Friendly but cautious, he is a 41-year-old unemployed miner with a 'very bad back.'

A crew of 200, many unemployed miners, labored for eight years on the fort.

Mackay was born into a poor family, he was one of 8 children and his father was an unemployed miner.

Locals showed no interest in becoming commercial farmers; they were unemployed miners.

"There are a lot of unemployed miners here," Ferrer said.

Devco's mission was to put unemployed miners back to work.

Union organizers said that many new recruits were unemployed former miners and union members who would immediately rejoin the union once they had jobs.

Arthurdale was a piece of land bought by the government to be used as a place for unemployed miners to come and live with their families.

The village was unable to provide jobs for the unemployed miners and suffered decline as a result.