On March 9, the attorneys for C.W. Mining and the Kingston family-operated International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU) filed their answer to the legal brief seeking dismissal of the case submitted by the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret Morning News—Utah’s two main dailies.

In their answer, the Kingston attorneys’ claim “the original sources from which the Defendants [the Utah dailies] obtained the information upon which Defendants based their own defamations was not a responsible organization, but was a rabid labor union and its cohorts. Defendants did not merely report what others said. Defendants published their own affirmative falsehoods.”

As the Militant reported last week, the socialist newsweekly and the SWP filed a motion in federal district court in Utah February 28 to dismiss the case as a “frivolous lawsuit” and to order the plaintiffs to pay attorneys’ fees. “The Kingston family has demonstrated a disturbing trend of using improper and frivolous ‘defamation’ actions as a powerful tool in their attempts to silence their critics,” the Militant’s legal brief stated. “The current lawsuit constitutes yet another attempt by the Kingstons to chill the constitutional rights of the press, and deter political opponents from fully exercising their freedom of speech in order to avoid public scrutiny of their business practices at the Co-Op Mine, and the Plaintiffs should not be allowed to abuse the legal system this way.”

The lawsuit originated last September, when the Kingstons sued the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), its international officers and other officials, 17 Co-Op miners, several labor organizations, newspapers, and other groups and individuals who have supported or written about this important labor struggle. The UMWA and the miners named in the suit have also filed motions with the court to dismiss the harassment case.

The clock is ticking on the Kingstons for responding to all the briefs filed by various defendants in their lawsuit. In their answer to the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News, the Kingstons claim that the battle by the miners to be reinstated to the their jobs and to be represented by the UMWA is not a public controversy. “The controversy is a private one between the Plaintiff, the UMWA and the miner workers who supported the UMWA,” claims a footnote in the March 9 brief by the bosses. “That the latter group fomented publicity did not alter the essential character of the matter as a purely private dispute.”

The millionaire owners of the Co-Op mine are galled by the fact that the workers have fought back against the conditions they face and generated considerable support for their struggle. This has included speaking out on dangerous working conditions and meager pay at the Co-Op mine, and their desire to be represented by the UMWA. The Kingstons’ description of the UMWA as a “rabid labor organization” serves to underscore this point.

This harassment lawsuit is a classic example of what revolutionary leader Malcolm X described as an attempt to turn the victim into the criminal.

—Editor
 
 
Related articles:
Miners in West join Utah union solidarity rally  
 
 
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