The UMWA-led rally showed the way forward for the entire labor movement. The mine workers' demands point toward social rights--health care, education, and other needs--that should be lifetime entitlements, never held hostage to profit demands and assured to the entire working class.

The rally registered the fact that a social movement, based in the eastern and western coalfields, is growing. It showed the determination of retired miners, many of whom traveled two or three days on buses to get to the rally. It registered that a growing number of active rank-and-file miners are beginning to take the lead in the fight to defend lifetime health benefits. A sizable layer of high school students put their imprint on the rally too. Many of these youth will be the next generation of coal miners. One of the popular T-shirts worn at the rally said: "Coal miner's daughter"--meaning: don't mess with my father's union.

Another important component of this movement is the union's effort to join forces with the National Black Lung Association and reinvigorate the fight for black lung benefits and stronger action against coal dust in both underground and strip mines. At the rally there were a number of retired union veterans who were part of the black lung movement in the late 1960s and '70s and played a decisive role in regenerating the UMWA through a powerful movement for rank-and-file democracy.

Despite its size and significance, the rally received little coverage in the big-business media. But just because the news editors decided not to write about, it would be a mistake to think the rally didn't have an impact on the government and the coal bosses. It did. For example, U.S. Steel Mining's Oak Grove mine in Alabama was idled for three days because miners walked off the job to go to the rally. Citing a company official who was "concerned about the timing of this," the Birmingham News complained that the miners "refused to apologize for leaving their mines even though the operators can little afford the lost production."

One sign carried by a miner at the protest said: "Pittston Again," referring to the 1989-90 strike by miners who fought off Pittston's attempt to deny medical benefits to retired members. This sign shines a spotlight on the stakes in the current fight to safeguard the health benefits of retired UMWA members, which has been at the heart of a union-busting counteroffensive by the coal bosses for more than a decade. It has been a central issue in several strikes in the late 1990s--from the 1998 UMWA strike against Freeman United Coal Co. to those at Jeddo Coal Co. in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and the Deserado mine in Rangely, Colorado, in 1999.

Today it is a central issue in the strike by UMWA Local 1332 against the Pittsburg and Midway Coal Co. in New Mexico. The company is also trying to eliminate overtime pay for weekend work, lower wages, and lower contributions to the workers' pension plan. The issues in this strike will be at the center of what the coal bosses will be demanding when the contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association expires at the end of 2002. The coal bosses are closely watching this strike, especially with the contract about to expire at P&M's sister mine in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Coal miners continue to reach for solidarity in response to company efforts to discipline, suspend, and fire union militants. The recent attempt to "discharge" a member of UMWA Local 1969, David Yard, from Freeman United in central Illinois is a case in point. Yard was framed for "intentionally" shutting down the belt line, which carries the coal out of the mine. Miners organized to beat back this move against the union and Yard was reinstated.

To strengthen our ranks, labor everwhere should join shoulder to shoulder with the miners on all these fronts--from throwing support behind the New Mexico strikers to championing the fight for cradle-to-grave health benefits for miners--and our entire class.  
 
 
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