BY ALYSON KENNEDY
DES MOINES, Iowa - The 21st National Conference of Women
Miners and Supporters was held in Des Moines, Iowa, June
25-27. The conference was sponsored by the Coal Employment
Project and the CEP's Iowa support group. It was endorsed by
the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
Since 1977 the CEP has fought to get women hired in the mines, many times through affirmative action lawsuits. The organization has also helped women maintain mine jobs once they are hired.
Miners, former miners, and others attended this year's conference. One third of the gathering were working miners, out of the 45 total in attendance. The largest delegation, seven miners who are Native American, drove all the way from Kayenta, Arizona. They work at a Peabody strip mine on the Navajo Nation and are members of UMWA Local 1924.
Darlene Benally, recording secretary of UMWA Local 1924, said they valued the CEP because "there still is a lot of harassment in the workplace. The bosses make comments that women aren't strong enough to do `malé work and they don't provide bathrooms for the women." Benally said there are 13 women who work at the Kayenta mine, 6 of whom attended the conference.
As in previous years, the CEP conference featured presentations by workers involved in struggle. Titan Tire strikers from Des Moines addressed the meeting. Linda Burgess talked about the year-long strike against Titan, and described the encouragement they had gotten for their fight by going to a Freeman United Coal miners strike solidarity rally last year.
"The miners' picket line had a sign with big letters that read `Scab of the Week.' Every week there would a different name on it. When I came back to Des Moines we put a `Scab of the Week' sign in front of Titan. The sign was there for two days and it was stolen. Titan hated that sign," Burgess told the conference.
The 21st conference passed a resolution to send a letter of support to UMWA Local 1984 then on strike against the Deserado mine in Colorado and to go back to local unions to get solidarity for the strike (see article on page 10).
Among other speakers at the conference were UMWA international president Cecil Roberts and Bill Brumfield, UMWA International Executive Board member from Illinois.
The conference concluded with a business meeting on June 27. A proposal from the board of directors of the CEP to dissolve the organization and no longer hold annual conferences was approved by a majority of those in attendance. Linda Lester, chair of the board, said that because there is no hiring taking place in coal mining the CEP is not able to get funding to continue operating.
Although there was not much discussion of the board's perspective to shut down the organization, one participant explained from the floor that there was hiring going on that includes women, and that women miners still needed the CEP. A working miner from West Virginia, said that without the CEP, it would be harder on women in her local. During informal discussion examples raised by conference participants pointed to a younger generation and women getting jobs in the mines today in several states.