mountain State and inspired a wave of public education strikes in Arizona, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and beyond.
Beginning with the nation’s first general strike in 1877, that started with railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and including the early coal strikes in 1912–13 and an armed insurrection in 1921, most treatments of the state’s labor history have focused on the private sector. This is the first comprehensive history of the struggles waged by state and local government workers in West Virginia. The involvement of numerous unions and interventions of the state legislative and executive branches is traced in order to provide context for those struggles. Relying on journalistic sources, legislative enactments, court decisions, and participant interviews, Mutiny in the Mountains accounts the fifty-year struggle of West Virginia’s public sector workers to assert power without the benefit of significant collective bargaining rights or political leverage.
About the Author
Gordon Simmons is a retired union organizer and is president of the West Virginia Labor History Association. He is now employed as a Human Rights Commission investigator and an adjunct professor at Marshall University. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
You May Also Like
When Miners March
The definitive insider's history of the 20th century Mine Wars and the treason trial of Bill Blizzard, the fearless leader of the Red Neck Army.
Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals: A Documentary History of the West Virginia Mine Wars
The dramatic stories of union battles as seen by the leaders, rank-and-file participants, and the journalists who came to West Virginia to cover them.
Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction
Written in Blood features the work of Appalachia’s leading scholars and activists making available an accurate, ungilded, and uncensored understanding of our history.
Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017–2023
Insurgent Labor tracks the trials and tribulations of bringing a formerly stagnant labor union into national relevance with an unapologetically left-wing agenda
Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars
This graphic interpretation of people’s history features unforgettable main characters while also displaying the diverse rank-and-file workers who stood in solidarity during this struggle.
What the Boss Doesn't Want Us to Know: Discovering Power and Winning Campaigns
After the labor movement faded away in the lives of most Americans, organizing is back!
Geek Mafia
Inspired by the author's own eventful experiences, Geek Mafia, satisfies the hunger in all of us to buck the system, take revenge on corporate America, and live a life of excitement and adventure.
Geek Mafia: Mile Zero
Key West-southernmost point in the United States, Mile Zero on Highway 1; and as far as you can run away from your past troubles without swimming to Cuba.
Recently Viewed
Housing Justice: A Lexicon for Building Solidarity
This book is both a resource and a provocation: it supports critical reflection, interdisciplinary dialogue, and coalition-building, while inviting readers to think with and beyond existing frameworks.