“They are just promising to put our names on a list and maybe giving a few of us jobs in the next six months,” said striker Gonzalo Salazar. “We all agreed this deserves no response.” Having been on strike for nearly six months, the miners aren’t going to let themselves be tricked now, he said.

On Sept. 22, 2003, CW Mining—also known as Co-Op—fired all the production workers after they protested unsafe working conditions and demanded the reversal of the suspension of a co-worker. The bosses refused to talk to a delegation of miners and instead called on Emery County sheriff’s deputies to kick them off mine property.

The miners enlisted the help of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and since October they have set up pickets at the mine entrance. They are demanding union recognition and reinstatement to their jobs with full back pay.

Strikers report that they started receiving the company letter in early March. Many were hand-delivered by three bosses.

The letter asserts that the boss-organized “union,” the International Association of United Workers Union, is “the exclusive bargaining representative for workers” at the mine. Many miners report that until they started organizing they hadn’t even heard of any such outfit, had never been told by its officers of any grievance procedure, and had not received copies of any bargaining agreement.

“Accepting this letter means agreeing [with the company’s claim] that we weren’t fired and that we accept their company-run union,” said a striker. “This is the same offer that we all rejected before.”

“This is a sign of weakness by the company. They are showing that they need us,” said Alyson Kennedy, another miner.

In the past two weeks the strikers have stepped up their picketing. They have set up rotating shifts outside the trailer that they have used to stay warm while on picket duty during the winter months.

“We are confronting the few scabs at six in the morning and six at night with more picketing,” said Gonzalo Salazar. “We stopped one guy from scabbing after he had already applied for work at the mine the day before.

“After we explained to him why we are on strike, he said he understood and even picketed with us for a while.”

On February 3, three officers of Local 953 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Kirtland, New Mexico, delivered a check for $750 to miners at the picket trailer. The local represents more than 400 miners, most of them Navajo, in New Mexico.

The Local 953 members recently ended a 12-day strike against BHP Billiton in which they won a four-year contract with wage increases.  
 
 
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