Strike songs

There's a longstanding connection between labor struggles and music. Some generate their own songs, like when my friend Elaine Purkey wrote "One Day More" for locked out Steelworkers at Ravenswood back in 1992. Others find new uses for older songs, from "Take This Job and Shove It" to "We're Not Gonna Take It."

One that's shown up a lot in West Virginia these days is Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down." It is a great song, and Petty's recent death probably reminded a lot of us of how much of his music has been part of the soundtrack of our lives.

For me though, another Petty song expresses what most of my fights have been like: "The Waiting." There's often that agonizing period when we can't exactly do anything at the moment to affect the outcome but we can't do much of anything else either. It really is the hardest part.

(UPDATED: if the 5 percent across the board deal happens, I guess we can dust off "We Are The Champions." There's never enough Freddy Mercury anyhow.)