“We need these mines unionized,” said one miner picking up the paper at the BHP Billiton underground mine near Farmington, New Mexico, as he bought a copy of the Militant. He explained his local had helped the Co-Op miners and was glad to get the latest information about the fight. He thanked the Militant sales people for being at the mine with the paper.

A Navajo surface miner also working at that mine circled around after passing the team holding up papers by the side of the road. He was already a subscriber to the paper, but wanted to talk to the team members. He said he had been reading the paper, and following the news about the Co-Op fight as well as other articles. “We have issues with the management in this mine, too,” he added. He described fights the union has been waging over safety. He gave socialists the names of two other miners who he thought would want to get the paper and urged them to “put a sign on your car so the miners can see what this is all about.”

The BHP underground mine is one of several operations in the western United States that have high concentrations of H2S gas. Very little is known about the long-term health effects of working in concentrations of the gas, and miners at BHP through their union, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 953, wage a constant fight not only for proper evacuation from areas with high H2S levels, but for the company and the Mine Safety and Health Administration to evaluate the long-term impact of very low levels of the gas. “We don’t want to end up like the uranium miners, 20 years down the road,” explained one miner.

At the BHP surface mine outside Farmington, Militant sales people also got a good response. A sign prominently taped to the back of our car read, “Miners fight for Safety, Read the Militant.” Most miners passing by stopped their cars and talked to the socialist workers and 31 bought the paper. Two miners who already subscribe to the Militant stopped to say they are getting it in the mail and like the paper very much.

Commenting on the coverage of the mine explosion in China, one miner said, “What’s happening there is a tragedy, we need to go over there and work with them to make this stop, we can help.”

All-in-all two teams at the BHP Farmington mine portals and at the McKinley mine outside Window Rock, Arizona, sold 85 papers to mostly Navajo miners.

Driving through the Navajo nation, it was striking to see the number of homes that didn’t have electricity, the sheer number of unpaved roads, and the not uncommon sight of outhouses.

A team of socialist workers is also concentrating its efforts in Carbon and Emery counties in Utah, the heart of underground mining in the western United States. Here there is keen interest in the fight of the Co-Op miners, and many working people rely on the Militant to keep up to date with developments in the union-organizing struggle.

At the Deer Creek mine, which is organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), just a couple miles down the road from the Co-Op mine, socialists sold two copies of the Militant at a small shift change. One of the miners expressing his solidarity with the efforts of the socialist workers to get out the word on the Co-Op fight gave $5 for a paper.

At the GenWal mine, a nonunion operation also only a few miles from Co-Op, 13 miners bought copies of the Militant and one bought a copy of Perspectiva Mundial. Some of the miners stopped to say they were already subscribers and were glad to see the paper being sold there. One coal haul truck driver bought a paper and stopped again on his return run. “I liked what I read in the paper,” he said. “I only make $26 a run driving this truck. It is not even enough to feed my family. So we have to work incredible hours.” He said he was leaving his truck-driving job the next week to work at an underground mine.

Nine miners bought the Militant at the Westridge mine in East Carbon, another nonunion operation. A prominent sign reading, “Support the Co-Op Miners, U.S. Out of Iraq: Read the Militant” caught miners attention. “I’ve been following what is going on at Co-Op,” said one miner. “I’ll check this paper out.”

A sign of a nervous mine management about workers interest in the union was the company safety director coming out to talk to the sales team. “They’re saying up at the mine office there’s a picket line down here, so I came to check it out,” he said.

In door-to-door sales in the Price area, seven subscriptions to the Militant were sold and 21 single copies. Two widows of miners who bought the paper also gave $5 each to the Militant salespeople as donations to be given to the Co-Op miners’ families.

In the eastern United States the Militant is also getting a good response at mine portals. “We just had the best portal sale we’ve had in years at the Unknown mine,” reported Susan LaMont from Birmingham. “Twelve miners bought the Militant, and two bought Perspectiva Mundial.

“Many of the miners who stopped and bought the paper said they were aware of the fight at the Co-Op mine and several proudly told us that their local had contributed funds and extended solidarity to the Utah miners.”

She added, “One important aspect of the sale was that we finally broke through with several of the Mexican workers who have been working in the mine for the past six to eight months. They are employed by a subcontractor, not allowed to use the bathhouse, and generally kept isolated by the company. We know from several miners there has been some running discussion in the local about how to approach these miners. While it is an attack on union organization at the mine to have nonunion subcontractors employed to shovel belt, these are fellow miners who belong in the union.

“We have been trying to find ways to talk to these workers in the mine, and not having much luck. So the portal sale was great—three or four carloads of these new miners stopped. They were surprised to meet people who spoke Spanish and had political literature at the portal. One worker bought a current PM, and we gave last month’s PM to another worker who was very interested but had no money.

“One car had a license plate from Texas, another from North Carolina, so these are workers who have already been around the country a bit. Next time we will have a sign in Spanish, too.”

Another team of socialist workers from Des Moines, Iowa, Chicago, and Detroit sold the Militant to miners at coalfields in southern Illinois. One miner who bought a subscription to the paper there encouraged socialists with the same message heard at many portals recently: “Keep up the good work.”
 
 
Related articles:
Utah miners fight mass firings days before union election
UMWA: ‘blatant retaliation’ by bosses against union backers  
 
 
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