On September 24, attorneys for C.W. Mining and the so-called International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU), which miners say is a company union, filed a federal civil suit in the U.S. District Court in Utah against the UMWA, its officers, and 17 current and former Co-Op miners. In all, 120 organizations and individuals are named in the 76-page suit, accused of “unlawful labor practices” and “defamation.”
“This company has taken advantage of the Co-Op miners for many years,” said Bob Butero, UMWA Region 4 director, in response to the lawsuit. “Now they are suing these organizations for trying to help the miners. All of us who support the workers are there because we support justice.”
Also named as defendants in the suit by the Kingstons are the Salt Lake Tribune, and eight of its editors and journalists who have reported on this labor struggle; the Deseret Morning News and five of its staff; the Militant newspaper, its editor, its web administrator, and 20 of its reporters who have written articles on the Co-Op struggle; the Sun Advocate and other local newspapers in Utah’s Carbon and Emery Counties; the Socialist Workers Party; the Workers World Party; Jobs with Justice and its affiliate in Utah; the Roman Catholic Church and its Salt Lake City Diocese and Bishop George Niederauer, as well as Father Donald Hope of the Notre Dame Catholic Church in Price; the Utah AFL-CIO; the PACE international union; the National Organization for Women (NOW); and numerous other labor organizations, individual unionists, newspapers, and others who have expressed support of the Co-Op miners fight to win UMWA representation.
Most of the alleged defamations are factual presentations by workers and their backers on how their labor struggle has unfolded since last year.
How struggle unfolded
On Sept. 23, 2003, some 75 miners were locked out and fired by C.W. Mining, also known as the Co-Op mine, in Huntington. The owners, the Kingston family, have business holdings in six western states worth about $150 million. The firings took place after a number of workers at the mine began organizing to bring in the UMWA in order to win better safety conditions, decent wages, and respect. Getting wind of this effort, the bosses at Co-Op began harassing union supporters, eventually firing one of the leaders of the effort. When workers at the mine protested this victimization, the company called the local sheriff and ordered the workers off the property, locking them out of their jobs.
The miners turned the lockout into a strike and picketed the mine. After nine-and-a-half months on the picket line, effectively limiting production at the Co-Op mine and winning broad support from the labor movement throughout the West, especially, and around the world, the miners won their jobs back. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in May that the miners had been fired illegally and ordered C.W. Mining to allow the miners to return. Following an unconditional offer to return by the bosses, a number of the strikers got back on the job July 12.
Since then, Co-Op miners have said they are pressing their fight to be represented by the UMWA from inside the mine.
The NLRB also ordered that a union election be held between the UMWA and the IAUWU, which workers describe as a phony company outfit. The labor board held a hearing here in July to determine which employees of C.W. Mining would have a right to vote in such an election. Company lawyers argued that up to 100 people, many of whom are Kingston family members or close relatives, including managerial and office personnel, should be allowed to vote. The UMWA argued that such individuals are loyal to the company and have no right to vote in a union election. The NLRB has not issued a ruling yet on this matter nor has it set the date for the union election.
“It is going to be important for us to show we are united and we have widespread support for our fight,” said Juan Salazar, one of the Co-Op miners who has been a leader of the fight for a real union at the mine in an interview. Salazar said that he and two other miners, Alyson Kennedy and Ricardo Chávez, recently did house visits with co-workers and other miners who used to work at Co-Op to build the October 2 rally. “We discussed with our co-workers and their families how the fight continues and why all of us should be there October 2,” he said.
The miners will have a display at the rally featuring all of the major turning points in their struggle. They are also producing a T-shirt to raise funds and spread solidarity, which reads, “One Year in Struggle, September 22, 2003—Co-Op Miners Want the UMWA.”
While Co-Op miners, UMWA members, union retirees, and others in this area have been spreading the word about the October 2 rally, unionists from other parts of the country are also making their way to the event. A delegation of 10 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Service Employees International Union are traveling from Seattle for the October 2 event. Two other members from the ILWU in Tacoma, Washington, are also coming. A delegation from the International Union of Operating Engineers in Farmington, New Mexico, will be in Price. Other miners from Colorado have called to say they will be at the rally as well, miners report.
The Co-Op miners also said they have extended an invitation to the coal miners who have been thrown out of work at the three mines formerly owned by Horizon Coal Co. in West Virginia and Kentucky to be special guests at the solidarity rally.
Utah Jobs with Justice is organizing a car caravan of unionists and other supporters of the Co-Op fight from Salt Lake City. The caravan is set to depart at 9:00 a.m., Saturday, October 2, from the AFL-CIO Labor Temple in Utah’s capital city for the rally later that day.
Kingstons’ suit against the union, others
The lawsuit by the Kingstons cites hundreds of supposedly defamatory statements made in the course of the last year. These include:
The Kingston lawsuit asks for at least $1 million in damages from the defendants, and an unspecified amount of punitive damages to be determined during trial. Furthermore, the Kingstons ask that the court enjoin all of the named defendants, and up to 200 unknown others who may be discovered during trial, from carrying out further actions in support of the miners, because of the injuries their actions inflict on C.W. Mining Co.
Defendants vow to fight back
Other defendants reacted to the suit with statements similar to Butero’s. “We welcome the lawsuit because we know they can’t win it,” said George Nekels, of Utah Jobs with Justice. “And it just sheds more light on their activities. The more they are investigated, the more their questionable and unscrupulous treatment of the miners will be uncovered. The fact that it is a joint lawsuit between the attorney for the company union and the attorney for C.W. Mining is more evidence of collusion and conflict of interest. It again shows why no Kingston family member should be allowed to vote in the union election.”
The IAUWU, the miners contend, does the bidding of the company and has failed to represent the workers in every dispute.
The filing of the lawsuit has already received media coverage, including articles in the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News, two of the defendants. The September 25 edition of Deseret Morning News reported that managing editor Richard D. Hall said “he was surprised by the paper’s inclusion in the lawsuit, which he described as ‘completely frivolous and without merit.’”
Norton Sandler, Socialist Workers Party campaign director, said the lawsuit “needs to be taken seriously. There is no reason to assume the courts will dismiss it out of hand. We consider outrageous the inclusion of Róger Calero, SWP candidate for president of the United States, as one of the defendants and we intend to join the miners, the UMWA, and others to fight it. Far from being intimidated and silenced by this lawsuit, Calero and his running mate Arrin Hawkins, and SWP candidates for public office across the United States, will continue to speak out wherever they go in defense of the unionists at the Co-Op mine, who will prevail in this battle to be represented by the UMWA.”
“The lawsuit filed by the Kingstons against the Co-Op miners, their union, the Militant newspaper, other news organizations, church groups, and other supporters’ of the miners’ fight is a serious attack on political rights,” said John Studer, executive director of the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF), in a September 28 statement. PRDF has been providing support for the defense of political rights for more than 30 years. This includes the successful legal challenge to decades of harassment and disruption by the FBI and other government agencies against the Socialist Workers Party, and the successful defense last year of Róger Calero, associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and staff writer for the Militant, against efforts by immigration authorities to deport him to his native Nicaragua.
“The goal of this attack is to divert supporters of the miners from publicizing their struggle, forcing them instead to devote resources, time, and attention to defending themselves,” Studer continued. “In addition, the attack on the Militant and its reporters, as well as on other newspapers, is a challenge to freedom of the press and the paper’s effort to tell the truth about the miners’ struggle to unionists and others across the country and around the world. PRDF pledges to lend whatever support it can to the fight to turn back this attack and defend political rights.”
Fighting suit can help union struggle
A number of Co-Op miners said they won’t allow the lawsuit to slow down or stop their fight for a union.
“Many miners we talked to during house visits at first laughed about the Kingston lawsuit,” said Co-Op miner Alyson Kennedy. “‘It is so outrageous,’ they said. But we take it seriously and see it as another attempt to intimidate us and our supporters. It’s going to backfire on the bosses, though. We will end up stronger, with more support, as a result of this action by the Kingstons and our fight against it.”
Kennedy reported that a member of Amnesty International at the University of Utah called the Co-Op miners right after reading about the Kingston lawsuit. She wanted to know how they could help, and described plans by her group to organize a fundraising benefit for the miners and to organize students from the campus to come to the October 2 rally.
“We are not afraid of this lawsuit,” Juan Salazar said. “Many of the miners we talked to said they will be there on October 2, even more so after hearing what the Kingstons had just done. The company needs to know we are not sitting down and waiting.”
Bill Estrada, who is cited as a defendant and is quoted often in the bosses’ lawsuit, said: “The Kingstons are going to find that the Co-Op miners and their supporters are proud of what we have done. The Kingstons have put together in their legal brief an honor roll of those who have sided with us in this struggle for justice.”
The Co-Op miners said they urge supporters around the world to write to the NLRB asking that the labor board set a date for the union vote and reject the bosses’ proposal to give the right to vote to supervisory personal and other Kingston family members and relatives brought in the mine to stack the deck against the UMWA. Such letters can be sent to NLRB Region 27, attn. B. Allan Benson, director, and Nancy Brandt, hearing officer; at 600 17th Street, 7th Floor - North Tower, Denver, Colorado 80202-5433. Tel: (303) 844-3551; Fax (303) 844-6249.
For more information on the October 2 rally or to send a message of support or financial donation contact UMWA District 22 at 525 E. 100 S., Price, Utah 84501; Tel: (435) 637-2037; Fax: (435) 637-9456.
Related articles:
Defend freedom of speech!
Send funds to help defeat lawsuit by Co-Op bosses
Suite filed by Kingstons (download page for legal brief)
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