Vol. 71/No. 18      May 7, 2007

BY DEAN HAZLEWOOD  
WINDOW ROCK, Arizona—A team of Militant supporters visiting the coalfields of the Navajo Nation April 19-22 sold 108 copies and eight subscriptions to the paper. At several shift changes at the McKinley mine in Tse Bonito, New Mexico, 48 miners bought the Militant and two others subscribed. Several said the company is pushing them to work 12-hour days and out of classification.

The McKinley mine, owned by Pittsburg and Midway Coal (P&M), is organized by United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1332. P&M’s parent company, Chevron, has announced it will close the mine in 2009. The miners said the company is on a speedup campaign and, in an attempt to increase production, is cutting corners on safety. After P&M laid off 38 miners December 31, and others retired or resigned, the workforce has been reduced from 242 to 174.

The mine, located on Navajo land, is important for the economy of the Navajo reservation, where unemployment exceeds 40 percent. UMWA Local 1332 has a clause in the union contract that calls for preferential hiring of local Navajos.

Militant supporters were invited to attend UMWA Local 1332 meetings. Alyson Kennedy, one of the Militant supporters, was asked to say a few words. She described the immigration raids across the United States and the resistance to these attacks. The fight to legalize all immigrants is a life-and-death question for the labor movement, she said. After the meetings three miners renewed their Militant subscriptions and one signed up for the first time. Workers also bought issue 12 of the New International magazine and the pamphlet Genocide Against the Indians.

Two Militant supporters visited the Peabody mine in Kayenta, Arizona, on another part of the reservation. Miners on their way to work said their contract is up in September and there are no negotiations yet, which they were concerned about. Twenty miners bought the Militant and a woman on the way in to pick up her husband subscribed. A year ago Peabody closed the Black Mesa mine, located next to Kayenta, throwing hundreds on the street.

Another 34 people bought the Militant at the local Wal-Mart in Gallup, New Mexico. Many objected to the attempt by uranium mining companies to reopen mines on Navajo land. In 2005, the Navajo Tribal Council banned uranium mining. More than 1,200 such mines operated there from the 1940s through the 1980s, extracting 13 million tons of ore. Many Navajos have died or suffer from cancer from working in these mines. A teacher, who subscribed to the Militant and bought New International no. 13, said the water at the school where she teaches is contaminated from uranium seeping into the water table.

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