Vol. 81/No. 17 May 1, 2017
Support grows for silver miners’ strike in Idaho
In the towns of Mullan, Wallace, Pinehurst and Kellogg, all along the I-90 interstate in the Idaho panhandle, signs are displayed in gas stations and restaurants showing support for the strikers.
A spirited expanded picket line was held April 12 outside Hecla bosses’ headquarters in Coeur d’Alene, 55 miles from here. Striking miners were joined by family members and other unionists, including from Machinists Local 86 from Triumph Composite Systems and Steelworkers Local 338 at Kaiser Aluminum, both in Spokane, Washington.
USW Local 5114 members went on strike March 13 when the bosses said they would begin imposing their “final offer,” including increasing miners’ medical insurance payments, cutting the silver premium and bonus payments that are a key part of miners’ pay, and gutting safety protections. At issue here is a team bidding system based on seniority that lets workers choose their crews, an arrangement that helps protect miners’ safety.
“I think it is time to bring working people together,” said striker Darren Stein, who has worked at the mine since 1998. “We all have a common ground against those holding power. It’s all about control and the bosses have it and we don’t.”
Kevin Winans, a Machinist Local 86 member at Triumph Composite, is one of a number of workers there who have joined the miners’ picket lines to show support. They were forced out on strike last summer.
“I voted for Trump and we’re mad as hell. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans care about working people,” he told Socialist Workers Party member Mary Martin. “We need to have labor unite to defend our own interests.”
At the rally, workers passed around a copy of the Spokane Spokesman-Review with an ad by the Steelworkers International explaining the union’s position.
Defending gains of past strikes
“We had to go on strike. These are very hard jobs. A jackleg [drill] weighs 125 pounds. You hold it and carry it around for hours,” Chad Martello, 29, a miner with 10 years at Lucky Friday, told Martin. This is the method used for most of the mining done there. “The reason we have what we have is what was gained in past strikes. Where would we be without these union benefits?“This valley exists on silver. Without these jobs many will have to leave the area to get work,” continued Martello. “How are the older miners going to be able to compete with younger workers for some construction job someplace? To win we have to stay strong. This is about Hecla’s corporate greed.”
“The older we get the more cost there is for our medical care on the company insurance. The company wants to push out us older guys once you are no longer the thoroughbred you once were,” said Ron Haynes, a 25-year miner, 11 of them at Lucky Friday. “But we’re the ones that have the safety knowledge that has to be passed down to the new guys. We don’t want a gap to open up on this know-how. There is no concern for that from the company.”
Local 5114 Treasurer Rick Valeria said that the USW International pays for a health insurance policy for striking miners and also has a hardship fund. The local has set up a food bank to help striking families get groceries.
In 2011 there were a number of rock bursts and two miners were killed at Lucky Friday. The Mine Safety and Health Administration forced Hecla to clean up one of the shafts and the mine was shut down for a year.
“It was company greed that killed the men,” Valeria said.
“After sitting in courtrooms after Hecla refused to take responsibility for my father’s death I can tell you right now they are all about money. They put profit first and their employees are not made their priority,” Hayley Marek Senderson, the daughter of miner Larry Marek, killed in an April 15, 2011, rock burst, wrote on the union Facebook page. “It’s time they recognize, support and keep safe the workforce that is the heart of their company. Stay strong and fight for what they owe you!”
A memorial to honor Marek was held on the picket line on the sixth anniversary of his death.
Knocking on workers’ doors in Pinehurst, Martin, who is the SWP candidate for mayor of Seattle, met striker Chris Spiers. “I had been working at Lucky Friday mine for about a month when things got heated real fast with the company and issues came to a head,” the 22-year-old miner said. “I listened to both sides but for me what Hecla was trying to do just didn’t seem right or fair.”
At the union hall here, Phil Epler, Local 5114’s president, told us the strike is solid, no one has crossed the picket line.
Just a few miles west of the Lucky Friday mine is a memorial to 91 miners killed in a 1972 explosion at the Sunshine mine. SWP members spoke with workers on their doorsteps in Kellogg and Pinehurst, discussing what workers face there and across the country.
Some had lost family members or friends in the Sunshine mine disaster, including Donna, who said she lost her grandfather. “Those miners deserve every penny and every safety precaution they can get,” she said.
Donations and messages of support can be sent to USW 5114, P.O. Box 427, Mullan, ID 83846.
Joe Young in Vancouver, British Columbia, contributed to this article.
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