That evening 150 workers and their relatives joined the picket line to protest against three miners who broke ranks to go to work in the morning. "These are the only workers who crossed so far," Oliver said. "The same three guys scabbed when we struck in 1987."

Spirits on the picket line were high. The scabs came out escorted by eight company vehicles and at least that number of Navajo Nation police cars were parked at the gate. The strikers chanted, "No contract, no work" and "Our land, our jobs, the union is here to stay," expressing the fact that the mine is on the Navajo reservation. More than 90 percent of the workforce is Native American.

The union won a small but important victory the evening of June 26 when the Navajo police were forced to back down, agreeing to let 10 workers picket directly in front of the north gate of the mine. A temporary restraining order limiting pickets is now in place because a judge ruled in the company's favor even though there have been no reported incidents of union violence in the strike. But the company found it impossible to further restrict the union's democratic rights because of the number and the determination of the protesting unionists.

At a rally held earlier in the day, UMWA international president Cecil Roberts pledged the International's full backing of the McKinley strikers. Roberts said letters asking for strike support have already been sent out to all unions affiliated to the AFL-CIO and he promised to go before the UMWA Executive Board seeking an increase in the $150 weekly benefits that the McKinley strikers receive. Roberts also stated that if the strike continues, the union will broaden its appeal for support by targeting Chevron and its corporate offices in San Francisco. Chevron is the company that owns P&M.

At the rally, Phyllis Shanklin, the wife of a miner, said relatives of strikers decided to organize a women's auxiliary. She was elected to head it. A women's auxiliary was also active in the 1987 strike.

"When corporations come here nonunion, they just come to make money and get out," said John Wilson Jr., a Diné (Navajo) striker who has worked at the McKinley mine for two years. Like some other strikers, he previously worked at the company's Black Mesa mine in Kayenta, Arizona, also in the Navajo Nation.

"The more organized labor comes in, the more protection our people will have," Wilson stated. "A lot of our people worked for uranium mines. They didn't have safety equipment. A lot of miners were exposed to uranium and died from radiation poisoning. Our tribal leaders had a hard time getting compensation for ex-miners. A lot of abandoned mines continue to harm our people because reclamation has not been done to clean it up. The union fights for a lot of benefits--not just for workers but the whole Navajo tribe."  
 
 
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