Conference participants discussed how to fight discrimination on the job. Coal miners, power plant workers, health care workers, and others from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and as far away as Alabama were among the 65 who attended. International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 953, the University of New Mexico (UNM) Law School, and the New Mexico Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were among the sponsors of the conference. Students from the UNM Gender & the Law class also helped put the meeting together.

Local 953 organizes coal miners at three surface mines and one underground mine located on the New Mexico side of the Four Corners area of the Navajo Nation. A big majority of the miners there are Navajo. The conference itself takes its name from a Navajo legend. Driving through the area at night, it is striking to see the number of homes that don’t have electricity. “How can you be an electrician, work in a power plant, and not have electricity,” exclaimed Verna John.

Lois Jenson, the lead plaintiff in the first class-action lawsuit in the United States against sexual harassment on the job, was the keynote speaker. The film North Country is a fictionalized version of the years-long fight waged by Jenson and other female miners to defend their right to work free of intimidation and harassment in the taconite mines of northern Minnesota. Their fight ended in a legal victory in 1996.

Jenson described the union meeting where she explained her sexual harassment complaint. “Because there were rumors out that we were seeking super-seniority and retaliation against the men, I decided to go to the union meeting,” she said. “The men were quiet and listened respectfully. I said the complaint was filed because of the lack of response from the company and the union. When the meeting ended, several approached me and said I had guts. Some read the complaint. Some encouraged me. Others changed their minds. I have respect for the men who stood by us.”

Rosalina Tuyuc, of the National Coalition of Widows In Guatemala formed by women who lost husbands during the 36-year civil war there, and Margaret Montoya, a UNM law professor, also spoke.

Norman Dave Benally, a heavy equipment operator on a BHP surface mine for 17 years, said the conference “is a valuable tool for women co-workers, but it is not only for them. It educates men folks to identify abuse by the boss and sense our responsibility for respect and dignity.”

Benally also noted that women still comprise a small percentage of the workforce where he works. Across the U.S. coalfields, there is significant hiring of workers into the mines because of a boom in coal production as coal prices—and company profits—have shot up with increased demand for coal. But few women have been hired in coal mines. According to an April 8 article in Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader, “Underrepresented underground,” there are fewer than a dozen women miners in Kentucky today. These figures stand in sharp contrast to the coal boom of the 1970s, when women first fought their way into the mines. By 1985, nearly 4,000 women worked in coal mines.
 
 
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