Salazar was addressing the October 2 rally here marking the one-year anniversary of the Co-Op miners’ fight for a union.

More than 100 people turned out for the event held at the UMWA District 22 union hall.

Mike Dalpiaz, UMWA international executive board member for District 22, introduced the program, which included many retired union miners and UMWA members from the nearby Deer Creek mine in Huntington, Utah,

At the rally, the miners discussed how to counter the latest attacks by the employers on the job and through the courts.

Two days before the rally, the Co-Op bosses fired Celso Panduro, one of the stalwarts of the 10-month strike and of the struggle by the miners, since returning to work in July, to win a union election, and a contract with decent wages and better job safety.

A week earlier, the Kingstons, the owners of the Co-Op mine, had also filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against more than 120 individuals and organizations who have backed the Co-Op miners. Defendants, cited for “unfair labor practices” and “defamation,” include the UMWA, 17 of the Co-Op miners, and many newspapers that have reported on the labor struggle—including the Salt Lake Tribune, the Price Sun Advocate, the Intermountain Catholic, and the Militant, all of which sent reporters to the meeting.

A contingent of dock workers, Service Employees International Union members, and a meat packer made the trip from Washington State. The crowd was inspired by the fact that these 12 unionists traveled such a long way and followed up on pledges of solidarity they made when Co-Op miners toured the Seattle area earlier this year to win support for their fight.

Several miners pointed out that the solidarity rally took place in the same room where Co-Op miners held their first meetings with representatives of the UMWA in early September 2003. The walls of the union hall are adorned with scores of pictures of UMWA locals going back to the 1930s and ’40s, a time when fierce union battles took place to organize the union.

Dalpiaz said the UMWA has “a proud history of being a militant union and the UMWA is committed to seeing that the Co-Op miners get justice.” He told the crowd that the “Co-Op fight remains at the top of the radar screen for the UMWA.”  
 
Firing of union stalwart
According to Panduro, on Monday, September 27, Cyril Jackson, head maintenance foreman at the Co-Op mine, told Panduro he was being sent home after he had not bolted a cross cut. Panduro told Jackson that he was sick. Panduro was assigned as a roof bolter on a set up crew. The crew works straight midnights and gets the section ready for the incoming production crew.

Panduro said he had worked seven straight 12-hour shifts bolting on a production crew. He said he had a cold and bronchitis for a month.

After being sent home, Panduro said he was called by Shane Stoddard, the head production foreman, and was informed that the company was giving him a three-day suspension with intent to discharge.

Other Co-Op miners said that at the same time the bosses began telling workers on the job that Panduro had been fired for refusing an order from Jackson.

On Wednesday, September 29, the company scheduled a hearing. Panduro said he requested Bill Estrada, another UMWA backer at the mine, as his translator. The company refused the request and told Panduro a translator was not needed. Panduro insisted he had the right to have a translator.

The bosses then rescheduled the hearing for next day and agreed to have Estrada translate, along with José Ortega who is a company trainer and under investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration for violations of training procedures. Seven bosses testified against Panduro. “It was clear that the hearing was just a show,” Estrada said in an interview. “The bosses were determined to take advantage of the situation to fire one of the leaders of the fight. Everyone knew Panduro had been sick for weeks.”

Panduro, along with Jesús Salazar, Juan Salazar, and Bill Estrada, were among the Co-Op miners who were asked to address the October 2 rally and explain the history of the struggle.

“We’ve been threatened and harassed by this company repeatedly,” Panduro said at the rally. “They took advantage of my being sick and unable to do my job last week to fire me. They think by firing me I will be out of the fight. But the Kingstons are wrong about that. I am going to keep fighting and so are all of us here in this room today.”

As a show of solidarity and to answer the Kingstons’ outrageous action, John Fischer of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union in Seattle got up toward the end of the program and pledged another $1,000 to help Panduro and his family make ends meet while the miners fight to get his job back.  
 
‘Demand NLRB set date for union vote’
Bill Estrada was the last of the Co-Op miners to speak. “The fight is at a critical juncture,” he said. “Not just for the Co-Op miners ourselves, but for the UMWA and for the entire labor movement. Day in and day out we are fighting the company underground.”

Estrada said the UMWA will be filing charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the company over the firing of Panduro. “Not only are we filing charges, but we are organizing ourselves to wage the fight in the mine to win his job back,” he explained

“While we are fighting the injustice heaped upon us by the Kingstons, we are also demanding the NLRB set a date for union elections at the mine,” he said. “The labor board has had enough time to decide. The government is just giving the Kingstons more openings to harass and threaten us by delaying a union election at this point.” Estrada pointed out that many of the company acts of intimidation against union supporters in the mine are in direct violation of the NLRB-brokered settlement, which forced the company to offer to take back all the strikers, who walked the picket line for nearly 10 months, without retaliation.

The bosses fired the 75 Co-Op miners on Sept. 22, 2003, for defending a co-worker who had been dismissed and other UMWA supporters who had been harassed after demanding safety on the job and livable wages. These miners were paid between $5.25 and $7 an hour, while wages for underground coal miners in the United States average around $17 an hour.

The day after the firings, the UMWA filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the NLRB, which ruled in late spring that the miners had been dismissed illegally and that a union election must be held at Co-Op. Soon after the firings, the miners turned the lockout into a strike and began picketing the mine.

During the nine-and-a-half month walkout, the miners won increasing solidarity from the labor movement in the United States and other countries. After the NLRB ruling, the Co-Op bosses made an unconditional offer to return, and a number of strikers were back on the job on July 12.

Ten days later, the NLRB held a hearing in Price, Utah, on who should have a right to vote in a union election. The company claimed that about 100 people, including managerial and office personnel, most of whom are Kingston family members or relatives, should be allowed to vote. A so-called International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU), which the miners say is a company union, is siding with the bosses in this conflict. The IAUWU filed the September 24 suit along with the Kingstons against the UMWA and other defendants. The UMWA has argued that Kingston family members and relatives, who were brought into the mine to stack the cards against the UMWA, are loyal to the company and should not be allowed to vote. The NLRB has yet to rule on this matter or set a date for a union election.

In a September 30 article, the Price Sun Advocate had this to say about how the Kingstons run the mine: “The mine is owned by the well known Kingston family, who purportedly run the mine as an ‘order’ where family members and followers of their religious sect don’t work for wages but to build the business and their belief system, which includes a polygamous lifestyle. However, many of the workers who are not part of the clan are reportedly called ‘outsiders’ and many of those were the people that went on strike.”  
 
Countering the Kingstons’ lawsuit
The focus of that Sun Advocate article was to report on the lawsuit by the Co-Op bosses. The article concluded with the following: “‘I haven’t thoroughly reviewed the documents yet,’ said Sun Advocate and Emery County Progress publisher Ken Larson, who was not mentioned in the suit, while four of his staff were. ‘I have however reviewed the articles that were written about the situation and I see nothing that defamed anyone. Our job is to report the news, and that comes from many sources. Our reporters talked to people on both sides of the issue and reported what was said by those sources. We have covered this story fairly.’”

The suit targets the UMWA and 17 of the Co-Op miners for alleged violations of labor laws for trying to organize the workers in a mine the bosses claim had already been organized by their IAUWU outfit. It also claims that dozens of labor and other organizations, along with newspapers that reported factually on the struggle or supported the miners, “defamed” the Kingstons and the IAUWU. The Militant, its editor, its web administrator, and 20 of its reporters are named as defendants, along with the Roman Catholic Church, Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers international union, the National Organization for Women, and many others (see front-page article and editorial in last week’s issue, as well as legal brief filed by Kingstons posted on www.themilitant.com).

The Kingston family has a record of filing such outlandish suits against their adversaries. On September 30, a federal judge threw out subpoenas seeking notes, film outtakes, and other information from two media outlets—Associated Press and KUTV-Channel 2—for covering a news conference that announced the filing of a lawsuit against the Kingstons, reported the Salt Lake Tribune.

That lawsuit, a personal injury suit, was filed by Mary Ann Kingston, who “has named 242 members of the Kingston clan and nearly 100 businesses operated by family members as defendants, claiming the relatives knew she had been forced into an incestuous relationship with her polygamist uncle but did nothing to stop it,” the October 1 Tribune reported.

Many at the October 2 rally spoke about the suit that attorneys Carl Kingston and Mark Hansen filed on behalf of the Kingstons and the IAUWU, pledging to fight to dismiss it as frivolous or ensure the Co-Op bosses are defeated if the case goes to trial.

“The suit is outrageous,” said Juan Salazar in an interview following the rally. “It has made us madder and stronger. We have to counterattack them on this lawsuit. They have done so many illegal things for so many years, yet they are suing us. They can’t win. They’ve also given all the supporters of our struggle at Co-Op another reason to pull ourselves together and help the fight.”

UMWA members from the Deer Creek local donated union T-shirts and hats, which were popular raffle prizes. Much sought-after items at the raffle were two afghans made by Ann Fivecoat, wife of retired UMWA member Bob Fivecoat. The Fivecoats have been strong backers of the Co-Op miners’ struggle since the very first days of the fight. The Co-Op miners also produced a commemorative T-shirt for the event. By the end of the day, almost every participant was wearing one.

The UMWA is urging all supporters of the Co-Op miners to send letters to the NLRB urging the board to set a date for a union vote and to rule in favor of the UMWA’s position that no supervisory personnel or members of the Kingston family, all of whom are part of the management setup at the mine, be allowed to vote in the election. Messages should be sent to NLRB Region 27, attn: B. Allan Benson, director, 600 17th Street, 7th Floor—North Tower, Denver, CO 80202-5433. Tel. (303) 844-3551. Fax. (303) 844-6249.

For further information or to send donations and messages of support to the Co-Op miners contact UMWA District 22 at 525 East 100 South, Price, UT 84501; Tel: (435) 637-2037; Fax: (435) 637-9456.  
 
 
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