John L., You'd Be Amazed

By Jesse Birnbaum

John L. Lewis, the late great boss of the United Mine Workers, would rub his shaggy eyebrows in disbelief if he could see a coal miners' strike nowadays. ( No goons with clubs. No beatings. No gunfire (except for an occasional harmless lapse). Instead, in a remote corner of southwestern Virginia, 1,400 striking miners -- and even their wives and kids -- were all decked out in jungle fatigues. A public relations firm was pumping out pamphlets excoriating the bosses. Strike leaders with beepers, walkie-talkies and cellular telephones were blasting orders, tuning in scanners to chart the movements of the state police and faxing messages to union headquarters in Washington. And get this, John L.: the union actually launched a stockholders' proxy fight and succeeded in pressuring its employer to issue its first dividend since 1983.

Not only that: apart from a scattering of rock throwing and puncturing of company truck tires, the strikers were following a new strategy of civil disobedience, staging sit-ins and getting themselves arrested for "obstructing free passage." The leaders even called in the Rev. Jesse Jackson to exhort a cheering crowd of 10,000 that gathered in the village of Wise. "The tradition of John L. Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. have come together!" he cried. "You are in pain, but don't panic!"

For all the strikers' high-tech gear, the pain is real enough. In better times the miners never worked on a Sunday (most are serious churchgoers; many are preachers). They earned more than $600 a week, had free medical benefits, seemed content with their simple lives in the savage hills and mountains of old Appalachia. For 14 months they worked without a contract while negotiating a new pact with the Pittston Coal Group, which operates some 40 mines in the region.

The biggest exporter of metallurgical coal in the U.S., Pittston has seen the world price of its product halved (to $30 a ton) in the past seven years. To trim costs, Pittston offered its employees a $1-an-hour raise in exchange for reduced health benefits -- from 100% coverage to 80% with a deductible -- and a seven-day-a-week "flex time" work schedule. Losing their precious Sundays as well as part of their health plan was too much for the miners. On April 5 they walked out.

Pittston cut off the miners' health benefits and hired "replacement workers," the new euphemism for scabs. The union is providing a limited medical plan and giving the strikers $200 a week in subsistence pay. Pittston says the men must face the facts of today's coal market; the miners argue that Pittston is "treacherously" trying to break the union.

Last week both sides agreed to submit to federal arbitration, though the union was not happy about its prospects. Appalachians are a stubborn breed. The strikers perversely seem to enjoy getting tossed into the slammer. Speaking for many last week, Norma Salyer, a miner's wife from Dante, boasted, "I'm ready. I've got my lipstick and my chewing gum right here to take with me to jail."

With reporting by Joseph J. Kane/Clinchfield