A ceremony featuring music by the Steel City Singers and several speakers, including former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, was held as those gathered lit candles.
“This is obviously a tragedy that is still an open wound for us in many ways, and it is something we will never forget,” United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) communications director Phil Smith said in an Associated Press story. “Our members who still work down there remember those guys just like they were there yesterday.”
A settlement was reached earlier this year in a wrongful death suit against JWR, but some cases against four manufacturers remain open, according to Jim King, the lawyer representing the miners’ families. “The majority of the case has settled successfully for the widows and survivors, as well as the injured miners.”
King, whose father is a UMWA coal miner, said remembering the miners who lost their lives was vital. “Obviously, no one wants these deceased miners and those injured miners and the sacrifices they’ve made to be in vain,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “All of us who are involved in coal mining, and even if you’re not, know how courageous you have to be to perform this job, so any memorial that continues to recognise these people is very important.”
The JWR No. 5 mine was idled in early-June of this year after a water leak; additionally, work will cease for good at the operation in late-2006 or early-2007 so that the work may be relocated to the company’s No. 7 mine.
