Coal miners in Utah fight for a union.

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Seventy-five coal miners, most of them from Mexico, are on strike at the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah. The song's title refers to the minimum wage, which is the starting wage in that mine.

From the sunshine of Sinaloa
to the dark of the Huntington mine,
It’s not just a trip ’cross the border,
it’s also a journey through time.
To the rule of the Kingston family,
shut up and do what you’re told.
And we all live like kings
on the five-dollar coal.

Chorus:
On the five-dollar coal,
that is the price of your soul.
You may get sick and tired,
but you’ll never grow old
When you’re workin’ the five-dollar coal.

They give us a company union,
and machinery that’s truly antique.
And fortunes are made on the minimum wage
if you work eighty hours a week.
And we don’t have to worry ’bout health care, ’cause we never have time to catch cold,
And we all live like kings
on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

Work that was once done by hundreds
is now done by seventy-five,
The mine’s never been so productive,
and it’s only cost three miners’ lives.
You can work even when you are bleeding,
all it takes is some self-control,
And we all live like kings
on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

The Kingstons are known as the “Order,”
they’re a pious, polygamous clan.
The uncles, they marry the daughters,
and the daughters must stand by their man.
And their workers are part of the family,
we must do as the Bible foretold,
And we’ll all live like kings
on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

Well, English is not our first language,
but we know how to read and to write,
And some of us studied the story
of a union that learned how to fight.
Now we’re enjoying the sunshine,
and the Kingstons are down in the hole,
And they all live like kings
on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)