Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 3, 1993 TAG: 9303030221
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HUNTINGTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
UMW ENDS COAL STRIKE, EXTENDS PACT
The United Mine Workers ended its month-old strike Tuesday after reaching agreement with the nation's largest coal operators on the terms of a 60-day contract extension.The agreement reached Tuesday will extend the expired 1988 National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement until May 3, said UMW President Richard Trumka.
"This agreement will provide the UMWA with the tools we need to negotiate a new contract and to enforce that contract once it's agreed upon," Trumka said.
The union went on strike against Peabody Holding Co. Inc. subsidiaries on Feb. 2, a day after its contract expired with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The walkout was expanded to other coal operators on Monday, bringing the number of union miners on strike to as many as 9,200.
Miners will return to work with the shift that begins at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.
"We are now where we should have been last June when we first approached the BCOA to begin contract talks," Trumka said.
The coal operators group said the terms of the extension will make it possible for talks to resume.
"We are satisfied that the issues of concern to BCOA can be dealt with at the table under this extension agreement," said B.R. Brown, chief negotiator for the coal operators group and president of CONSOL Inc., one of the companies involved in the strike.
Negotiations that began last Nov. 6 became bogged down over the union's demand for information on the operators' corporate structure.
The UMW said it sought an end to the practice it calls "double breasting," in which operators already organized by the union set up non-union subsidiaries and transfer coal reserves and sales contracts to the non-union sector.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.