The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.25           July 12, 1999 
 
 
Colorado Mine Boss Threatens To Hire Scabs  

BY JEFF POWERS
RANGELY, Colorado - "The company has run adds for replacement workers in the Denver Post, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Grand Junction newspaper, and every newspaper in every small town between here and Salt Lake," Vince Conkle president of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1984, told the Militant.

The members of Local 1984 struck the Deserado mine on April 27 over health care for retirees, control over job bids and job assignments, vacation scheduling, and pay. Deserado is owned by Blue Mountain Energy and it produces coal exclusively for a company-owned power plant near Vernal, Utah. The miners went on strike after rejecting the company's final offer by a vote of 105-2.

Three people have been killed in the mine since it opened in 1984 and last year the Federal government cited Blue Mountain Energy for more than 60 safety violations.

"We are not children," Local 1984 recording secretary Carol Amy said as she described some of the conditions behind the strike. She has worked at the mine 10 and a half years. "They were so disruptive. I caught a foreman doing our work one day and I stopped him. This was something they tried to do all the time. Then the company promoted someone out of seniority before me and I stopped that too."

"The last negotiations we had a couple of weeks ago broke off after the company said we would have to change our position," Conkle said. "New negotiations are scheduled for June 23."

Picket lines are staffed 24 hours a day. The company has not yet tried to bring in scabs. "Nobody has crossed the picket line so far," Conkle reported.

The strikers remain disciplined despite Blue Mountain's repeated attempts to provoke the miners through the use of a private security force hired for the strike. While Militant reporters were on the picket line, a security guard positioned himself on a distant knoll to get good pictures of the reporting team.

"This is something that happens all the time," the picketers explained. "The other day a guard drove his four wheeler off the road all over the place right near where we have our pickets, just trying to get us angry. We just ignored him," a worker described.

On the picket line Militant reports spoke with three workers - ages 19, 23, and 24 - who had been hired within the last year and were traditionally called green hats. "They thought that since this is such a good-paying job we would cross the picket line when we went on strike. They were so wrong. We are in this because we believe in the needs of retirees," one of them explained.

Although the strike is in an isolated area, Local 1984 has received support from a number of other unionists, mainly other mine workers. "So far we have been sent checks for over $2,000 from four UMWA locals in the west," Local 1984 vice president Charles Cudo said.

A number of local stores in Rangely have placed signs in their windows saying they support the UMWA. The local governments in Rangely and Dinosaur, Colorado, have passed resolutions on the strike and sent them to Blue Mountain management. "We would like you to rethink your objective to hire other workers outside our area to replace those locally involved in the strike," reads part of the statement from Dinosaur city officials.

Local 1984 has produced a brochure explaining their side of the fight and the miners have begun to distribute it widely throughout the area. On June 19 UMWA local members organized a float for Bedrock Days, a local celebration in Dinosaur. This is something the miners have done before but this year the float featured signs thanking the community for its support in their fight. Some of the miners' wives are beginning to organize a women's auxiliary.

"Our biggest ally is the pile of coal. It is going down," Ed Hinkle, a 14-year Deserado miner, commented. "The company stockpiles coal to run its power plant and we know we are hurting them because we know the pile is getting low."

"Our strike is important and other miners - union and nonunion - throughout this area are watching it closely," Carol Amy said. "They know what we get will have a direct effect on how their companies treat them."

 
 
 
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