The Coal Miners Decide

And Carter, Congress and country prepare for the worst

After three months of strike, after two detailed contracts had been negotiated, after the White House had intervened and called on both the industry and the union to settle their differences for the national good, the critical decision last week lay in the rough and sturdy hands of the 165,000 United Mine Workers. In scores of begrimed towns throughout Appalachia, in settings as varied as Utah, Missouri and Pennsylvania, they marched to their union headquarters to cast their ballots--or, in some instances, angrily shred and burn their copies of the pact. And though the final results would not be in until this week, from the very first tallies the tide ran heavily against acceptance of the contract.

The outcome of the vote was crucial for the nation and for the President, who had committed his prestige by trying to force a settlement. Officially, White House policy last week was one of hands off. "We will not be encouraging ratification or campaigning for it," declared Labor Secretary Ray Marshall.* "The choice is theirs." Nevertheless, the White House increased the pressure for an agreement by preparing to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act. In the past the miners defied Taft-Hartley, and their acquiescence now is uncertain. But the President selected a board of inquiry to determine if a national emergency existed. Affidavits were drawn up certifying that the strike posed a threat to national health and safety, and plans were reviewed to go to federal court, should the vote be no, to seek an injunction for an 80-day cooling-off period. Additional injunctions would be sought against as many as a dozen particularly troublesome locals to make sure that their members returned to work. Marshall also warned that food stamps would be cut off for miners who continued to stay out.

In addition to preparing for Taft-Hartley, the White House sounded out Congress on the prospects for legislation enabling the U.S. Government to take over the mines. Marshall held long talks with members of Congress from coal areas: Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd and Senator Randolph Jennings of West Virginia and Representative Carl Perkins of Kentucky. Support for seizure of the mines seemed shaky. It would be unpalatable to the operators, who had already given way under presidential pressure on the new contract, and might lose still more if the Government ran the mines. While the profits would still go to the owners, wages and work rules would be set by the Government. The takeover, however, would have the grudging approval of the miners, who figure they could get a better contract from the White House than from the operators.

The White House's ability to settle the strike was strictly limited. Both sides have proved to be stubborn, fractious and suspicious. In the scarred and desolate hills of Appalachia, owners and miners both take for granted a degree of conflict that does not exist in other U.S. industries. From the start, the 130 companies that belong to the Bituminous Coal Operators Association showed a determination to bludgeon the union into a contract that had little chance of ratification by the rank and file. In exchange for a 37% pay increase over a three-year period, the owners insisted on making the miners pay for part of their medical benefits and fining them for wildcat strikes. For reasons that are still obscure, U.M.W. President Arnold Miller went along with a settlement that he must have known would be as acceptable as black lung to his membership. When it was overwhelmingly rejected by the bargaining council, which consists of the union's 39 district leaders, he had to go back under a barrage of criticism for another round of negotiations. "If we didn't live in an Oriental society," quipped Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, "we could have settled this a long time ago."

The U.M.W. leadership spent $40,000 to whip up support for ratification of the second pact. Country Singer Johnny Paycheck, a favorite of the miners, was recruited to support the settlement in one-minute radio spots. Instead of belting out his top song, Take This Job and Shove It, he pushed the new contract by singing a few bars of Spread the Good News Around. Miller traveled through Appalachia, appealing to the locals and making a pitch on television. District presidents chorused their own praise of the pact over nine TV and 50 radio stations in all the regions where U.M.W. coal is mined.

The rank and file, however, remained skeptical. They assembled at their locals to hear the pact explained and to ask questions. Each miner was handed a copy of the contract in a 36-page booklet. No literary scholar is better at reading between the lines than a miner, who treats a contract as reverently as the Bible and even takes it underground in case there is a grievance. The more the miners read, the angrier many of them became.

At a typical meeting in Vestaburg (pop. 950), Pa., the room was so thick with smoke that the people in back could hardly see the district president up front. As the debate wore on, miners from time to time slipped out into the raw morning air to spit out tobacco juice--a habit they acquire to get rid of the coal dust they inhale in the mines. The gesture may also have expressed their feelings about the contract. "If Carter says this contract's a fair shake," said one miner, "they can take that peanut farmer back to Georgia and bury him." Terry Stay, 23, a former social worker who became a miner to earn more money, agreed: "We aren't a bunch of shanty tramps like television shows you every night. We deserve better."

While disappointed with the contract, other miners admitted that they would vote for it as the best they could probably get. "If the younger folks want to fight it out, let them," said Frank Washburn, 61, at the end of the Vestaburg meeting. "I wonder if a turndown now would get us anything in the future."

The three-month strike has already cost the average miner as much as $5,000 in pay, which he will not be able to make up for several years. "A lot of us are hurting," admitted Charles Chadwick of District 5 in Pennsylvania. "Last night I had to lend my neighbor a pound of meat because he didn't have enough food. I'm going to lose my house if I don't get back to work pretty quick, and plenty of people around here are in the same fix."

The miners did not particularly object to the pay increase in the contract, which boosts them from an average of $8.71 an hour to $11.40 over three years (their average annual income will rise from $15,300 to $20,000). But they balked at three other provisions: Right to strike. The miners insist on their right to throw up a local picket line whenever they feel they have a grievance that is not being properly handled by management. Since their work is dangerous, they are prone to object to unsafe conditions. Wildcat strikes cost the industry 2.5 million man-days last year. While the "highlights" of the new contract promise them that there will be no punishment for honoring a picket line, Article II states that they can be disciplined or discharged for "causing an unauthorized work stoppage or sympathy strike."

What, they asked themselves, is the difference? It seemed to be a murky distinction that could only be cleared up by a series of arbitrations that might go against the miners. "They can't fire you for not crossing a picket line," complained Bill Stratton, a District 17 miner, "but you can't picket in the first place. How is that gonna work?" Cecil Roberts, the district's vice president, tried to explain: "If pickets were there when you got to work and you went home, you'd have a good case. But if they weren't there and you still went back home, you'd be in trouble." Health care. Free medical attention is almost as traditional as strikes in coal country due to the hazardous nature of the work. Last summer, however, the U.M.W. health fund began to run out of money because all the wildcat strikes had reduced the management contributions based on coal output. The miners were forced to start paying part of their medical bills, a practice that the new contract continues. Every working miner's family would have to pay up to $500 a year for hospital charges, $150 for doctors' fees and $50 for drugs. To many miners, this was an outrage. Others acknowledged that it makes some sense. Said a younger member of District 17: "People used to come into the hospital to dry out from a drunk or just for something to do. A miner who is working can afford the deductible." Pensions. When the federal pension reform bill was passed in 1974, U.M.W. retirement benefits were changed. Miners who retired after 1975 were granted higher payments because their pensions were more fully funded. Thus 81,600 U.M.W. retirees receive only $250 a month, while a privileged 7,100 get as much as $500. The earlier retirees are threatening to picket the mines and close them down unless the pension gap is closed or at least considerably narrowed. Warns a retired miner in District 17: "We ain't got nothing else to do, and we got nothing to lose."

They are supported by miners still on the job in a customary display of solidarity. "We're not forsaking our fathers." Says Jerold Hamrick, 35: "Blood is thicker than a contract and thicker than coal." Adds another young miner: "The way we treat these old miners is going to have a lot to do with how we get treated when we're old. We're all brothers."

Though coal production has dropped to 6.6 million tons a week from 13.6 million tons a year ago, the nation has weathered the strike better than expected. Efforts at conservation as well as sharing of available power have allowed utilities dependent on coal to stay in business. Last week Pittsburgh's Duquesne Light Co. put a mandatory 25% power cut into effect for its 39 largest industrial and commercial customers, but it does not anticipate any further reduction in the near future. In February it purchased 35% of its power at an extra cost of $15 million from as far away as Canada and the Carolinas.

Utilities with coal shortages have also been helped by shipments from nonunion mines, which furnish about half the nation's coal. Thanks to outside coal, Ohio Edison, the state's most important utility, was able to cancel 400 megawatts of power it was purchasing from other power companies. Barring some unexpected development, the company will not have to impose any mandatory cutbacks on industry for 15 to 30 days. That means homes will stay warm and well-lighted and factories will keep humming.

Once the strike is ended, it will still take up to three weeks to get the mines back to full production. Even so, utility officials began to relax and ridicule the alarmed reactions in Washington. Yet Washington, too, seemed reasonably certain that the nation's energy would continue to be supplied. Said Jerry Pfeffer, a deputy assistant administrator of the Department of Energy: "We think we can maintain the system indefinitely."

*Adding to last week's pressures, his son Christopher, 15, was operated on for cancer of the lungs; he had already lost an arm to the disease.

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