"It was a long overdue wake-up call to the policy makers that the light switches in the halls of power are directly connected to the lights on the hard-hats of UMWA coal miners," said Drake, who is president of District 26 of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He addressed the convention on its closing day and told the story of their fight.

In December the government coal corporation, Devco, closed the Phalen mine. The Prince mine will be the last to be closed. All miners under age 50 by December 2000 will be ineligible for pension payments and will receive only severance pay despite more than 20 years of service in many cases.

The Cape Breton miners stood up to the federal government and 150 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in their fight to protect the pensions of miners laid off in the closing of the Nova Scotia coal industry. Over the course of the last six years, the federal government, through Devco, has moved to dismantle and close down the coal mines in Nova Scotia. While the union has made some concessions, it has fought to defend the pensions and jobs of its membership.

"In December," Drake reported, "our union fired the final warning shot across the coal company's bow. Three hundred members occupied corporate headquarters and shut it down. The government and Devco refused to negotiate in good faith. On the first working day of the new millennium, our members wildcatted the coal company and defied federal back-to-work orders and federal injunctions. They had taken all they could take.

"For two weeks in January, the eyes of our nation were focused on the coal miners' battle for justice in Cape Breton Island," he continued. "The miners shut down the last operational coal mine. They shut down the coal trains, the coal boats, and the coal trucks. Seven UMWA brothers slipped underground and went on a hunger strike six miles under the Atlantic Ocean."  
 

'Get government's attention'

Terry Binder, one of the miners who occupied the mine said, "We had a legal strike for five days, but there was no movement. We had to do something to get the attention of the government. So we decided to break into the mine. At midnight we snuck in and went down into the mine and stayed there for six days."

Drake explained in an interview, "Faced with this, the minister of Natural Resources said he would meet with us. We met in Ottawa from 11:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night. In the end they blinked and we won. At 7:45 that night, the government position was no guaranteed planning committee and only unspecified incremental improvements. We thanked everyone but said it wasn't good enough. We said we were going to the media and to the phones to tell our picket lines to dig in. And we got up to leave."

At that point, the government said they could make some concessions. "We said we would give them 24 hours. Trucks on the road, coal to the power plants. But no more. If we couldn't settle by then, we would shut down the whole province," Drake said.

Pressed by the government negotiators to sign an agreement, Drake and the union team refused. "They wanted us to sign then and there," he said, "But we said no. We'll fax this to our guys and let them read it. Friday morning we'll have a meeting and take a vote."

Binder explained, "We decided we would go on a hunger strike. Talks were going to break off that night. But by the next morning negotiations were okayed. At the meeting the next day, 87 percent voted OK."

The miners faced down federal cops. "They said they had 150 RCMP ready to clear us out of the mine," stated Drake. "We told them we had a list of 500 miners who would be there with baseball bats and hockey helmets.

"They sent in 150 mounties from upper Nova Scotia and put them in a hotel for four days," Binder said. "They told us that if everything was not resolved in a few days they were coming in. The miners said, 'Come on. We'll be ready for it.' The RCMP told us, 'Here's the way it is. If we come here tomorrow and there are 200 miners, we're taking you out of here. But if there are 500 miners and women and children, we're going home.'"

Regarding his own situation, Binder explained, "I've got five years from the end of the year for a pension. I've been in the mines for 23 years. The pension is only $22,000 and welfare is $21,000."

He concluded, "There are 100 million tons of coal accessible now at the Prince mine. There's a whole new mine, the shafts are there, and it's never been touched. It has 60 years of work. The mine we just closed has 800,000 tons there. But the federal government is closing out steel and the provincial government is closing out coal."

"Our fight is about justice for coal miners. Our fight is about retirement with dignity," Drake told the delegates. "They may sell off our coal mines and try to take away our jobs. They may try to force us to leave our beautiful island in search of work. But they will never, never, never take away our union or the fighting spirit of Cape Breton coal miners."  
 
 
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