The event, sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum, took place in conjunction with a national meeting over the April 16-17 weekend of socialist workers active in the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE-HERE).

Paul Mailhot, a coal miner from Price, Utah, who has recently left that job and is now organizing the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF) and Militant Fighting Fund in Salt Lake City, spoke on the stakes involved in beating back the bosses’ suit and the opportunities for winning broad support for this fight within the labor movement and among supporters of civil liberties nationwide.

C.W. Mining, which manages the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah, and the International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU), which miners describe as a company union, filed a sweeping lawsuit in September 2004 against the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and its international officers, 17 miners involved in a hard-fought campaign to organize the UMWA at the mine, the major Utah dailies the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News, the Militant, the SWP, Utah AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice, and other defendants. Last December attorneys for the plaintiffs submitted to the court an amended complaint. About 24 pages of the 70-page complaint allege defamations by the Militant against C.W. Mining and the IAUWU. The suit names the SWP as a defendant on the basis of the false claim that the party “owns and controls” the socialist newsweekly. The most recent papers filed by the coal bosses claim those being sued were part of a conspiracy to defame the plaintiffs.

“The C.W. Mining lawsuit grows out of the most important labor battle that has taken place in this country in the past year and a half,” said Mailhot, “one which along with the coal boom, production profit push, and significant hiring of young workers into the mines has put the unionization of western coal mining on the agenda today.”

The Co-Op miners’ struggle began in September 2003 after the company tried to fire supporters of the UMWA working at the mine. C.W. Mining locked out 75 workers who protested these company actions, but was forced to rehire them 10 months later after a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-brokered agreement between the company and the UMWA. The coal bosses later fired nearly all supporters of the union shortly before the union representation vote in December.

“The Co-Op miners’ fight continues today, even though a majority of the miners who struck in September 2003 are now working in other mines,” said Mailhot. “Just a couple of days ago a number of Co-Op miners picketed at the C.W. Mining loadout facility where the bosses are holding mining classes to entice new workers to go work at Co-Op. Cars passing by honked and other miners joined the picket line.”

The bosses’ lawsuit needs to be taken as a “deadly serious threat,” emphasized Mailhot. “A suit like this is a tool the bosses will use—now and in the future—as workers fight for their rights, fight for unions. It is not primarily designed to win a judgment, where C.W. Mining will be richer in the end. It’s designed to shut people up, bring down papers like the Militant that report on and editorially campaign on the side of workers, and discourage workers from joining union-organizing drives or using union power.”

It’s important to recognize that since being filed, this suit has “put a chill on the miners being able to get their side of the story out into the public,” Mailhot pointed out. “A recent rally of 100 people at the UMWA hall—a big event in the Price area—received not a single line of copy in the local papers. The Militant remains the only newspaper that continues to regularly report on this important struggle, he said.

From the time this suit was filed the Militant has succeeded in working with the two Salt Lake City dailies to argue the constitutional points of this case,” said Mailhot. It’s significant that oral arguments on behalf of all these papers will be presented together before the judge, he added.  
 
Neutral reporting privilege
One of the important arguments against the bosses’ charge of defamation is the issue of “neutral reporting privilege.” This is a privilege recognized by some federal courts that says as long as a reporter neutrally reports what someone says in a controversy, in an accurate and disinterested manner, even if the statement is false, the reporting is afforded some protection from charges of libel.

The Militant in its brief argued that it has the right to report on one side of a controversy. “This is important because the Militant doesn’t pretend to tell the mine bosses’ side of the story. Its masthead says, ‘A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people’ and it sticks to that,” stated Mailhot.

“The newspapers’ position in this case is that you also don’t have to be the New York Times or a government official for the media to quote you. A coal miner in Huntington, Utah, is a legitimate news source.”

April 15 was the deadline for the coal bosses legal response to the brief by the Militant and SWP requesting that the case be dismissed. Attorneys for the party and the Militant will then have seven days to reply to C.W. Mining’s arguments. Finally the judge will hear oral arguments before making a decision of what to do with the case, Mailhot explained.

“It’s absolutely necessary to explain the issues in this fight,” said Mailhot. “This case is at the center of the labor movement and the fight for free speech and freedom of the press, so the potential to reach out broadly is enormous.”

Towards this end PRDF has launched a campaign to win endorsers for the Militant Fighting Fund, and to raise tens of thousands of dollars needed to cover legal and publicity expenses. The $40,000 raised earlier by the Militant Fighting Fund has largely been spent. At least another $50,000 is needed to cover costs over the next few months, Mailhot pointed out.

The collection of $1,655 at the meeting reflected the seriousness of the participants to beat back the C.W. Mining lawsuit.
 
 
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Bosses reply to ‘Militant’ motion to dismiss suit  
 
 
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