Militant/Pat Miller

Co-Op miners take part in panel discussion on Harlan County USA documentary at Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah, January 28. From left: cameraman Hart Perry; Harlan County director Barbara Kopple; Co-Op miners Bill Estrada and Juan Salazar (with microphones); film critic Roger Ebert; editor Nancy Baker; and songwriter/singer Hazel Dickens.

Silva was one of nine Co-Op miners, accompanied by United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) organizer Bob Guilfoyle, who were special guests at the movie presentation. The delegation was invited to come up on the stage after the film showing to speak to the crowd about their struggle. Harlan County won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1976. It was released this year in a remastered version. It was shown as part of the Sundance Film Festival, held every year in Park City, Utah.

“In 16 months we have been fired twice by the company for union activity,” Bill Estrada, another Co-Op miner, told the crowd. “Of 10 coal mines in Utah only two are UMWA-organized. We won’t rest until we get the third one.”

The miners were received with loud applause. These workers have been fighting since September 2003 for safe working conditions, livable wages, dignity on the job, and respect by the Kingstons, the owners of the Co-Op mine, which is operated by C.W. Mining.

Harlan County director Barbara Kopple, who was in her 20s when she shot the documentary, invited the coal miners to the January 28 screening. “Basically we were too young and too stupid to understand the project we were undertaking,” Kopple said after the movie showing, in a roundtable discussion that included film critic Roger Ebert, as well as Kopple’s crew. “We went to get some film on a strike and ended up staying 18 months, living with the miners, and doing something worthwhile.”

In response to a question from the audience on the objectivity of her documentary, Kopple said, “I don’t think film should be neutral. We took the miners’ side. The company had enough ways to get out their message.”  
 
Brookside miners strike
The film of the 1973-74 strike vividly records the Kentucky UMWA miners confronting armed company goons on the picket lines and covers the central role of the miners’ wives in the struggle. One striker was shot in the face by a scab. He died before the company finally gave in to the workers’ struggle for the union.

The Brookside coal mine, where the 1973 battle took place, had an accident rate three times the national average, low wages, and minimal medical and retirement benefits. The workers belonged to a company union, the Southern Labor Union—much like the so-called International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU) at the Huntington mine today, which Co-Op miners describe as an outfit created by the bosses to keep out the UMWA or any other real union. Contracts were different from mine to mine with wages ranging from $17 to $32 a day, compared to the $45 per day on average that workers at UMWA-organized mines were receiving.

In June 1973, the Brookside miners voted to be represented by the UMWA, rejecting the company union by a 113-55 margin. The Eastover Mining Company, which operated the mine and was owned by the Duke Power Company, refused to accept the terms of the nationwide UMWA contract in effect at the time. That contract included the right to strike, decent pensions, higher wages, and the right of miners to form an elected safety committee. The Brookside miners walked out June 30, 1973. They won their battle 14 months later, at a time when the UMWA had organized a nationwide walkout to protest unsafe working conditions.

“Our fight at the Co-Op mine hasn’t faced the violence the miners in Harlan County did, but it has been a similar struggle,” said Juan Salazar, a miner for four years at C.W. Mining, during the discussion. “Just like with the Kentucky miners, the company is denying us the union representation the majority of miners want, and the government agencies are making us wait a long time for decisions about our fight, which gives an advantage to the company.”

The miners were asked to have a miner come to the front of the room to speak during the round-table discussion. “Our struggle has received a lot of solidarity, like we have at the events today,” Salazar said. “I believe that anyone who has their rights denied, has the right to stand up and fight back, and they will get our support.”  
 
‘Similar reality for many miners’
Salazar said watching Harlan County USA had a profound impact on the nine Co-Op miners who saw the movie. “The story told in the film,” he said, “remains a reality for many coal miners today. That is why it’s so important.”

The Co-Op miners appealed for funds during the discussion. They collected $1,350 in donations. Scores of contributions filled a five-gallon bucket, with people kicking in anywhere from $1 to $50, the miners said. The miners had set up a photo display in the lobby of the Egyptian Theater in Park City before the movie showing, along with stacks of newspaper clippings that tell the story of their struggle for a union.

Later that evening, a party hosted by Kopple featured live music by Hazel Dickens. Now 69, Dickens is a miners’ wife and sister who wrote and sang several songs for Harlan County USA. Plans are underway to re-release the documentary on DVD, Kopple said. The new release is to include special features, such as the January 28 round-table discussion with the Co-Op miners here, and other interviews with the film’s producers.

Roger Ebert, the film critic who led the round-table discussion, said he was also struck by the Co-Op miners’ conditions and tenacity. “Kopple also shared the stage with Utah miners,” Ebert wrote on his website following the film festival. “Although the national average pay for coal miners is $15 to $16 an hour, these workers—who are striking for a union contract—are paid $7 an hour for the backbreaking and dangerous work.

“Using a translator, the Spanish-speaking miners told their story. One detail struck me with curious strength. A miner complained that his foreman demanded he give him a bottle of Gatorade every day as sort of a job tax. It is the small scale of the bribe that hit me.”

The Co-Op miners said they have yet to hear from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), six weeks after voting in a union representation election, about the outcome of the vote. The labor board is supposed to rule on whether ballots submitted by about 100 Kingston-family members will be counted, and whether it will count the votes of about 35 foreign-born workers fired by C.W. Mining one week before the union election. UMWA supporters who worked at Co-Op say they are confident most production workers at the mine voted for the union.

Region 27 of the NLRB, the board’s regional office based in Denver, ruled November 18 that none of the Kingston family members and relatives would be allowed to vote because their close ties to the company owner represented a conflict of interest. The bosses then appealed the decision to the national NLRB. On December 9, C.W. Mining dismissed most of its foreign-born workers on the pretext they lacked proper work documents. The miners say the real reason for the mass firings, one week before the December 17 union election, was their efforts to win UMWA representation. The dismissed workers point out that the company had the same employment documents for each one of them in its files for years and it had never become an issue until the showdown around their union-organizing struggle.  
 
Kingstons’ harassment lawsuit
Co-Op miners and the UMWA are also taking steps to counter what they describe as a harassment lawsuit filed by C.W. Mining and the IAUWU. In the last week of January, individual miners who are named in the lawsuit signed up for representation by UMWA attorneys. The UMWA has offered to defend all of the miners named in the suit.

The UMWA and 17 individual Co-Op miners are charged with unfair labor practices because of the way they organized their fight for unionization. The lawsuit also claims supporters of the miners are guilty of “defamation” in citing the poor work conditions and low pay at the Co-Op mine and offering solidarity to the miners’ fight. UMWA representatives have said the suit is frivolous and will ask the court to dismiss it.

Attorneys for the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News—Utah’s two largest dailies—and the Militant newspaper, which are also cited for “defamation,” are each preparing their own response to the lawsuit. The Militant has said that, like the UMWA, it will try to get the suit dismissed in its early stages.  
 
Letters to NLRB, funds needed
Co-Op miners said they continue to urge supporters of their fight to send letters to the NLRB demanding the fired miners be reinstated and the votes of Kingston family members in the union representation election be thrown out based on the November 18 ruling by Region 27 of the labor board.

Protest letters should be sent to the NLRB, Robert J. Battista, Chairman, 1099 14th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20570-0001; with copies to B. Allan Benson, director of NLRB Region 27, 600 17th St. 7th Floor—North Tower, Denver, CO 80202-5433; Tel: (303) 844-3551; Fax: (303) 844-6249.

Copies of letters to the NLRB, along with other messages of solidarity and financial contributions, should also be sent to UMWA District 22, 525 East 100 South, Price, UT 84501.

Funds also are urgently needed to help support about 20 Co-Op miners and their families who have not been able to find work since being fired by C.W. Mining, Salazar and other miners said. Checks should be made out to “Co-Op Miners Fund” and sent to the UMWA District office listed above.
 
 
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