Wulle, a member of PACE Local 8-931 in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been an active supporter of the striking miners since the beginning of the walkout last September, helping to raise funds and organizing solidarity activities along with other unionists in Salt Lake.

“I presented a resolution at the Region 11 council meeting to support morally and financially the Co-Op miners on strike in Utah until the end,” said Wulle. “The resolution passed unanimously.”

“Whereas, the coal miners employed by the Kingston-owned Co-Op mine are on strike for union recognition, economic justice, safe working conditions and basic human dignity,” the resolution stated, “and whereas, this strike has lasted going on nine months; And, whereas the issues involved in this strike go to the heart of the reason for the existence of the U.S. labor movement; Then be it resolved that PACE Region 11 go on record in support of this strike…. Be it further resolved, that PACE Region 11 encourage its affiliate unions and their members to support this strike both financially and materially.”

“We passed the hat and collected over $850 in cash for the miners,” Wulle said. “Many delegates told me that when they go back to their locals they plan to get more support for the Co-Op miners.”

Since the beginning of the strike, the Co-Op miners have received financial support from unions and other organizations from around the world. These funds have enabled the strikers to receive weekly strike payments of $100. Co-Op strikers said that the $850 donation from PACE, combined with $1,700 they had received a little earlier from the National Union of Mineworkers in Britain, meant the miners received a $200 strike pay the last week of May.

The 75 coal miners were fired to the person from their jobs Sept. 22, 2003, by CW Mining, Inc., also known as the Co-Op mine. It is an underground mine owned by the Kingstons, a wealthy family that owns businesses in six western states.

The miners were fired for union activity. They had been talking to the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) about how to get a union organized at the mine. Strikers say that they were getting paid between $5.25 and $7.00 an hour, compared to average wages of about $15 an hour at underground mines. The workers, who are in their majority of Mexican descent, had no health insurance or pension.

Support for their cause has continued to expand in the labor movement across the United States, especially in the West.

On June 9, Co-Op strikers Juan Salazar and Bill Estrada will fly to Seattle, Washington. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has invited the miners to speak at ILWU meetings in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. Strikers are expected to address more than half a dozen union locals in the Pacific Northwest.

The speaking tour comes as the striking miners await a decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on a representation petition that the UMWA filed with the board May 18, demanding that a union election take place at the Co-Op mine.

“For years, some of these miners have been forced to pay dues to a company dominated ‘union’ that most of them did not know existed until it surfaced during the current labor dispute,” said Mike Dalpiaz, UMWA International Executive Board member from Price, Utah, in a statement the union released May 19. The miners are taking advantage of a legally required open-window period in the so-called contract the Co-Op miners toiled under, Dalpiaz said, so “a real union can file a representation petition in an attempt to challenge or supplant the one currently recognized by the NLRB.” The company “union” contract expires in August.

For more information on the Co-Op strike, or to make a donation, write to: UMWA District 22, 525 East 100 South, Price, Utah 84501. Earmark checks to the “Co-Op Miners Fund.”  
 
 
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