District 17's Feisty Spirit

The 25,000 members of U.M.W.'s District 17 in southern West Virginia are inclined to strike over almost anything. The biggest, brashest, most uncontrollable and most defiant of the union's 21 districts, District 17 went on a ten-week wildcat strike last summer over a reduction in health benefits. It made no difference to the strikers that U.M.W. President Arnold Miller is a District 17 alumnus. They felt that Miller had backtracked on campaign promises and doublecrossed them. In the past, 17's members have struck over things that have nothing to do with coal or the U.M.W.: the banning of studded tires, school textbooks regarded as damaging to children, gasoline rationing and the condition of Cabin Creek Road near Charleston.

Unions and unionism, specifically the U.M.W., play an inordinate role in the lives of 17's members and their families. Through the union comes just about the only work around. Its influence is as pervasive as the coal dust that is everywhere. "There is nothing more sacred than the union," says Cecil Roberts, 17's vice president.

Generations of sons have followed fathers into the pits, and into the union. A miner is never "just a miner." He is a miner, a member of a proud breed, who wrenches riches from the bowels of the earth under conditions awesomely unforgiving of mistakes. The calling produces a fierce camaraderie, expressed through the union and rooted in the Anglo-Saxon heritage of the Appalachian mountaineer.

Thus the miner is distrustful of anything outside the hills, hollows and coal that make up 17's turf--an individual who is suspicious of Government, big corporations, journalists and almost anything urban. The U.M.W. is seen as a family union, always to be believed in and loved. But the union's present national leaders must earn fealty. If they back off from promises, wildcats result, and assertions like that of Mike Adkins, 33, are heard: "Up here, on the creek, nobody tells me when to work and when not to work." But when the leaders demand something that the miners want, like a local's right to strike over grievances, the rank and file responds. "By God, it will be done!" bellowed Adkins before he and fellow miners walked out of the pits last week. "I believe in this union, and I'll give up Christmas and a lot more for it." Adds Rick Christian, 21, father of three: "I'll stay out till she freezes over."

The price will be high. In this case, the U.M.W. will pay no strike benefits, and strikers do not get unemployment compensation. They will make do on savings, food stamps and whatever income may be earned by nonunion spouses. Already 17 is going its independent way by opening negotiations with three coal companies. That may put pressure on the U.M.W.'s national leaders, but one thing is certain: no coal will be mined by District 17's members while a picket line is standing. That just is not done.

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