By Frank Noakes
SAN FRANCISCO — John May and Steve McGriff were in town in late September to raise funds for the 17,000 striking members of the United Mine Workers of America across seven states. Already 160 days on the grass, none expect to be digging coal until the new year. "We're at war, you bet; when you're fighting for your future, that's a war", says McGriff.
The strike began in earnest on May 10 after the coal operators refused to negotiate a new contract in good faith.
"When the coal operators use profits generated by our work and increased productivity to open new mines and expand their business we should get a fair share of those jobs. That's what the coal companies agreed to in 1988. But instead of keeping their word, they have been playing a shell game, hiding the real ownership of their mines behind paper companies to avoid their obligations", complains UMWA president Richard Trumka.
The companies' motto is: work faster so you can be unemployed faster.
"The issue remains what it has been since day one — jobs with a future. We've raised productivity 200%, but to date, the only reward for our hard work is unemployment. The coal operators are purchasing and opening new mines with the profits we generated, but they're not giving our members a chance at those jobs. We want a contract that recognises our contribution", says Trumka, "that values our hard work, that benefits the coal miners, coal communities and the coal industry".
Instead the companies are engaging in what is known as double-breasting: they are closing union mines and laying off UMWA members and then opening new mines and hiring non-union labour under different corporate names to conceal the real ownership and to avoid honouring their agreements with the union. This constitutes an unfair labour practice, says the UMWA.
The union demands that union miners, employed and unemployed, get first refusal at all new mines.
The strike is selective; some companies, those not affiliated with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, have agreed to new contracts and are exempted from strike action. Therefore only 17,000 of the UMWA's 42,000 members have been progressively called into industrial action.
May and McGriff are from Illinois; typical of other states, with 3200 miners out, their communities are small and mainly rural, 800 in this town, 400 in that, all economically dependent on the mine and its workers. Strong support is to be found in each of these communities. Most, if not all, houses sport a placard declaring support for the strikers; so also do local businesses.
The strike was planned well in advance by the union's leadership. Local outreach committees visited schools, banks and local businesses six months beforehand seeking their reaction to the possibility of a long dispute. The banks all agreed to reschedule loans, even to extend the duration of loans by the length of the strike in hardship cases.
Picket line duty is mandatory — no duty, no strike pay. McGriff relates how some people had been complaining about paying into the strike fund: "'Hell, we ain't going to go on strike, we've not been out since 1978', they'd say. But now they're drawing a hell of a lot more out of the fund than they ever put into it; now they understand." In May the UMWA strike fund stood at US$150 million, with a line of credit worth $15 million open to it from the United Auto Workers union.
Armed with walkie-talkies, dressed in camouflage, the strikers and their families are organised military-style. Their catchcry is "one day longer" than the companies, denoting how long they are prepared to fight. The companies have employed security thugs from out of state to harass and video record picketers, and to escort scabs across picket lines. All of this, says May, has made the communities even firmer in their resolve to see the strike through.
US law prohibits secondary boycotts, making it difficult for other unions to give active solidarity. But support is there. May describes how train drivers bring their train as far as the picket line, but won't cross it. Company people take the train across the picket, load it and then return it. "The train drivers don't want to do that; it bothers them, but they have no choice."
In Australia 1000 miners at the Ravensworth and Warkworth mines, operated and part owned by Peabody Holding Company, a subsidiary of the British Hanson PLC, walked off the job in support for 24 hours in June. Hanson PLC is one of the main offenders in this dispute.
"When we win, all labour, everywhere wins", McGriff confidently told Green Left Weekly.