Itchy Feet

A coal strike looms

"Negotiations are meant to be a time of give and take. But the only thing I have seen from [the industry's] negotiators is take, take, take." United Mine Workers President Sam Church Jr. uttered that ringing denunciation after talks broke down in Washington last week between his union and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association for a new three-year contract. A strike by 160,000 U.M.W. members is considered almost certain to take place when the current agreement expires this week. At the last negotiating session the union demanded wage and benefit increases over three years totaling 46%, while the operators offered only a 20% raise. Yet money is not the thorniest problem. Indeed, some industry observers believe that both sides will eventually settle on about a 35% hike. Instead, the talks bogged down over a bin of noneconomic issues. To increase productivity, for instance, the operators want to mine coal on Sundays, a proposal that many workers, especially those in Bible Belt coal fields, consider sacrilegious. Management is also dickering for the right to buy nonunion coal without having to pay royalties to the union's health and retirement funds.

One issue that had promised to be a major stumbling block was sidestepped. The operators demanded the right to stop contributing to a multicompany pension trust fund and instead set up individual company retirement plans. Union officials feared that such company programs would not be as secure as the existing fund. In their last offer, however, the operators backed away from their demand, but asked in return, as one union official put it, that "we accept everything else."

A strike would probably damage the union and the operators more than the nation at large. Coal-burning power plants in the U.S. have a 120-day stock pile, and the high-demand heating sea son is almost over. Mines covered by the union agreement now account for only 44% of coal produced in the U.S., down from 70% a decade ago. Some 20,000 U.M.W. members have been laid off. Though both sides are prepared to start bargaining again, no talks have been scheduled, and the ugly mood that has marked previous strikes seems to be on the rise. Just the word of the breakdown in negotiations last week sparked wildcat strikes by 8,000 miners in the East and Midwest. As Norvel Wagner, a U.M.W. field representative in West Virginia, put it, "It's itchy feet." qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.