Songs and messages touching on labor battles past and present fill the air in Greensburg

Near the end of the Pittsburgh Labor Choir’s “Power in a Union” sing-along in Greensburg on Sunday, a white-haired man named Glenn Plummer walked out of the crowd and stepped up to the microphone. He’d hoped to “butt in” to the event so he could lead everyone in a special song he’d written years ago, he joked.

Plummer is 88 and an old union hand — he’s a retired staff member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Pittsburgh. His song, called “Breaker Boy,” addresses the children, many as young as 8, who once sorted slate from coal in the nation’s coal mines. Operators employed these breaker boys from the 1860s to the 1920s.

Before he began singing, Plummer warned the crowd, “You’re not going to hear the best voice in town.” (No need: His voice was clear and strong.) Then he began:

“Breaker boy, breaker boy, tell me your name,” he sang. “Tell me of your life, breaker boy.”

Then, later, “The mine becomes your life, the operators want your soul. A story sad but true, breaker boy.”

The song fit perfectly the day’s theme of tying together labor struggles throughout history. Plummer wrote “Breaker Boy” in 1983. It was introduced that year at the Great Labor Song Exchange at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Plummer’s rendition on Sunday got an assist from the labor choir as well as the union members and supporters who had gathered in a grassy lot on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg yesterday.

In addition to Plummer’s song, the labor choir’s “Power in a Union” sing-along included a tune by the late activist and musician Anne Feeney about West Virginia’s 2006 Sago Mine disaster, which killed 12 miners.

Not everything focused on the past, however. The event featured shoutouts to members of the Pitt Staff Union, which is engaged a fight for recognition, and newspaper workers now in their 22nd month on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Kearston Adams, an academic adviser at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, announced that ballots for a union vote will go out Aug. 15. “The Pitt Staff Union will fight for fair pay, transparency from the administration and equity across all campuses,” she said. Adams noted that Pitt’s Greensburg campus “is the lowest paid unit across all of Pitt’s campuses.”

Striking PG worker Rob Joesbury pointed out the difficulties of striking for nearly two years and the necessity of support such as that displayed at the sing-along.

“We certainly couldn’t have done it without you,” he said. “It’s really hard to get up every day and know you’re on strike and fighting for something bigger than yourself. We are so close to winning the strike. We’re 98% there. We can see the finish line from here.”