Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 10, 1990 TAG: 9007100567
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: CASTLEWOOD LENGTH: Medium
Some of the laid-off Pittston miners and truck drivers were angry because the union had told them it planned to cut off their benefits at the end of the month.
They contend the union had promised when the strike ended that their $225-a-week strike benefit would continue for a year or until they were called back to work.
A union spokesman at the UMW's Washington headquarters, however, said the laid-off workers had never been promised continued strike benefits for more than 90 days.
A delegation representing those who are about to lose their benefits went to Washington this week to plead with the union's leadership to reconsider its decision to end the benefits.
The group outside the headquarters this morning wanted to talk with that delegation in the parking lot but local union leaders hustled the miners and their wives inside the building and away from a reporter.
When the meeting broke up an hour later many of the miners refused to talk about what they were told inside, saying they had been instructed not to talk to the press.
The opinions of those who would talk were mixed on whether the union will agree to restore the benefits. Some said they would just wait and see.
One laid-off truck driver at Pittston's Lambert Fork mine was skeptical. "The bottom line is they're just going to shaft us," he said.
"They made us a promise, if one goes back, we all go back," he said, referring to the end of the 10-month strike.
But when the strike ended, not all striking Pittston workers were called back. The company closed some mines during the strike and idled others.
The truck driver said that the union members who returned to work will stand behind those who were laid off. "Most of them are relatives of the men out here," he said. "They're not going to go over there and work; they're going to be over here and shut this place down," he said, nodding at the headquarters building.
Haymon Hill, laid-off miner from Clintwood, agreed that those who were laid off have the support of the workers.
Following the meeting, Hill said some people were satisfied to wait for an answer from Washington and others didn't like what they were told. "The last statement made to my knowledge," Hill said, "is we'd be kept on selective strike (benefits) for a year."
However, Marty Hudson, an executive assistant to UMW Vice President Cecil Roberts, said the Pittston strikers were told when the contract was ratified that those who were laid off would continue to receive benefits for 90 days and then the union would review the situation.
In most strikes of the past, Hudson said, benefits were terminated or cut off as soon as the contract was ratified. Because Pittston was an unusual strike and the union realized the company would be slow in getting some miners back to work, the union decided to continue the benefits.
"The selective strike fund was not set up at the convention to subsidize unemployment," Hudson said. "I am sorry that it wasn't." Hudson said the union leaders had not yet made a decision on whether to reconsider stopping the benefits.
by CNB