BY CECELIA MORIARITY
PITTSBURGH - In June 1979, the Coal Employment Project (CEP) organized the first national conference of women coal miners. It followed a successful class-action lawsuit that forced 153 of the largest coal companies in the United States to end their blatant pattern of discrimination against hiring women for mining jobs.

About 65 people attended the CEO's 20th national conference in Pittsburgh June 26-28. Attending were working miners, former miners, supporters, co-workers, activists of the CEP, and representatives from the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

The largest delegations were from Pennsylvania and Alabama. Several came from Canada. The delegations included miners from both underground and strip mines.

The UMWA endorsed this conference, as it has each year since 1983. Carlo Tarley, the union's secretary-treasurer, was a keynote speaker at the welcoming dinner.

The conference presented nine workshops in a day and a half, including on diesel in the workplace, global warming, employment discrimination, UMWA organizing, alternative careers, and the formation of a labor party. Struggles in Steel, a documentary about the fight for equal rights by Black steelworkers, was also shown. A panel of former miners reviewed some of the history of the Coal Employment Project and the miners support groups that were a part of the earlier years of the organization. One recalled solidarity activities for labor struggles over the years as some of her important memories of having been a miner.

The CEP board pointed out that the mines were not hiring women - or men - right now, and requested ideas for new goals for CEP. A few of the miners at the conference, however, expressed a desire to see the organization keep fighting to get women hired. There are still mines with no women working in them, a miner from West Virginia said.

In areas where some very limited hiring has taken place, or might take place, some miners are trying to help other women get hired. Many of the women at the conference who are still working miners hold positions of enough seniority that they are in key production positions, underground on the longwalls, or operating huge trucks at surface mines. They report day-to-day struggles with intensified work schedules and newer and more massive equipment to operate.

Miners used the informal activities of the conference to have longer discussions with each other about problems they face on the job. Some were also very interested in discussing the strike by auto workers at General Motors and what workers are doing in other parts of the world.

Participants elected to hold next year's proceedings in Des Moines, Iowa.

Cecelia Moriarity is a member of the United Steelworkers of America.  
 
 
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