The Militant - December 26, 2005 -- 1,200 miners, other workers march in St. Louis to back union organizing

Vol. 69/No. 50 December 26, 2005

1,200 miners, other workers march
in St. Louis to back union organizing
(front page)

BY BILL ESTRADA
ST. LOUIS—About 1,200 people marched and rallied here December 9 outside the headquarters of Peabody Energy, the largest coal mining company in the world. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), St. Louis Central Labor Council, and other trade unions called the action to promote union organizing as part of AFL-CIO rallies across the country around international human rights day.

“UMWA, all the way!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Peabody’s gotta go!” chanted hundreds of miners. UMWA president Cecil Roberts was among several union officers who addressed the rally.

Many busloads of retirees and some working miners, mainly from southern Illinois and Kentucky, took part in the action.

St. Louis is near the coalfields of southern Illinois. A number of UMWA members pointed out that Peabody closed its last unionized facility in Illinois in 1999, while it acquired the Black Beauty Coal Company that owns many nonunion mines in that state and in Indiana.

Roberts told the crowd he favors bypassing the process of union representation elections sponsored by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Congress should pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would allow workers to obtain union recognition directly from their employer, he said.

The December 10 St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Roberts saying that “eighty percent of Peabody’s workforce was unionized 20 years ago, but the percentage has dropped to 35 percent as the St. Louis-based company closed mines in Indiana and Illinois and moved production to the West.” The Dispatch also reported that, according to the UMWA, when Peabody returned to business in Illinois and Indiana coalfields, “it did so with a nonunion subsidiary, often opening new mines near old ones that had been unionized.”

John Maitland, national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) from Australia, also addressed the December 9 rally. He said the CFMEU will wholeheartedly support all UMWA efforts to organize the Peabody mines.

Unionists at the rally got invitations to attend a December 17 picket line outside the Co-Op mine near Huntington, Utah, where coal miners have been fighting for two years to win UMWA representation. The Utah AFL-CIO, UMWA District 22, and Utah Jobs with Justice are sponsoring the action, which will be held from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. It will then be followed by an open house with hot drinks and snacks at the UMWA District 22 union hall in nearby Price, Utah. The event will mark the one-year anniversary since a union representation election was held at the mine, which had been preceded by a 10-month strike for union recognition.

One week before that election, C.W. Mining, which operates the Co-Op mine, fired some 30 workers for allegedly not having proper work documents. Dismissed workers said these were the same documents they provided when they were hired years earlier and only became an issue just before the union vote. The election took place and the bosses challenged the votes of the fired miners. The NLRB sealed the ballots and has not yet ruled on the UMWA’s complaint that the miners were fired illegally, nor has it announced the results of the election. For more information on the December 17 picket call UMWA District 22 at (435) 637-2037.

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home