“The judge dismissed all the defamation charges the company had filed against 16 former Co-Op miners,” she said. “His ruling affirmed that workers have the right to express opinions about working conditions, including safety, and about our struggle to be represented by the union of our choice, without being sued by the bosses for it.”

Benson also threw out the company’s other charges alleging immigration fraud, unfair labor practices, violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and civil conspiracy, Kennedy noted. In the same ruling the judge dismissed the case against Utah’s two main dailies—the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News. All that remained of the suit, originally filed in September 2004 against some 150 defendants, were “weak defamation allegations against the UMWA, Utah Jobs with Justice, and the Militant newspaper,” she said.

The May 1 decision was damaging to the coal company, she added. Just a few weeks later C.W. Mining agreed to drop the lawsuit against the remaining defendants and reach a settlement with the UMWA and the fired Co-Op miners.  
 
Miners fight abusive conditions
Kennedy went to work at the mine in the spring of 2003. At that time, she said, workers were increasingly standing up to what they considered abusive working conditions there.

“When I was hired at Co-Op I was assigned to operate a battery ram car, a big piece of equipment like a dump truck that the operator drives to where the coal is being mined—the face. Coal is loaded into the ram car by a continuous mining machine and then driven to the belt that carries it out of the mine. The conditions on the section were bad. The bottom was shale and there was a lot of water on the ground. The shale would turn into sticky deep mud so the ram cars were constantly getting stuck,” she said.

“The miners on my crew helped me a lot, even though they all spoke Spanish and I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying. We did communicate on important things,” said Kennedy.

“They would ask me how much I was being paid. I said $7.50 an hour. Most on the crew were being paid less and they had been on the job much longer than me. My co-workers asked me how much I had been paid at other mines. I said $18 to $20 an hour, because there was a sindicato (union) at those mines.”

A couple of months after she started Kennedy said she was told to report to the shift foreman who informed her that her job was in jeopardy because the company had bad evaluations of her performance. “I protested but they sent me home anyway,” she said. “The boss said to call the next day and they would let me know if they still had a job for me.”

The bosses’ action provoked discussion among the miners who refused to back up the company’s allegations. “This had an impact,” Kennedy said. “It reinforced my refusal to accept the company’s claim that I couldn’t do the job. When I showed up for work the next day, the boss said that the company had another position for me on an underground crew.”  
 
‘We stood up, gained confidence’
Miners gained confidence “every time we stood up to the bosses,” she continued. “We began talking about how to change these conditions in the spring and summer of 2003. We decided to meet and discuss how to do it. The bosses got wind of it. They would corner miners underground and question us about why we wanted the UMWA to represent us.”

“They began suspending miners,” she said. “I’ll never forget one incident. The crew I was on was waiting in the lamp room to go to work. We noticed that a miner was standing by himself. We asked him what was up because we knew he was supposed to be underground. He told us the shift foreman had taken him out of the mine and the bosses were going to suspend him. Two crews immediately refused to go underground until the company backed down and agreed to put this miner back to work.

“A few days later, on Sept. 22, 2003, the bosses tried this again with another miner, Bill Estrada,” she said. “When Bill got to work a boss told him to sign a piece of paper agreeing he would be fired the next time he didn’t perform proper safety checks on equipment. Bill told them he wouldn’t sign. They then suspended him for three days with intent to discharge and told him to go home. Bill was able to describe to his crew what happened before he left.

“When word of the suspension spread, we decided to leave work, go to the mine office, and let the bosses know we would not return until Bill was back. Miners coming in for the afternoon shift joined us. Over 50 miners were at the office for hours,” she said.

“The company then called the county sheriff. Two sheriff’s cars showed up and the bosses asked the police officers to get workers off of their property,” said Kennedy. “One of the sheriff’s deputies looked at the two police cars, and then at the miners, and said, ‘Where am I’m going to put all of them?’ The boss responded, ‘They are all fired, get them off of the property now.’”

Workers then decided to leave. They turned the lockout into a strike that lasted nearly 10 months, during which they won widespread labor solidarity. “We ended up winning our jobs back, including Bill’s,” Kennedy said. “This accomplishment was the result of the strength of the fight by the miners and the UMWA.”

The bosses filed their lawsuit soon after that in the fall of 2004, she stated. “They amended it later, and then fired nearly 30 miners on the eve of the union representation election. They claimed that the miners, most of whom had been working at Co-Op for years, didn’t have proper immigration documents.” The bosses amended the suit in July 2005, refiling it for a third time and putting greater emphasis on the alleged slanders by the miners.  
 
Possibilities to build union
“The fight to organize the Co-Op mine changed the possibilities for building the union in the region,” Kennedy said. “We could see this leading up to and for several months after we won our jobs back in July 2004. Nonunion miners began discussing how to change their job conditions. Some of them would come to our picket line and say they need to fight for a union where they work. They said they made more money than us, but their working conditions were like those we faced at Co-Op.”

The coal from Carbon and Emery county mines is transported by truck to load outs where it is put on to trains. A truck driver contacted the UMWA and said he had drivers he worked with lined up to sign union cards, Kennedy said. This driver was fired a week later and the organizing did not go beyond this effort. But it showed the potential for unionizing the coal haulers, she said.

“We found out that the coal trucks from Co-Op were taking coal to a power plant in nearby Helper, Utah,” Kennedy continued. “We contacted the union there and said we need help getting the power plant to stop using struck coal. These trade unionists began discussing how to help us.

“Rail workers who saw Co-Op miners picketing told us they thought their union should help the strike.”

What was developing then was real. “But the striking miners and the labor movement weren’t able to take advantage of that momentum. Broader labor action in the region was necessary to expand the unionization drive in the West and win a UMWA local at Co-Op,” she said.

In face of this situation the bosses pushed their lawsuit to divert the struggle into the courts, she added. “But the miners, the UMWA, and the broader support we got, especially from working people in Carbon and Emery counties, stayed strong and we stood the company off again,” said Kennedy. “Now, the lawsuit has been defeated.”

The miners who went through this battle are changed people, said Kennedy. “What was accomplished is an example for workers everywhere that will help the struggles of today—like the fight for safety in the mines, and the struggle by UMWA miners at the McKinley mine in New Mexico to win a new contract when the current one there expires in August.”
 
 
Related articles:
Utah miners, supporters celebrate victory in settling lawsuit by bosses  
 
 
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