DEFEAT FOR TRE MINERS
Bensman, David
UMW STRIKE DEFE T FOR THE IqINESS After a display of extraordinary solidarity, soft coal miners voted on March 24 to return to work. For 110 days they withstood terrible pressures, from the...
...Furthermore, the operators now employ expensive and awesomely productive machines of many kinds...
...The current contract provides no solution to the problem...
...Somehow it is hard to believe they will not rise from defeat...
...The miners retain unmatched resources to survive and renew their organization...
...There is more bad news...
...they believe the union miners will never allow that machinery to do all the work it can...
...And we can expect to see serious trouble if the employers attempt to exercise their right, under "Decision 108" of the Arbitration Review Board, to fire miners who wildcat and attempt to shut down the mines...
...Finally, the recent wave of wildcat strikes in the mines has convinced many operators that the UMW can no longer play its role in stabilizing production...
...For one thing, they see the union's leadership as weak...
...Right now none is in the offing...
...Thus the miners did not settle because they found the contract sweet...
...Yet there can be little doubt that the final settlement approved by 57 percent of the miners' rectorate represented a serious defeat for the UMW, and ultimately for American labor...
...The non-union operators bare already boosted their employees' wages to match the UMW gains...
...Of course, many wildcats were responses to employer provocations...
...Six years ago, miners electrified the labor movement by deposing a corrupt and incompetent leadership...
...Moreover, there is little reason to believe the turmoil in the coal fields wi, ll soon come to an end...
...From the presidency down, UMW officials lack the exPerience and comPetence of their counterparts in many other unions...
...In 1974, when the UMW and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association signed their last agreement, UMW miners produced 70 Percent of the nation's coal...
...During the strike, non-union mines, primarily in Eastern Kentucky and the Western coalfields, produced 60 percent of the nation's normal demand for coal...
...In the past, the Bituminous Coal Operators Association had welcomed a strong union, seeing in it a partner in the stabilization of coal prices and production...
...Now the coal companies have changed tack...
...They viewed the wage increase as their just due, but no victory...
...By the time the third contract came along, it looked like an improvement, despite the fact that it contained so little of what the miners really wanted...
...At the same time, it contracted, as the nation switched to oil and natural gas as its primary sources of energy...
...Such are the growing pains of a young democracy...
...The President's statement that collective bargaining should be allowed to run its course was fine, but his actions were not...
...George Hopkins, a UMW Board member from eastern Kentucky's District 30 predicts that the UMW will be unable to recruit new members in the next three years under the March 24 contract...
...The cumbersome grievance machinery, a major source of the miners' complaints, remains unchanged...
...For 110 days they withstood terrible pressures, from the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, from the courts and from the United States government...
...Miller's inexplicable decision to submit the first contract to the UMW's bargaining council severely undermined the union's position...
...In part, they returned to work because of financial pressure--many could not pay their utility and phone bills, their auto payments, the installments on their trailers...
...Anti-Miller sentiment is widespread and profound, but lacks organization and leadership...
...A third cause of the mineworkers' defeat was the behavior of the Carter administration...
...And if Miller survives, to run for re-election, ~t is unclear at present who will challenge him...
...In a memorable gesture of solidarity, the UAW and the Steelworkers union donated $3 million to the miners' cause...
...The replacement of the union's health plan by operator-sponsored private insurance carriers symbolizes the UMW's loss of independence...
...In the 1930s, the UMW sparked labor's resurgence...
...This view was shared widely by West Virgil~a miners I interviewed...
...Most of those over 45 had been retained by the coal companies because they were good workers...
...Today the figure is down to 50 Percent...
...This winter, they inspired us again with their fierce determination...
...When all this is said, a major portion of blame for the strike's defeat must rest with the union...
...DAVID EENSMAN (David Bensman teaches labor history at Baruch College, City University of New York...
...For the first time since the advent of John L. Lewis, the UMW had lost its ability to cripple the American economy...
...The attempt to recall Miller will not succeed, because constitutional provisions for recall are unworkable...
...In addition, they foresee rising coal prices, as the nation becomes more heavily dePendent on coal...
...Now they are joined by youngsters from a different generation, who have not known the fear and poverty of the recent past, who have experienced the high wages and uninterrupted expansion of a boom era...
...Of course, there is good news too...
...When the Arab oil boycott changed things so dramatically in 1973, and the coalfields boomed once more, a whole new generation of Appalachians---many who had moved with their 28 April 1978:264 parents to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and other northern cities--entered the coal fields...
...The March 24 agreement represented a major setback because it surrendered the UMW's 30-year-old independently administered health insurance program...
...Why did the coal oPerators triumph...
...Every miner I talked to told me that the extra dollars would simply go to .pay income taxes, social security, local roadmaintenance levies, utility bills and general inflation costs...
...Now the union faces a forbidding future discouraged and divided...
...Now there is a generation gap...
...More important was that a majority of the workers became discouraged, lost confidence in their union leadership's and their own ability to win against determined employer opposition...
...moreover, it had improved health care in Appalachia dramatically, by attracting to the area public-health-oriented doctors who shook up the local medical establishment...
...For the miners to surmount their problems, there will have to be a movement for renewal...
...In a period of mass layoffs, they had learned to work hard and ask few questions as the price of keeping their jobs...
...According to Hopkins, the contract gives the union nothing to organize with...
...At the top, its leadership was embarrassingly weak...
...In Boston, "conservative" trade union leaders joined with assorted left-wing activists to pay tribute to the miners' heroism...
...The new economics of the coal industry are an important part of the answer...
...This is no requiem for a valiant army...
...I do not believe this was the .primary reason...
...Local leaders who gained their own followings or challenged Lewis's policy were summarily removed from office...
...In time they can be overcome...
...The weakness of the UMW leadership stems directly from the union's past...
...There was no chance for UMW officials to learn the ways of union politics or industrial relations...
...Instead, it barely improved the contract miners rejected 2-1, guaranteeing continued dissatisfaction, and most likely, continued turmoil...
...It is an unstable mixture...
...No wonder Hopkins says, "I most certainly believe the future of the union is in serious jeopardy...
...The older men were not allowed by Lewis to develop leadership skills...
...The miners' extraordinary self-reliance and solidarity are resources which can be used to create a new and stronger union...
...Furthermore, the miners viewed the 1978 settlement as a defeat because the contract did not contain the priority demands established by the union at the 1976 pre-bargaining convention...
...A new generation of leaders, something the soft coal fields have lacked for 50 years, is emerging, and will soon make itself felt...
...Their strike stirred workers throughout the country...
...And if it is correct, the UMW may well go into its 1980 negotiations with only one-third of the nation's coal produced by union miners...
...Having looked at the troubled past, what of the future...
...The program was John L. Lewis's legacy, the symbol of the union's power...
...John L. Lewis was a magnificent leader but a dictator nonetheless...
...Working under the gun, the negotiators did not write a whotl~y new contract addressing the rank-and-file's goals and grievances...
...Under his reign, all power in the union was concentrated in one man...
...the younger men have not had time to learn them fully...
...While the rest of the country drooled over the miners' wages, while the business press lamented the settlement's likely influence on future inflation, the miners themselves believed the contract gave them nothing...
...Pres...
...No other group of workers could have done what the miners did...
...During the 1950's, the coal industry mechanized, with Lewis's help...
...Moreover, the President's insistence, after the second contract was defeated, that the negotiators reach an immediate settlement proved a bad policy...
...But it will take long and hard effort to recoup this loss...
...Moreover, the miners did not view the pay hike of 39 percent over three years as sufficient to comPensate for the contract's deficiencies...
...Invoking Taft-Hartley in a phony emergency played right into the operators' hands...
...Sought-for improveCommonweal: 263 ments in the areas of grievance handling, arbitration and safety, for example, simply did not apPear in the supposedly "sweeter" third contract...
...If miners are fired for striking, as seems likely, their fellows will no doubt strike to support them, and production will come to a halt amidst great bitterness...
...Most miners are under thirty or over 45...
...When Yablonski was murdered by Tony Boyle and his gang, the union reformers turned to Arnold Miller, a man with no previous exPerience as a trade union officer...
...A second reason for the miners' defeat lay in the coal operators' fierce determination to cripple the UMW...
...But in the meantime, they are compounded by the fact that the UMW membership itself is new, young and inexperienced...
Vol. 105 • April 1978 • No. 9
