The history of coal mining is a story of back-breaking labor, dangerous working conditions, meagre salaries. and occasionally violent labor strife Coal deposits can mean job opportunities and economic prosperity for the people who mine the ore. but too often miners find themselves exploited by industrial capitalists, sometimes poorly represented by union leaders and occasionally manipulated by government.

The film 12,000 Men documents the situation on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island in the 1920s, explaining how the extraction and exploitation of one of the largest coal deposits in Canada led the miners there into an epic struggle for survival.