The coal miners are fighting to win their jobs back and to gain recognition of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) as their union. The company illegally fired all 75 workers on September 22 when they protested the unjust suspension of a co-worker for union activity.

“The company is not proposing anything new. They are just throwing crumbs at us,” said Domingo Olivas, who has worked at the Co-Op mine for six years. “They are not guaranteeing medical insurance, better working conditions, or better pay. A key issue in the strike is the dangerous working conditions and lack of adequate training for the miners.”

On October 29 a delegation of miners went to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Field Office in Price, Utah, to demand an investigation of the unsafe conditions in the mine. Since that time, MSHA investigators have visited the Co-Op mine and conducted interviews with the miners, who described the bosses’ practice of intimidating and threatening workers who complained about hazardous conditions or injuries on the job.

“With this offer the company is showing its weakness now,” said Olivas. “They need us.”

At the end of December the bosses at CW Mining contacted the UMWA through a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) official in Salt Lake City to probe negotiating a return to work, strikers report. The company is demanding that the negotiations be done under the existing “contract” with the company-controlled union, the International Association of United Workers Union. The miners said the company-controlled union is made up of officers who are all bosses and relatives of the Kingston family, the owners of the mine, and that it never represented the interests of the workers.

A ruling by the NLRB on charges against the company for having a company-run union, and for illegally firing the miners for union activity, is still pending, even though the government agency has had in its hands affidavits from the workers for three months, explained the miners.

“The miners showed their unity and solidarity by refusing to negotiate with the company by themselves,” said Roy Fernandez, a UMWA international representative. “The UMWA will continue to help the miners through donations and support as long as the miners want us to be there to help them,”

“This offer is a joke,” said Jesús Salazar, a miner and a leader of the fight. “We have to go forward, fight for our rights until the company gives in and accepts our just demands. Our goal remains to be represented by the UMWA,” he said.

In the meantime, the Co-Op miners here continue to win solidarity from unionists and others across the country and abroad.

“At the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area Council meeting which took place on 15 December 2003 it was unanimously agreed that a donation be made to your cause,” read a letter of support from unionists in United Kingdom sent to the miners. “I take great pleasure in enclosing a bankers draft for $1,760.20 USD and send our support and fraternal greetings in your struggles.” At the trailer where the miners organize the pickets, strikers also displayed a poster they had just received signed by dozens of workers from a meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, that read “UFCW Local 271, Solidaridad de Omaha.”

After unanimously rejecting the company’s offer, the Co-Op miners enthusiastically sent off a four-member delegation to California for a two-week speaking tour to gain more support in other states and raise funds for their fight for union recognition.  
 
 
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