Oliver was describing the current stage of the union's fight against the Pittsburg and Midway (P&M) bosses' attempts to harass and intimidate workers following the UMWA's successful strike against the company this summer.

UMWA locals 1332 at McKinley and 1307 in Kemmerer, Wyoming, waged three-month strikes against P&M, a subsidiary of oil giant Chevron. The union beat back the bosses demands to impose 12-hour workdays and gut company-funded health-care programs.

This was an especially important victory at McKinley, a mine on the Navajo reservation with an overwhelming Native American workforce. Here the company tried to get workers to use Indian Health Services, a federal program available to the Navajos, instead of the company's fully funded plan.

"We had a discharge recently," Oliver said, describing the most serious recent attempt by the employer to intimidate union members. "The company implemented azero tolerance' physical contact policy, and one of our members--a drag line operator--was fired because he grabbed another guy when he was kidding.

"Two days after that, a foreman poked a miner in the chest with his finger after he told him to get off a dozer that another foreman had told him to run," Oliver said. "Only this time, management says it was okay because the foreman says he was kidding. The guy who was poked in the chest doesn't think so."

"Another thing they are doing is trying to change the absentee policy," Oliver added. "For years, those on day shift who had a doctor's or dentist appointment or some other personal matter they had to attend to could leave work an hour or two early to take care of it. Now the company is saying you have to take off a whole day."

"P&M is refusing to pay both [UMWA 1332 recording secretary] Bob Brown's and my signing bonuses," Oliver explained. "This is a clear violation of what we voted for, which says,Each employee who is actively working during the first pay period following ratification of the agreement shall receive a return-to-work payment of $1,000.'"

When Oliver and Brown returned following the walkout, they went on union business, something that both the UMWA and the company had agreed to. "We had to wrap up a few things after the strike, like getting out the last strike paychecks and dealing with local issues," Oliver explained. "We met with management and worked out vacation scheduling, staggering the crews for the dragline, and the bids that were up."

"The company claims that since we weren't technically at work they don't owe us our money," Oliver said. "Our argument is that anybody employed isactively working.'"

Both Oliver and Brown were confident the union would beat back all of these attacks. "We came out of the strike much stronger," Brown explained. "We are more united than ever and we are not going to let the company get away with any of this."

The UMWA members continue to work hard to make the mine a safe work environment. "MSHA inspectors recently came to McKinley," Oliver said, referring to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. "The company was given 30 citations including 13 that were considered significant."