They are fighting against company practices such as "threatening an employee with legal action for making a safety complaint to the Mine Safety and Health Administration," as their fact sheet explains.

On August 2, a group of workers and one farmer returning to Florida from an Active Workers Conference in Ohio visited the picket line. We were from Plant City, Land O'Lakes, St. Petersburg, and Miami. One team member, Rachele Fruit, was a member of IAM Local 1126 in Miami and had been part of an effort by unionists there to send a contribution to the toy fund for children of the strikers last Christmas.

The picket line is located five miles north of Bostwick, between Palatka and Jacksonville, with a blue school bus for a strike headquarters surrounded by hand-stenciled plywood signs. One of the signs says, "Those who thought we were down for the count will have a rude awakening. UNION WINS."

Strikers Dyal Bowman and Greg Looney greeted us warmly and explained that their strike is about defending the right of workers to a union.

Workers at the Iluka mine excavate minerals such as zircon or zirconium silicate and ilmanite and rutile, both sources of titanium oxide. These minerals are used in making tires and other essential products.

Bowman explained that "the company started splitting the workers. We were used to working in both places. If things were slow in one area, we'd go over and work in the other. We all worked together. Then they imposed shift work in one mill and not the other, violating seniority."

The pickets reported the company made one union employee a boss who reported back what happened at union meetings. Management called this "monitoring" union meetings. They fired the chief union steward in June 1997 and then wouldn't let him onto company property to meet with or represent union members.

The contract ended Aug. 1, 1997, and the union negotiated more than a year until the strike was called. Meanwhile, the company organized "parking lot meetings with all of the workers to explain that they were losing money and had to cut costs or else shut the gates," Bowman said. "But this place is a gold mine. They sell trainloads of minerals."

CSX engineers have honored the picket line. They bring railroad cars to the edge of the company property, but no further. "For the first year of the strike, CSX supervisors brought the trains in, but they got tired of it," said Bowman. "Since then, Iluka has paid $500 three times a week to get a scab outfit from Jacksonville to bring the trains in.

There were 78 IAM members who went on strike, but 32 crossed the line during the fourth week when the company started hiring replacement workers.

On Nov. 5, 1999, administrative law judge Howard Grossman ruled that the replacement workers should be fired. He ruled that union members should be awarded back pay and benefits with interest, as well as all the overtime pay the replacement workers received. The company appealed the ruling, and the case has been before the National Labor Relations Board since January.

"We've got a strong case, but it's up there in Washington and you never know," Looney told us. The strikers expect a ruling in September. "If all the workers in the country would stick together, we'd have them."