"They don't want it. We don't want it. None of the union people [want it]," said a roof bolter who is a member of UMWA Local 2412, referring to the merger of his local, whose members are underground miners, with that of the preparation plant.

Members of Local 2412 began to talk about joining the preparation plant workers by taking their sick days also. On October 10 Peabody officials canceled an arbitration hearing that was to take up the dispute and said they were not going to merge the locals at this time. Preparation plant workers returned to work soon after.

Another underground miner, who asked that his name not be used, said coal production suffered for a couple of weeks after they made this announcement, dropping from 16,000 tons per shift to 4,000 per shift. "They are trying to tear the union down. The company has been saying they want concessions," he said. The same miner added that "when the workers and the union stood up to the company, the company pulled back."

Miners told Militant correspondents that Peabody plans to reopen two units of the underground mine at the beginning of next year with approximately 45 miners, about 11 percent of the current workforce. This will be to cover spot market deals.

The miners believe Peabody wants to mine the coal until enough is stockpiled, then run the preparation plant to wash the coal. With only one seniority list, the company could move underground miners to the preparation plant, needing less workers.

The Marissa mine lost its biggest customer, the Illinois Power Co., which cited the high sulfur contained in the coal as the reason. The power company refused to install scrubbers at its Baldwin and Hennepin, Illinois, power plants that burned the coal from Marissa. Scrubbers remove the polluting sulfur dioxide emissions from the coal. Peabody said it would be providing low-sulfur coal to the power company from another mine in Wyoming.

There are 350 members of UMWA Local 2412 at the underground mine and 50 members of Local 1148 at the preparation plant. The Marissa mine was opened in 1979 and today is the last Peabody mine in Illinois organized by the United Mine Workers.

Peabody has been closing UMWA-organized mines and acquiring a majority control in the Black Beauty mining operation. All but one Black Beauty mine in southeastern Illinois and southern Indiana are nonunion.

The one union mine is organized by the Boilermakers union. Many miners speculate that the company will try to reopen the Marissa mine nonunion under the Black Beauty name in a year or so.

Alyson Kennedy is a garment worker in St. Louis.  
 
 
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