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Josh Sword: West Virginia Workers Have Earned This Labor Day

Circulating on social media is a screenshot of texts between a representative of The Beverage Market, which refuses to fairly negotiate with union workers in West Virginia, and one of the local businesses they serve. “Just wanting to check in and see if you were wanting to start ordering again,” The Beverage Market rep said. The customer said no, not until the strike ends. “When my union driver comes back, I will order.” That is music to our ears. The bedrock of the labor movement is solidarity. From the very start, it’s been the worker’s willingness to stand with ...

Dave Cantrell: Protecting Our West Virginia Workers

This Labor Day, as we reflect on the history of this day and West Virginia’s own labor history, it’s never been more important for us to think about the future of work and the impact major technological advancements are already having, and will have, on working class people. For decades, communities across our state, and especially those in the Northern Panhandle, have faced job loss due to the development of new technologies. This is nothing new. Centuries of advancements have led us to where blue collar jobs are today. But because this is so, our leaders should be better equipped ...

Reporter’s Notebook: GOP Family Feud

I guess I should have waited a week to write my column about the possibility of U.S. Sen. Jim Justice getting into the 2028 Republican primary to challenge Gov. Patrick Morrisey, because now the cold war between the two I wrote about last week has become a hot one. Last week, the West Virginia Lottery Commission voted unanimously to approve the Greenbrier Resort's financing transaction between the Justice family and Kennedy Lewis Investment Management and change ownership and control in the associated board, which places KLIM in majority control of the hotel and casino. Mere moments ...

John McCabe: Wheeling’s Pension Success Was Not An Accident

There may be no more impactful topic over the past quarter-century than how the city of Wheeling handled its police and fire pension issues. This past Tuesday morning, as I read Eric Ayres’ story on the current state of Wheeling’s police and fire pension funds, I recalled my first real introduction into municipal pensions — and their problems — in the early 2000s. I found a news story I wrote in October 2000 outlining how the city then was being required to ingest additional money into the funds — at the time, the annual contribution was about $750,000 each — and then ...

Why Humanity Opposes Data Centers

Polls from Fox to Gallup keep rolling in and the results are clear: more than seventy percent of Americans oppose data centers. For good reason. As Assaro notes, opposition is even greater in neighborhoods like Warwood getting AI data centers. Nearly every Wheeling City Councilor acknowledged the immediate reasons for opposition: significant local harms, with little to no local benefit. Massive energy, water, and noise problems, with fewer lasting jobs than a Sheetz. With scale, those local harms balloon. An entire Wheeling-sized city usually uses closer to 10 MW of power than the ...

John McCabe: Gateway Center in Wheeling’s Next Step ­— But Not Its Last

Foundation. Gov. Patrick Morrisey, during a stop here Tuesday, used that word to describe many of the things he said his administration has been doing over the past 18 months — including providing a $3.2 million grant for the Wheeling Gateway Center and, just recently, state loan guarantees ...