Camp Solidarity
Perrin, Andrew J.
Notebook The night is cold and damp as our weary group finishes a day-long drive. We follow the beaten pickup through back roads for several miles, then up a winding dirt road. We pass a...
...A brochure circulated by the UMWA features a cartoon showing a big building labeled "Pittston" and two large Virginia State Troopers dragging camouflage-clad strikers away...
...The similarities are not lost on the United Mine Workers (UMWA), who have been on strike against the Pittston Coal Group/Clinchfield Coal Company since April 5, 1989...
...fines from the combination of federal and state contempt-of-court charges are staggering...
...I know it sounds strange, but it's true...
...That victory could come, but it depends strongly on the solidarity of the labor movement...
...Says Jack, a miner who owns the property where "Camp Solidarity" is located, "You hear about police states in communist countries . . . what we have is a police state right here in Southwest Virginia . . . it shows you how the companies can control the government...
...But the miners are determined to continue...
...The union also needs money...
...WINTER • 1990 • 103 Photo by M. E. Babic 104 • DISSENT...
...We pass a check-in point staffed by camouflage-clad volunteers and finally arrive at the camp...
...In addition, Pittston has hired Vance Security's Asset Protection Team, a riot-control force, to stand guard at entrances to the mines...
...I voted for [then Virginia governor] Baliles in the last election because I thought he was for the working man...
...I feel betrayed ......The sense of betrayal by state and country is widespread among the strikers...
...I always thought of state troopers as [the] next thing to family . . . now they attack us," said Jim...
...The National Labor Relations Board found Pittston guilty of unfair labor practices, paving the way for the strike...
...that's a dangerous situation in America or anywhere...
...Thousands of union members, students, and others have visited "Camp Solidarity" to demonstrate and support the miners and to show Pittston that the story will travel far beyond the southwest tip of Virginia...
...For visit information, or to make a donation, contact Justice for Pittston Miners, UMWA District 28, P.O...
...Civil disobedience is the best thing that's come around here," claimed one striking miner...
...More visitors will show Pittston and the State of Virginia that the UMWA is supported nationwide...
...In the first six months, the strike has had 100 percent participation...
...Box 28, Castlewood, VA 24224...
...Photo by Andrew Perrin radical...
...it's "Camp Solidarity" in Saint Paul, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in rural southwest Virginia...
...Samuel Skeens, a miner who was staffing the District 28 UMWA office when we arrived, admonished us to be wary: "Constitution don't go down here...
...Pittston has been bringing in "replacement workers" ("We got another name for them [scabs]," says Jim, a UMWA miner) since the beginning of the strike...
...Clearly, though, this is not primarily a strike for economic benefits...
...Onethird of Virginia's state troopers are stationed in the three sparsely populated counties affected by the strike...
...Nothing reveals more about the changing attitudes of the miners than their decision to take illegal action...
...With recent defeats and near defeats under its belt, the labor movement is in real need of precisely the morale and energy that would spring from a full victory against Pittston...
...The atmosphere in the area is reminiscent of the original UMWA organizing in earlier years...
...Another said, "Now I'm not a 102 • DISSENT Notebook Entrance to the Moss 3 Coal Processing Plant...
...I'm fairly conservative...
...said one, "I've learned more in the past six months than in the past forty-odd years...
...A federal judge has issued an injunction prohibiting the actions...
...No, this is not South Africa or El Salvador...
...We were brought up to respect law enforcement...
...In September, they occupied the Moss 3 processing and separating plant, holding it for more than three days before leaving peacefully...
...The caption reads: "And they call it Democracy...
...not a single miner has crossed the picket line to return to work...
...The miners sit in the entrances to coal mines and processing plants, blocking scab-driven trucks from entering and exiting...
...I'm striking for the whole United States...
...Production, though, has stayed consistently around 30 percent of normal, despite Pittston's predictions that by October the mines would be producing near 100 percent...
...And many federal marshals are in the area to enforce a federal court's injunction barring interference with the normal business of the mines...
...Formally, the issue in the strike is health and pension benefits for Pittston's miners...
...The miners have successfully made the connection between Pittston and governmental neglect of labor...
...The miners are using nonviolent civil disobedience to combat scab labor and Pittston...
...one miner commented, "I'm not striking for 1,700 miners...
...Before that, they worked more than fourteen months without a contract...
...703)762-5537...
...After the UMWA agreed on a contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association (the coal industry's collective bargaining organization), Pittston withdrew from the agreement, cutting off health and pension benefits to widows, disabled miners, and retirees...
...The last contract expired on January 31, 1988...
...the strike fund does not cover legal costs or the huge fines imposed by the courts...
...Another cartoon at the camp shows President Bush welding a tiny crack in a giant Iron Curtain while miners restrained behind a giant "Pittston" sign cry, "Hey George, what about workers' rights over here...
...Public figures, including Jesse Jackson and Lane Kirkland, have gone to show their support...
Vol. 37 • January 1990 • No. 1
